Thursday brought destruction to the roads in Iowa and left dozens of people trapped by ice floes in Wisconsin, with a strong winter storm that shows no signs of abating in the Midwest.
Whiteout conditions along Interstate 80 west of Newton, Iowa, led to a pileup of 40 vehicles there, the state patrol said on Thursday afternoon.
Police officers, who were not injured, were “going from vehicle to vehicle to check occupants,” the state patrol said on its Facebook page. There were “some serious injuries and several minor injuries,” the post said.
Photos posted by the state patrol also showed sideways tractor trailers or pocket knives, along with other cars and trucks, including state police cars.
In Door County, Wisconsin, US Coast Guard officials and local and state officials rescued 62 people from three separate ice floes, layers of ice that had come loose from the frozen surface of the water, the Coast Guard said in a press release.
Rescuers, air boats and helicopters were near the mouth of Sturgeon Bay after calls reporting cracks in the ice between groups of people on the ice and on the coast, reported CNN affiliate WLUK.
Early Thursday afternoon, 62 people were rescued without any injuries, according to WLUK.
Thursday was a “curtain call” for what the area will face in the coming days, according to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Snow, expected on Friday, is expected to be followed by a sudden freeze or rapidly falling temperatures.
It can get so cold overnight from Saturday to Sunday that even car antifreeze can solidify, according to Van Dam.
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