I-70 closure strands scores in Limon as weather keeps grip on Colorado

WATCH DPTV: I-70 open on Eastern Plains after 8-hour closure

LIMON — Snow and whipping winds turned Christina Evans from truck-stop cashier to travel agent Tuesday. As Evans worked the counter of the Limon Travel Center, standing behind candy bars and road-trip tchotchkes, weary travelers kept coming in search of answers that she didn’t have.

“When are they going to reopen the highway?” they asked, hair blown awry by winds that shook cars. “Is there another way to go?”

Evans slipped down her red glasses, made her way to the laminated road map and did her best to point the waves of forlorn, detoured and frustrated motorists in one direction or another, whether it be to a Christmas party in Nebraska, back home to Texas or just to a warm bed for the night.

“They’re confused,” she said. “Desperate to get out.”

A storm that dropped 40-plus inches of snow in the mountains over the past several days made its way east and plunged Interstate 70 into white-out conditions between Limon and Goodland, Kan. Winds up to 60 mph forced an eight-hour closure that left scores of holiday travelers and truckers with one of two bad options — take a detour hundreds of miles to the southeast or wait things out and hope for the best.

Hotel rooms, restaurant seats and parking lots quickly filled in the town of 2,000 about 90 miles east of Denver. Every empty space was filled, and people dodged fast-moving tumbleweeds-turned-projectiles that somersaulted in the howling winds of the Eastern Plains.

Many accidents on I-70 prompted the Colorado State Patrol to close it from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Sustained winds, between 30 to 40 mph, also led to the closure of several routes in the southeast corner of the state.

“I just want to be with my family,” Heather Hamilton said as she sat in a Limon truck stop, halted on her way from Colorado Springs to McCook, Neb. “I just want to get home.”

Hamilton, bleary-eyed and frustrated, took a perch on a wooden bench making phone calls in search of an alternate route.

Frank Mays, a 36-year trucking veteran from Houston, found himself wondering whether the weather was going to let him make it home for the holidays. He was on his way back from a haul to Oregon when he was stopped by the road closure.

Mays made the best of his delay, perusing the Limon Travel Center in search of gifts for his grandchildren.

“This will be the first Christmas I might miss in my whole life,” he said.

At Limon Station, a truck-stop diner, Linda Clement served hearty meals to truckers and other travelers. Like a bee, she hovered over her tables and moved meticulously between the kitchen, the cash register and her patrons.

“This is chaos,” she said, reminiscing about a blizzard years ago that stranded travelers in Limon for up to three days.

Tuesday marked the busiest travel day before Christmas at Denver International Airport, where about 166,000 passengers were expected.

The Colorado Department of Transportation warned travelers of congestion in the I-70 mountain corridor over the holiday.

Another winter-weather system is expected to move into the state on Christmas Day with the potential to bring more snow, according to forecasters.

“We try to stay pretty positive no matter what happens,” said a smiling Sandra Slaydon of Estes Park as she waited in Limon for I-70 to reopen.

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul