Storm pushes into Midwest with heavy snow, winds
DAKOTA (AP) — Wintry weather bedeviled Thanksgiving weekend travelers across the United States Saturday as a powerful and dangerous storm moved eastward, dumping heavy snow from parts of California to the northern Midwest and inundating other areas with rain.
Authorities found the bodies of two young children, including a five-year-old boy, and a third child was missing in central Arizona after a vehicle was swept away while attempting to cross a runoffswollen creek.
A storm-related death also was reported in South Dakota. Also in South Dakota, a small-engine plane carrying 12 people crashed, killing nine aboard and leaving three others injured.
Peter Knudson of the National Transportation Safety Board said the Pilatus PC-12 crashed about 12:30 p.m. Saturday, shortly after taking off from Chamberlain, about 225.3 kilometers west of Sioux Falls.
Knudson said weather would be among several factors reviewed by NTSB investigators, but no cause had yet been determined.
He said inclement weather was making travel to the crash site difficult.
Meanwhile, the National
Weather Service said the storm was expected to drop 6 to 12 inches of snow from the northern Plains states into Minnesota, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.
Blizzard conditions early Saturday were already buffeting the High Plains.
The city of Duluth, Minnesota issued a “no travel advisory” beginning at noon Saturday because of a major snow storm it termed “historic.”
Duluth officials asked the public to be patient as plows clear roadways and recommended that drivers stay off the roads to prevent accidents and let officers respond more quickly to emergencies.