Hundreds trapped overnight on Kentucky interstate

Matthew Glowicki and Chris Kenning, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal 11:38 a.m. EST March 6, 2015

 

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Just past noon Thursday, Carl Hester rolled down the window of his minivan, exhausted and impatient after spending a long night stranded in deep snow with hundreds of other motorists on a rural, hilly stretch of Interstate 65 north of Elizabethtown, Ky.

He and his fiancée, sleeping beside him, had been heading the night before from northern Ohio to Texas for a relative's surgery when the storm dumped up to 21 inches of snow, jackknifing trucks, sending cars sliding and turning the highway that climbs the equivalent of a 25-story building in about 10 miles into a dark, frozen parking lot.

Throughout the night, Hester nursed his fuel to stay warm. Truckers offered food. Road crews carried a sick woman to the unblocked northbound lanes. Some tried walking to the nearest exit. He said at one point local firefighters walked past with blankets and fuel, but some still ran out of gas during the night.

"We'd love to get out here," he said. "But, praise God, we're OK."

Hundreds of motorists were stranded in snow Wednesday night on I-65 between Lebanon Junction and Elizabethtown, some for 15 hours, leaving mile after mile of vehicles lining the southbound interstate into Thursday afternoon..............