DEVASTATING BLIZZARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20906, 21 December 1929, Page 13

DEVASTATING BLIZZARD

CANADIAN PRAIRIES SWEPT.

PARTS OF AMERICA AFFECTED.

SEVERAL DEATHS REPORTED,

(United Press Association.)

(By Electric Telegraph -Copyright.) VANCOUVER, December 10. The worst blizzard for. 15 years is sweeping the middle and western parts of the United States and the Canadian prairies. Sleet and snow tied up lake, road, and rail traffic, causing great misery in the poor quarters of the cities. Fifteen deaths are already reported.

DEATH LIST GROWING,

THOUSANDS OF CARS ABANDONED,

VANCOUVER, December 19. (Received Dec. 20, at 5.5 p.m.) The blizzard dislocated traffic in Ontaria yesterday, then moved southward through the Mississippi Valley, The death list runs from 30 to 40. A feature of the snowfall, which is 15 inches deep, is that thousands of motor cars are left stranded or abandoned on the roadsides; the drivers being utterly unable to proceed. Huge snowdrifts were piled up in a howling gale. Reports from Springfield (Illinois) state that COO automobiles are lost in snowdrifts, some of which are 10 feet high. 1 Some of the newspapers in small towns had to depend only on radio for their news, all the wires being down. Several places in the Canadian West have reported that the mercury is below 40.

MANY DEATHS IN AMERICA.

HALLS PACKED WITH PEOPLE.

UNABLE TO REACH - HOMES.

CHICAGO, December 19, (Received Dec. 20, at 8 p.m.)

Thirty-six persons -tr known to be dead as the result of lathing snow storms and bitter cold in the Middle and Western. States. Transportation and communication are disrupted over a wide area.

Seven died in Chicago City, where business is disrupted/ Halls are packed with people who are unable to reach their homes, which arc 'under an impenetrable curtain of snow.

Traffic on the Great Lakes is seriously retarded. 1 '