Thursday caused widespread damage to Iowa roads, leaving dozens of people on ice floes in Wisconsin, with a powerful winter storm showing no signs of receding in the Midwest.
Whiteout conditions along Interstate 80 west of Newton, Iowa, led to an accumulation of 40 vehicles there, the state patrol said Thursday afternoon.
Troopers, who were not injured, “went from vehicle to vehicle to check on the occupants,” the state patrol said on its Facebook page. There were “some serious injuries and some minor injuries,” the post said.
Photos posted by the state patrol also showed tractor trailers turned on their side or dropped with a knife and scissors, along with other cars and trucks, including State Trooper cars.
In Door County, Wisconsin, U.S. Coast Guard personnel and local and government officials rescued 62 people from three separate ice floes, sheets of ice that had broken free from the frozen water surface, the Coast Guard said in a press release.
Rescue teams, airboats and helicopters found themselves at the mouth of Sturgeon Bay after calls about cracks in the ice between groups of people on the ice and shore, CNN affiliate WLUK reported.
According to WLUK, 62 people had been rescued without any injuries at the beginning of Thursday afternoon.
Thursday was a “curtain scammer” for what’s in store for the area in the coming days, according to CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Snow, forecast through Friday, is expected to be followed by a sudden freeze or rapidly falling temperatures.
According to Van Dam, it can get so cold from Saturday to Sunday that even car antifreeze can solidify.
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