Good Morning El Paso 12.28.15
a major headache for travelers heading east from the sun city this morning—you may want to cancel your plans if you expect to head that way. / plus—the borderland is covered in ice this morning after the severe weather over the weekend—we continue our first alert coverage / and-the storm that pounded the borderland this weekend is now heading east—the latest on what other areas are expecting today. we want to begin with a very important traffic alert this morning— just to the east of us … traffic is at a standstill on i-10 near fort stockton. several viewers have called our newsroom this morning saying they have been stuck out there for hours overnight. tex-dot has yet to confirm if this is weather related… but if you are heading that way… you better just stay home till it’s cleared. the winter storm that hit portions of west texas is probably to blame for traffic being at a standstill near central texas. the borderland definitely saw it’s first real winter storm in awhile over the holiday weekend— this is video of families enjoying the snow over at album park sunday morning. plenty of snowmen, like this one, can be seen around the city. the winter storm that came saturday night left a blanket of snow across our area. / over in las cruces—the same chilly temperatures and plenty of snow. this is video we shot up in the city of crosses– you can see the snow was still falling early sunday morning. plenty of snowmen up there as well–we’ll be sharing some of your weather photos later this morning but first— / a very good morning el paso, las cruces, and juarez. i’m denise olivas stephanie valle and hillary floren are off today. there are still icy conditions out on the roads this morning as you head out— let’s get a look at how cold it is out there with your first forecast with stormtracker iris lopez in for krystal keli —iris? / major winter storm is on the way out…with the upper low now over the big bend region and continuing moving east. west flow aloft will develop for the remainder of the week. a trough aloft will move across east… with a slight chance of snow for the mountains. southwest flow will develop friday and bring moisture and a chance of showers to the area friday night and saturday. temperatures will remain well below normal through the period. let’s take a look at your road closures. abc-7 spoke with el paso police and txdot officials, they tell us scenic drive and transmountain are closed and will remain closed at least until this morning. all major roads are open. however, montana is closed at raynor. sunbowl drive is closed. tx dot crews are still de- icing parts of i-10. we also spoke with las cruces police and new mexico state police. there have been a total of 56 snow-related crashes within the last 24 hours. seven of those with injuries, it’s unclear how severe. they also tell us there were a total of 31 stranded drivers needing assisting in dona ana county that includes on i-10 and 1-25. street and maintenance crews worked overnight to salt and treat major roadways. side roads, bridges, and overpasses are getting priority…so those should be a little easier to drive on — especially for emergency responders. if you do have to drive… remember to go slow. speaking of the roads now it’s time to take a look at the tx-dot traffic cams… here’s a look at other closures. city of el paso administrative offices will be shut down until january 4th as scheduled. the city’s aquatic facilities senior centers and recreation centers will have a delayed opening at 10 am. the el paso zoo will remain closed as well as mckelligon canyon. sun metro services are operating as scheudled. we did not receive word on any closures from the city of las cruces or dona ana county. and the city of el paso’s consolidated tax office delayed opening of 10 a.m even though the rain and snow have gone do not let that fool you— there are still a lot of dangerous conditions on the road this morning. in vinton— traffic along i-10 headed east moved at a crawl after a semi loses control due to slick roads and jackknifes. the driver was ok.. a short while later another crash due to bad road conditions on i-10 headed east near airway. the driver of this car suffered minor injuries. in el paso’s lower valley el paso electric crews had to replace a pole. they say the weight of the snow and ice caused collapses like this all throughout the borderland. nearly 7-thousand people were without power on and off throughout the storm. some roads like transmountain and scenic drive are closed as a precaution still you can find a complete list of closures and delays scheduled for today online now at kvia dot com. in addition to txdot and city of el paso road conditions. as well as any travel delays for the el paso interantional airport. the el paso international is operating, but there have been delays and cancellations due to weather conditions in other parts of texas. click the travel icon at the top of our home page. you’ll find the latest information from airports all over the country. a monster storm system stretching from new mexico to michigan and georgia continues to march eastward this morning—-since wednesday at least 43 people have been killed in 7 states from severe weather. and it caused millions of holiday travelers to have frustrating- and sometimes dangerous-journeys home this weekend. abc’s megan hughes continues our stormtrack weather coverage. the christmas twisters marched across the texas landscape– in the neighborhood of “row-lette” they tossed trucks and tore trees from the earth. the twister that hit garland, texas was clocked as an ef-4. mos: “you could see transformers blowing up” tornadoes the survivors count themselves lucky. sot norma jimenez grateful we’re alive and safe … this can be replaced in missouri, flooding like this led to several deaths-and led the governor to declare a state of emergency sunday night. in oklahoma, west texas and new mexico-snow created whiteout conditions on the roads. mike springer from affiliate k-o-a-t “”just last week it was degrees in roswell now it’s covered in snow.” trucks out of control rest in the snowbank more than 20 motorists were stranded on i-40 between amarillo and the new mexico border. in western oklahoma-the national guard has been deployed to help people stranded. all of this weather impacted air travel too— more than a thousand flights in the u-s cancelled. more than four thousand delayed. sot moira james – traveler “i would call it living hell.” still much more to come here on good morning el paso — continuing our abc-7 first alert coverage—we received so many viewer photos after the winter storm this weekend—we’ll share some of them after the break stormtracker iris lopezi has your detailed forecast. iris… and this is abc-7, where news comes first! it was a little over a day late from falling on christmas—but the borderland was
