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Weather eases in US Midwest
25/12/2007 14:29 - (SA)
Milwaukee - Sunny skies helped road crews deal with the remnants of a blustery snowstorm that blacked out thousands of homes and businesses and was blamed for at least 22 traffic deaths in the upper US Midwest.
Sergeant Michael Melgaard of the Wisconsin State Patrol in Eau Claire said driving conditions improved substantially for holiday travellers starting in the late morning.
"The roads were clear for the most part and traffic was moving at normal speeds," he said on Monday afternoon. "It seemed like there was a lot of steady holiday traffic, but it's starting to wane now as people are getting to their destinations."
But in Michigan, crashes on icy roads on Monday evening caused multiple injuries and shut down sections of three interstate highways in Detroit, Dearborn and Warren, radio station WWJ-AM reported.
The weekend-long blast of ice and windblown snow led to multi-car pileups that closed sections of several major highways on the Plains on a busy travel day before Tuesday's Christmas holiday.
Adding to the death toll, authorities say a woman died in Maple Valley Township, Michigan, about 96km north of Detroit, after she lost control of her truck and it rolled into a ditch filled with water. The woman was trapped in the overturned truck, said police who discovered the wreck on Monday morning.
300 flights cancelled
The storm rolled through Colorado and Wyoming on Friday, then spread snow and ice on Saturday from the Texas Panhandle to Wisconsin. On Sunday, snow fell across much of Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota and parts of Michigan and Indiana.
The storm system had blown out to sea Monday morning, but in its wake wind blowing at 40km/h picked up moisture from Lake Erie to create lake-effect snow in Buffalo, New York.
In Chicago, some 250 travellers stayed overnight on Sunday at O'Hare International Airport after 300 flights were cancelled because of high winds. Flights were running smoothly on Monday, airport spokesperson Gregg Cunningham said.
The freezing rain, ice, gusty wind and heavy snow over the weekend knocked out power to than 421 000 homes and businesses in Michigan and Illinois, as well as thousands in Wisconsin. Only 6 ,000 customers were still without power in Michigan Monday evening, while scattered outages remained in Illinois, utility representatives said.
In addition to the Michigan fatality, accidents on highways slippery with snow and ice killed at least eight people in Minnesota, three in Indiana, three in Wyoming, five in Wisconsin and one each in Texas and Kansas.
Associated Press writer Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.
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