If you thought Mother Nature had said her piece in January, think again.
At least this time, the shoveling won’t be as bad.
Monday night’s storm was expected to dump 5 to 7 inches of snow on the Chicago region and caused another round of chaos, including more canceled flights at the airports, more rush-hour delays and more traffic accidents.
One person was killed in a weather-related accident at the Hinsdale Oasis on the Tri-State Tollway, said Master Sgt. Lincoln Hampton of the Illinois State Police. The accident, which occurred about 8 p.m., left a southbound lane of the tollway closed for hours.
Chicago Transit Authority officials were at downtown stations and bus stops during the evening rush hour to monitor service, and they were scheduled to be at stations Tuesday morning. Hoping to avoid a repeat of the January debacle in which hundreds of transit cars were rendered unusable, the CTA also sent out 20 sleet-fighting trains to apply a de-icing paste on the third rail, which provides power to the trains, spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said.
O’Hare International Airport canceled more than half of its afternoon flight schedule in preparation for the snowfall, said Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for the Department of Aviation. He said the airport would assist stranded passengers by providing cots, coffee and toiletries; it was offering hotel rooms to the elderly, disabled or passengers traveling with small children.
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As the night wore on, more cancellations flashed across airport monitors, but airport police said many passengers were rerouted on other airlines. Other passengers called ahead to change plans, leaving the airport oddly empty.
“The last time I had accommodations like this was in Thailand, when we traveled by elephant and we had to sleep in a hut,” said Lloyd Warshauer, 81, who was traveling from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale but found himself on a cot near a noisy baggage carousel Monday night. “We’ve traveled all over the world and we know better than to come through Chicago in the winter.”
The city’s 254 salt trucks were deployed at 1:30 Monday afternoon to be in place before rush hour started, said Terry Levin, a spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation. He said about 140 garbage trucks with quick-hitch plows would be at work during the night to clear side streets while salt trucks cleared the main roads.
Illinois Department of Transportation officials also were ready for the storm, with more than 300 trucks out on local highways, spokesman Mike Ward said.
The snowfall is not unusual for March, meteorologists said.
“It’s notable because it is later in the season, but it’s not extraordinary for something like this to happen,” said Karin Gleason, a climatologist at the Midwestern Climate Center in Champaign. “In March, it really can go either way.”
The National Weather Service in Romeoville expected the heaviest snow to be finished by the Tuesday morning rush hour. Light snow and flurries are expected to continue through Tuesday evening, Weather Service meteorologist Allan Fisher said.
March snowfall over the past 10 years has ranged from a low of none in 1994 to a high of 13.8 inches in 1993. Gleason said about 9.1 inches of snow had fallen before Monday’s storm began.
“Everybody’s hopeful that this is perhaps winter’s last tah-dah, but it’s really hard to say,” she said.