weather service:Truly a historic blizzard

The warnings couldn't have been more dire."DO NOT TRAVEL," the National Weather Service in Amarillo, Texas, posted on its website, telling residents not to venture out in what it was calling "a crippling, historic blizzard." The storm was dumping snow over the Texas Panhandle at a rate of 2 to 3 inches an hour. Oklahoma also was being hit hard, and parts of Kansas and Missouri were under winter storm warnings. In Woodward, a town in northwest Oklahoma, fire fighters were unable to reach a burning house because they ran into 4-foot snow drifts. The snow plow sent to dig them out also became stuck, Matt Lehenbauer, the director of Woodward, said Monday afternoon. "At this point we can't keep ahead of snowfall rates," he said. "Right now the situation is pretty critical." At least six calls came in from other stranded motorists, he said. As of 3:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. ET), 15 inches of snow had fallen in Woodward, the National Weather Service said. Almost all roads in the Texas Panhandle were impassable, and whiteout conditions forced the state Department of Transportation to pull virtually all of its snowplows off roads, Texas DOT spokesman Paul Braun said Monday morning. From: CNN