North Texans make last-minute travel plans, grocery store runs day before Thanksgiving
Lines were manageable and moving on Wednesday morning at both North Texas airports as travelers began their journey the day before Thanksgiving.
Despite winter weather affecting parts of the U.S., there were only a handful of delays and cancellations on departures out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field.
Wait times for security checkpoints at DFW ranged from 10-18 minutes on Wednesday morning. Not bad for what’s considered one of the busiest travel days of the year.
"There's no traffic on the way, and just turned in the bags, no line or anything. So, it has been going well, so far,” said Selvy Knight, who was catching a flight to Mexico.
Officials at both airports encouraged travelers who were headed to areas with winter weather in the forecast to check their flight status before leaving home.
By sunset Wednesday, I-35 near Downtown Dallas looked like a string of red and white lights. Video from SKY 4 showed the congestion as drivers tried to get home or some finally hitting the road.
For those hosting or staying home, it was crunch time to get all the fixings for a Thanksgiving meal.
At the Kroger in Lewisville, people rushed to get just a few things while some were getting almost everything.
A storm packing heavy, blinding snow and fierce winds wreaked havoc as it whipped through Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska marched into the upper Midwest on Wednesday.
The wintry storm that left at least one person dead was expected to push eastward into South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while a "bomb cyclone" weather phenomenon was expected to simultaneously topple trees, knock out power and dump snow as it rolled into California and Oregon.
National Weather Service meteorologist Brent Hewett in Chanhassen, Minnesota, said the storm could dump 6 inches of snow in central and southern Minnesota, while some areas could see a foot or more snow. Western and northern Wisconsin could be buried beneath 8 to 12 inches and as much as 20 inches in the far northern area of the state.
On Tuesday at Denver International Airport, about 10 inches of snow mixed with winds that limited visibility prompted the cancellation of about 30 percent of the airport's average daily 1,600 flights.
The storm dumped nearly 3 feet of snow in parts of northern Colorado and closed long stretches of highways there and in Wyoming. One person was killed, and two others were injured when a tractor-trailer jackknifed and was hit by two other trucks on Interstate 70 near the Colorado ski town of Vail.
Southwest Airlines canceled about 200 flights. Spokesman Brad Hawkins said it would take "a couple of days" to get stranded passengers on other flights because there are few during the pre-Thanksgiving travel crush. That makes it hard for airlines to rebook passengers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.