Midwest Snowstorm Leaves 4 Dead, Power Out

More than 2,000 homes and businesses lost power in South Dakota's Black Hills, and many schools were closed. Some customers in North Dakota could be without electricity until Friday, said the Mountrail- Williams County Electric Cooperative.

The heaviest snow was reported in the Black Hills, with 24 inches at Lead and Rochford, the weather service said. Sundance, Wyo., reported 13 inches of snow by midmorning with wind gusting to 60 mph. A foot had fallen at Bowman, in North Dakota's southwest corner, which was under a blizzard warning in the afternoon, the weather service said.

"I wish I was in Hawaii," said Bowman County Sheriff Rory Teigen.

Bowman school business manager James Miller said the snow was mostly slush. "It's hard to move in it because it's so wet, heavy and slippery."

North Dakota ranchers in the middle of calving season worked long hours to help their calves survive the storm.

"(Workers) were out all day yesterday, taking out a lot of straw, getting (calves) in sheltered areas," Faye Burke said Wednesday from her farm in the western part of the state. "I guess we're happy for the moisture, but we're a little nervous about our new calves."

Authorities closed about 100 miles of Interstate 94 Tuesday night from Glendive, Mont., to Dickinson, N.D., but had reopened it by midday Wednesday. A stretch of about 140 miles of I-90 was shut down from Gillette, Wyo., to Rapid City, S.D.

I-90 had icy pavement, zero visibility and trucks blocking parts of the road, said South Dakota Highway Patrol Capt. Greg Ingemunson.

Three people died Tuesday in a crash on an icy North Dakota highway amid blowing sleet and snow, state police said. Authorities said a tractor-trailer collided head-on with a U-Haul truck towing a car, pushing it into an SUV.

A utility worker died Tuesday night in an apparent weather-related accident in northwestern North Dakota. Bill Schell, general manager of Medicine Lake, Mont.-based Sheridan Electric Co-op, declined to release more information about the death, saying the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had not yet finished its investigation.

Wind gusting to 84 mph overturned a mobile home in the Nebraska Panhandle, and gusts to 71 mph were reported in eastern Montana, officials said.

Spring storms with heavy snow aren't unusual in North Dakota, said weather service meteorologist Jim Fors in Bismarck.

"We don't get them every year, but every five to 10 years, we usually get a big dump," Fors said.

Some parts of the region got rain, the weather service said.

"(Winter) seems like it has to have its last hurrah," Burke said.

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