By lunch Friday, it was all over but the crying … and the slipping, the skidding, the swearing and the slop.
The storm that walloped the area with as much as 7 inches of snow mixed with freezing rain and ice delayed Metra trains in the south suburbs, flights at O’Hare and Midway Airports, canceled classes and mucked up the morning commute.
Still, there was a general feeling that the region got off a little easy. Some forecasts had predicted as much as a foot of snow.
While the northern part of the state saw as much as 10 inches, Chicago got 2 inches and the western suburbs got hit with about 3 inches.
“It’s not that bad; it could have been a lot worse,” Jackie Rodriguez, 31, said as she cleared the sidewalks in front of her parents’ Wicker Park apartment.
Then again, it might not be over yet: More snow is forecast for this weekend.
Friday’s snow came so quickly that plows could not keep up and roads were slick for the morning commute.
Illinois state police said there were no fatalities or injuries reported, but there were numerous minor accidents and cars that skidded off the road.
It wasn’t just motorists who had a hard time with the weather. Planes and trains did not fare much better.
Metra Electric service between south suburban University Park and Riverdale was brought to a standstill by frozen wires, said Tom Miller, a Metra spokesman.
Metra BNSF Line trains also saw lengthy delays in the morning after an outbound train struck an unoccupied Bobcat vehicle that was being used as a snowplow and had been left too close to the tracks, Miller added.
No one was injured.
Two hundred flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport and another two dozen at Midway, city aviation officials said. Effects of the storm continued to delay flights well into Friday afternoon.
Illinois Masonic Medical Center on Chicago’s North Side treated 75 people who had slipped and fallen on sidewalks. But hospitals did not see a weather-related increase in admissions for chest pain or other heart-related ailments.
Commonwealth Edison said 18,000 customers lost power, mostly in the southern part of the metropolitan area, because frozen limbs knocked down power lines.
Northern Indiana Public Service Co. reported 52,300 without power in northwest Indiana, with Hammond, Gary and Crown Point among the hardest-hit areas.
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Not quite dashing through the stuff: See photos of the storm and its aftermath at chicagotribune.com/snow