Day of dangerous cold settles over Mid-Missouri after deep snow

Raleigh Nott with the state Division of Facilities Management removes snow from the sidewalk in front of the Missouri Supreme Court building and the Broadway State Office Building late Sunday afternoon.
Raleigh Nott with the state Division of Facilities Management removes snow from the sidewalk in front of the Missouri Supreme Court building and the Broadway State Office Building late Sunday afternoon.

As city and county road crews on Sunday struggled to keep roads cleared amid a snowstorm and gusting winds, police dealt with the fallout of motorists with vehicles not equipped for this severe weather.

"Everybody thinks their Yugo is a 4x4, which is bad," said police Sgt. Gary Campbell. "We have a lot of stranded motor vehicles."

Adding to the problem, he said, some drivers were abandoning their vehicles in the roadway, which creates hazards for other drivers and prevents snowplows from clearing sections of roads.

Not many drivers ventured onto the roads, even for a Sunday, but police dealt with problems among the ones who did.

Officers were putting evidence stickers on cars to show they had been checked on, and they were trying to contact the owners of abandoned vehicles. For example, one driver on Eastland Drive hit a bluff abandoned his vehicle to get to work, but neglected to tell police that he left his vehicle there.

Among other incidents, a tractor-trailer was off the road on U.S. 54 by Missouri 179. Even a Missouri Department of Transportation snowplow overturned on Route B.

"I guess things are going as well as could be expected," said Britt Smith, Jefferson City's Operations Division director. "We're trying to keep our main roads passable, but that's a fight itself."

At the Jefferson City Memorial Airport, the few flights that were scheduled for Sunday were cancelled, but Smith said he expected the airport would be running at "relatively normal" operations today.

Going into the evening, he said the main worries were drifting and the bitter cold temperatures.

"Right now we're holding our own," Larry Benz, Cole County's public works director, said Sunday afternoon. "We put some material on the roads early on, and we're just pushing snow right now."

By early afternoon, he heard a report of 7½ inches of snow south of town. By mid afternoon, the snow but still falling, although it was tapering off.

Benz asked the public to try to park cars in their driveways rather than on county roads, so that snow plows can do their jobs.

Various officials urged the public to use extreme caution this morning if they have to leave their homes, due to a wind chill expected to drop to -30.

"Those are life-threatening wind chills," said Wes Browning, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "If you are caught in those, and not properly covered, you could get frostbite within a half hour."

He said the actual low for today is expected to be -10, while the actual high will be around 0.

Browning said he doesn't expect the area will warm much past freezing before it could be hit with another winter blast late Wednesday.