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Motorists stranded for 8 hours in storm

While most people in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast stayed inside — much to the relief of public officials and first responders — major highways in ...
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While most people in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast stayed inside — much to the relief of public officials and first responders — major highways in Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania turned into parking lots Saturday, forcing people to stay put and try to stay warm for hours on end.

In central Kentucky, some drivers were stranded along a 35-mile stretch of Interstate 75 for as many as 19 hours, from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning.

Dani Garner, her three children, her husband and her mother-in-law were among those stuck on I-75, with long lines of similarly stranded cars and trucks in front of and behind her.

“We’ve got no food or water,” she told CNN early Saturday, adding that she was thankful they had enough gas to run the heater. “Honestly, if my van wasn’t heated up I’d probably be boxed in with ice right now.”

Kentucky State Police Capt. David Jude said the stretch Garner is on had frozen over, with truck after truck after truck and cars sliding off the roadway. Police officers and National Guard troops were giving motorists supplies and getting wrecked vehicles off the highway, police said.

Traffic largely was moving along the stretch by 8:30 a.m. Saturday, motorists said.

A similarly dire situation played out along a westbound portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Breezewood and New Stanton, State Police Capt. Brian Milore told CNN.

Claire Jackson, 17, told CNN Saturday morning that her bus had been at an “absolute standstill” since 8 p.m. Friday.

“I just see cars,” Jackson said, who was with about 50 students going from Washington back home to Kansas City, Missouri. “All the hazards are blinking.”

Also stuck on the turnpike overnight: A bus carrying the Duquesne University men’s basketball team, on the road after Friday afternoon’s victory against George Mason in Virginia. Photos that the team posted to Twitter showed senior forward Nick Foschia making a snow angel in the road and a line of vehicles stranded on the highway.

And in West Virginia, National Guard members were dispatched to help move stuck tractor trailers that blocked a roughly 11-mile stretch of Interstate 77 north of Charleston. The state’s emergency management agency said late Friday that the highway was “completely shut down” — a status that hadn’t changed by mid-morning Saturday.

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Still, none of these areas were getting the worst the storm had to offer. That honor went to the heavily populated stretch between Washington and New York City that are under blizzard warnings.

Frank McCarton, a New York City emergency management spokesman, doesn’t expect things to get any better in his neck of the woods until Saturday evening.

“This is not normal business at all, in any of these cities up and down the East Coast,” added Maloney from Baltimore. “And we’re in a different mode of operations.”

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