Rocky Mountain Snow

This is what Kirsten and Jared had to face on their way home after Ryan’s surgery. Kirsten said it was awful. Remember the surgery was on Wednesday in Denver and Ryan was released to go home to Colorado Springs on Thursday. Jared’s brother, who could reach them, had to pick up Kirsten and Ryan until Jared could get through to pick them up. Then they still had to make the ride home.

Friday, October 27, 2006

DENVER— The biggest October snowstorm to hit Colorado in several years dumped more than 2 feet Thursday, grounding flights, closing highways, knocking out electricity and jump-starting the ski season.

The storm began late Wednesday and turned highways wet and slushy across the state. That slush then turned to ice.

At one point, snow was falling at a rate of about 3 inches an hour in Denver. A 125-mile corridor from Colorado Springs to the New Mexico line was under a blizzard warning. Hundreds of miles of highways were shut down, but all major routes had reopened by Friday.

"Not too shabby," state Department of Transportation spokesman Gene Towne said.

Still, dozens of schools were closed Friday, and lawns across the state were littered with broken tree limbs that crashed down under the weight of the wet snow. The falling branches played havoc with power lines, and up to 90,000 customers in the Denver area alone lost electricity during the "devastating" storm, said Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Henley.

Crews had restored power to all but 1,400 by Friday morning, but Henley said it could take until Friday night to get all of them back on line.

An additional 20,000 customers lost power in Colorado Springs, but service was restored to all but about 1,000 by Friday, the city-owned utility said.

The storm caused more trouble as it moved east onto the Plains, bringing up to 4-foot drifts southeast of Denver late Thursday with blowing snow and winds up to 45 mph. Red Cross officials sent supplies to Byers, about 30 miles east of Denver, in case the weather stranded travelers along I-70. A 150-mile stretch of Interstate 70 was closed from Denver to Burlington, near the Kansas line.

Whiteout conditions in Colorado Springs during the evening commute also snarled traffic on Interstate 25, the state's main north-south route, for three hours. Wet heavy snow downed power lines, including some that arced and set off several tree fires across the city that were quickly extinguished, Lt. Jeff Sievers of the Colorado Springs Fire Department said.

Snow and black ice Wednesday forced a number of schools and facilities in the Colorado Springs area to close or open late, including the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Peterson Air Force Base and the Air Force Academy.

Up to 45,000 customers in Denver, Colorado Springs and Boulder lost electricity as snow-laden trees and branches gave way, taking down power lines

Denver International Airport got 5 inches, and more than 110 flights were canceled. Some suburbs reported up to 10 inches of snow that fell at about 3 inches an hour before the storm moved east onto the Plains, where it caused more trouble.

“There's an awful lot of trucks jackknifed in the median or across the road," said Dick Hormann, who was waiting out the delay at the Flying J in Limon, about 70 miles southeast of Denver. "There's a lot of rigs across the road in both directions."

The storm shut down dozens of schools, courthouses, voting centers and even chased office employees home early from a sheriff's office. Small towns in the mountains and foothills just west of Denver appeared to get the heaviest snowfall, with Evergreen reporting 25 inches and Conifer reporting 22 inches with 4-foot drifts. Two feet fell in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Large October snowstorms are common in Colorado, but this was the strongest in several years, National Weather Service spokesman Carl Burroughs said.

"We haven't had a real good storm like this in a while," he said. "It dumped a lot of snow pretty quick and then moved on.