CHILDRESS, Texas — Inside an ice-capped camper, a stir-crazy family of seven from Utah prepared to spend their second night in a parking lot at a gas station in the Texas Panhandle town of Childress.
"The weather was just too bad," said dad Lou Harris. "This is like a 37-foot RV, and we were getting pushed all over the highway."
Driving on U.S. 287 Sunday felt like being in a pinball machine. The bitterly cold wind was so ferocious it knocked down power poles, leaving the electric lines jiggling like spaghetti.
Workers battled tundra-like conditions to repair the wires near Chillicothe, in Hardeman County.
As the night went on, the snow, ice, wind, and cold became more intense.
The Department of Public Safety and the Texas Department of Transportation urged motorists not to travel in the Panhandle. Their crews were deployed along Highway 287 sanding and plowing as best they could.
"There were cars pretty much all over the place getting stuck and going off the road," said Eric Pickering. He should know; that happened to him Sunday — twice.
His smashed front bumper and busted tire in the back tell those stories. He was trying to drive from Fort Worth to California, but was sidelined in Childress.
"Twice we slid out of control and went off the road," he said. "We had to have a sheriff pull us out one time; a tow truck pulled us out another."
For stranded motorists like Pickering — and even for those who live in Childress — it was shaping up to be a long, frigid night.
AEP Texas, an electricity utility, said 75 percent of its customers in Childress County were without power for some time Sunday. By 9 p.m., they cut that number to 10 percent. Most area hotels were blacked out, causing issues for those seeking shelter.
"We are currently without power," said Childress resident Zach Detwiler. "It's been really cold."
