Snow, ice move east from southern plains

OKLAHOMA CITY, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A winter storm smashed through Oklahoma and pushed toward Arkansas and Tennessee Wednesday, leaving snow, ice and travel hazards behind, officials said.

"The whole county is a whiteout," Richard Real, Oklahoma's Delaware County emergency management director, said Wednesday. "We already helped 14 motorists."

Oklahoma ranchers have been hard-pressed to keep their herds adequately fed and watered during the storm, which dumped up to 20 inches in some parts of the state, The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City reported.

As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, the Oklahoma Health Department reported 80 storm-related injuries, including 63 falls and one instance of carbon monoxide poisoning, the Tulsa World reported.

As the storm moved east Wednesday night, the lower Mississippi Valley began bearing the brunt of the winter storm with almost 18 inches of snow fallen on parts of Arkansas.

Drivers delivering medical supplies didn't escape incident. Four trucks got stuck in the snow trying to make deliveries to the 28 hospitals in four states for the Sisters of Mercy Health System, The Dallas Morning News said.

They found themselves walking at least a mile to shelter, sleeping in their cabs until the weather let up or working for hours in the cold loading supplies into a truck.

"Our drivers were real heroes during this weather crisis," said Scott Nelson, vice president of Resource Optimization and Innovation, the company managing and moving supplies across Mercy's four-state service area.

Thursday should be the end of the brutally cold weather across the Dallas area for the next week to 10 days, forecasters said.

"It will definitely get nice into the weekend," said Eric Martello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. "We'll see some light west-southwest winds and temperatures in the 60s. And this will be a distant memory."