Winter blasted back into the Chicago metropolitan area Wednesday with a fierce combination of relentless winds and biting snow that left rush hour travelers stranded for hours on snarled roads and expressways, or sitting helplessly at a virtually shut down O`Hare International Airport.
Most commuters who worked in Chicago`s Loop suffered hours-long delays in traveling home to outlying areas such as Will, McHenry, Du Page, Lake and Kane Counties. Commutes from suburb to suburb were equally taxing.
One commuter reported that a car trip from downtown Chicago to Belmont Avenue and the lakefront, normally a 15-minute drive, had taken 2 hours.
A 6-mile trip from downtown to Clark Street and Irving Park Road took as much as 3 hours for one Loop worker.
It took Jeanne Larmee, a teacher at De Paul University`s Westchester Campus, an hour to travel from the school to the corner of 22nd Street and York Road in Oak Brook-usually a five-minute trip-where she booked a room at the Drake Hotel.
”Can you just imagine how long it would take to get to my home in Arlington Heights?” she asked.
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The storm dumped as much as 7 inches of snow in some areas before travelers realized just how severe it was.
”It came down so fast there was nothing anybody could really do about it,” said Johnathan Lehrer, spokesman for AAA Chicago Motor Club, which received hundreds of calls from stranded motorists. He said it was ”about the worst driving conditions I`ve ever seen.”
By evening, 8 inches of snow was reported in Wheaton, Hinsdale and Schaumburg. Seven inches had fallen at O`Hare and in Joliet. Arlington Heights and Naperville reported 6 inches, Chicago Ridge, Lockport and Frankfort reported 4 inches, Algonquin reported 5 inches, and Crystal Lake reported nearly 4 inches.
At least 30 cars were abandoned in the middle of the northbound lanes of the Kennedy Expressway in a two-mile stretch north of Division Street, according to one motorist.
Other Chicago commuters reported that snowplows were few and far between. The Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department at noon sent out a battalion of 226 salt trucks and scores of plow-rigged garbage trucks, according to Kirsten Svare, a spokeswoman.
But the motorized snow removal force was hampered by heavily congested traffic and main roads, such as Lake Shore Drive, were snow-packed and icy.
”The situation is very heavy snowfall,” Svare said. ”We are moving as quickly as traffic is allowing us to move.”
Drifting snow caused minimal visibility at O`Hare and brought traffic to almost a complete halt. Hundreds of cancellations were reported by major airlines.
By Wednesday afternoon, airport workers could only keep one runway open at the airport, and in the early evening that runway was blocked when an incoming American Airlines taxied off it and became mired in mud. Most suburban hotels were booked for the night and many passengers on canceled flights were forced to attempt to reach downtown Chicago for overnight shelter.
At Midway by mid-afternoon, arrivals were halted and departures were delayed, authorities said.
In the south suburbs, some commuters in preparation for their drive home hovered over their car trunks in search of their long-forgotten snow brushes and scrapers.
It was a Valentine`s Day dumping that caught many by surprise. Local, state and county workers were dispatched to dump salt and remove snow, but many expressways were already hopelessly backed up.
By dawn, the snow, which at one point fell at the rate of about an inch each hour, was expected to total 6 to 10 inches for most of the area, according to Central Weather Service.
”I guess the groundhog was wrong,” said Joe Labadessa, while brushing the snow and ice off his windshield, preparing for the commute between Hinsdale and Forest Park via the Eisenhower Expressway. ”Winter is still here.”
Slick roads and thick clouds of wind-strewn snow Wednesday evening caused scores of fender benders from Northwest Indiana to the south suburbs where drivers crept cautiously along, partially blinded by frosted windshields.
Illinois State Police reported numerous accidents, all minor.
Wiper blades covered with chunks of ice were useless against a barrage of snow whipped by strong winds that sent the wind chill factor below the zero mark.
The 3 p.m. temperature at O`Hare was 26 degrees-2 degrees below the high for the day-but strong gusts sent the windchill factor plummeting to 2 below zero.
High northeasterly winds, present throughout the day, were clocked at 20 to 30 miles per hour. At Meigs Field, winds measured as high as 40 miles per hour.
Workers at the Northern Indiana Public Service Co., which supplies Northern Indiana with electricity, watched nervously as high winds whipped freezing rain and snow through Hammond.
Similar winds blew lines together causing power outages Tuesday night in Hammond, leaving thousands of residents without electricity between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, according to Christine Combs, a spokeswoman.
”People that have been here 10 and 20 years have never seen anything like it,” Combs said Wednesday. ” It`s really looking bad.”
Clogged subways and congested roadways meant long delays in traffic for thousands of travelers.
Metra trains were delayed due to snow on switches. Throngs of people lined up to use public phones inside the Chicago and North Western Railway terminal.
In Northwest Indiana, wind-blown freezing rain began coating roadways with ice about noon causing numerous minor accidents on both tollways and minor roads.
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”It`s basically all over-the roads are pretty bad,” said Janet McMullin, an Indiana State Police spokeswoman. ”When the rain hits your windshield it freezes right away. We would not advise travel.” Salt crews were out since about 12:30 p.m., she said.
”We`re out plowing snow, and there`s no excuse for the equipment not to be running,” said Chris Wuellner, director of public works in Homewood.
In McHenry County, swirling snow created hazardous driving conditions as snow piled up at the rate of a half inch an hour.
Windy and colder weather was predicted for Friday with possible snow accumulations and a high in the 20s, but a warm front was predicted for next Tuesday.