Thursday brought havoc to the roads in Iowa and left dozens of people stranded by ice floes in Wisconsin, with a powerful winter storm showing no indications of abating in the Midwest. Whiteout conditions along Interstate 80 west of Newton, Iowa, resulted in a 40-vehicle pileup there, the state patrol said Thursday afternoon.
The state patrol said on its Facebook page: “New footage from a KCCI viewer shows the extent of this I-80 pileup of app. 40 vehicles between Colfax and Newton in the eastbound lanes. Troopers were not injured, and are going vehicle to vehicle to check on occupants. A few serious injuries and several minor injuries. Expect long delays as we and law enforcement partners assess the impacts and the roadway gets cleared.”
Photos provided by the state patrol showed tractor trailers turned on their side or jack-knifed, along with other cars and trucks, and also State Trooper cars.
In Door County, Wisconsin, US Coast Guard personnel and local and state officials were able to rescue 62 people from three separate ice floes, sheets of ice that had broken loose from the water’s frozen surface, the Coast guard informed in a news release.
Snow, forecast through Friday, is expected to be followed by a flash freeze, or rapidly declining temperatures but it will be cold even further during Saturday night.
