Dozens of motorists were stranded for hours on Chicago’s iconic Lake Shore Drive after it was shut down as a blizzard battered the city overnight into Wednesday.
CHICAGO (AP) — Dozens of motorists were stranded for hours on Chicago’s iconic Lake Shore Drive after it was shut down as a blizzard battered the city overnight into Wednesday.
City officials said multiple lanes of cars and buses became stuck on the northbound lanes of the city’s crucial thoroughfare because of abandoned vehicles, multiple accidents and generally poor traffic conditions.
Officials were still struggling to rescue motorists from their cars overnight and guiding some to stranded city buses to keep them warm. City workers were using the open southbound lanes to access the stranded people and offer medical assistance.
“It was like, insane,” one of the motorists, Frank Ercole, told WLS-TV. “No one knows anything. Everything’s frozen.”
City officials closed the drive around 8 p.m. Tuesday because of worries that high winds could push waves from Lake Michigan over the roadway.
Some motorists said they had been stuck on the drive since even before that, up to nine hours or more. “At least no one is getting hurt,” another motorist, Mark Van-Veen, told the Chicago Tribune.
National Weather Service officials said the storm was living up to its dramatic billing. As of early Wednesday, they reported 18 inches of snow had fallen in Elk Grove Village, a northwest suburb of the city near O’Hare International Airport, which was closed down.
That suburb had snow drifts between houses measured at 7 feet.
Along the Chicago lakefront, gusts of wind were measured at 70 mph.
“The main message would be, it’s very dangerous out there for traveling,” said Ben Deubelbeiss, a NWS meteorologist in Romeoville. “Many roadways are closed or impassable and visibilities are near zero in places. It’s very easy to become disoriented. Just stay inside. Try to ride it out in the comfort of your home.”
On Tuesday, Mayor Richard Daley had cautioned Chicago residents to travel only if necessary, to use common sense and check on family, the elderly or shut-in neighbors.
Cognizant of city lore about former Mayor Michael Bilandic losing his job after failing to clear the streets following a 1979 snow storm, officials had expressed confidence that they could manage the immense tasks of snow removal and keeping the city’s essential services running.
Chicago had imposed a near total “snow day” Wednesday with the colossal blizzard threatening to leave up to 2 feet of snow in the city as it rolled across the Midwest with its sights on the Northeast.
For the first time in 12 years, Chicago closed its public schools. Many businesses planned to remain shuttered, as did cultural attractions and universities, while the region braced for high winds, snow drifts, power outages and waves of up to 25 feet on Lake Michigan.
The entire state was suffering. Wind, ice and heavy snow had already knocked out power to more than 76,000 ComEd customers in the Chicago area early Wednesday. Gov. Pat Quinn activated more than 500 Illinois National Guard troops, who will be stationed at rest areas along highways.
Another storm casualty in Chicago was early voting in the city’s hotly contested mayoral race, which officials canceled for Wednesday, just two days after it began.
While Chicago school children might be thrilled by the free day, their parents were glad for the same reasons officials took such a rare step in a city that is normally proud of dealing with Mother Nature’s worst — the safety of the children.
“They should cancel,” said Sunjay Shah, 54, a sundries shop manager stranded at a downtown hotel overnight, saying his 17-year-old son was thrilled with the snow day. “How are students going to walk or take trains (to class)?”
Not only was driving in and around the city by car sure to be dicey, but flying in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport — a major U.S. air hub — won’t be possible at all until Thursday.
The decision by O’Hare-based airlines on Tuesday to cancel all their flights for a day and a half was certain to have ripple effects at other U.S. airports, said transportation expert Joseph Schwieterman.
“Effectively shutting down America’s most important aviation hub hits the system immeasurably hard,” he said of O’Hare. He said other U.S. airports not even in the path of the storm should start to see delays themselves right away as a result.
All flights in and out of Midway International Airport also were stopped Tuesday, though airlines at the smaller of the city’s two airports said they hoped to resume flights Wednesday afternoon.
Officials in Chicago said the storm, which stretched more than 2,000 miles across a third of the country, could also generate winds of up to 60 mph and whip swells up to 25 feet on Lake Michigan.
Train lines faced potential snow-related slowdowns, too. Lone locomotives were running back and forth all night into Wednesday morning on some Metra lines to ensure snow couldn’t accumulate, potentially clogging tracks and rendering vital track switches inoperable.
Precautions were being taken across Illinois.
Some companies sent employees home as snow started to fall, saying they would stay closed Wednesday. In Bloomington-Normal, State Farm Insurance shut down its headquarters and sent 15,000 employees home Tuesday. It was expected to remain closed on Wednesday.
Two streets near Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the home stadium of the Chicago Cubs — closed to cars and pedestrians because tiles were falling from the top of the facility’s press box, Emergency Management spokesman Roderick Drew said.
“We may be potentially dealing with a storm of historic magnitude the likes of which we have not seen in decades,” Daley said. “Our first priority is always public safety.”
Schools up and down the state closed for Wednesday, including Chicago Public Schools, which canceled classes for the first time since 1999.
Road crews scurried to equip garbage trucks with snow plows to join an armada of snow-removal vehicles already salting the streets. In some places, snowmobiles were being delivered to firefighters to help them respond to emergencies, including 50 in Chicago.
In Chicago, the closings included everything from Cook County health clinics and the federal courthouse to the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium. Water Tower Place and other shopping centers also closed. Some of the state’s major colleges, including Eastern Illinois University, Bradley University and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign told students there would be no classes Wednesday.
Associated Press Writers Caryn Rousseau, Don Babwin, Karen Hawkins, Tammy Webber and Barbara Rodriguez in Chicago, Jim Suhr in St. Louis and David Mercer in Champaign contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
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