Winter storm brings travel chaos to north Texas

DALLAS (AP) — A winter storm that dumped several inches of snow in Texas on Friday closed schools, snarled travel and forced a main highway into Oklahoma to shut down after nearly 20 vehicles slid off the road.

U.S. 75 near Melissa, about 25 miles north of Dallas, was closed in both directions for a time Friday but partially reopened by early afternoon, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

About 15 cars and trucks, plus four tractor-trailers, slipped off the road, resulting in minor injuries to at least seven travelers, the Collin County Sheriff's Office said.

"We had one or two vehicles involved in a crash, then we had several vehicles trying to avoid that accident, those went off the road," DPS Sgt. Lonny Haschel said. "The majority of them are not going to be car crashes, vehicles that just simply slid off the road and need a wrecker."

The Lubbock area received about 4 inches of snow as temperatures dipped to the teens, forecasters said.

The system that closed schools Friday in Lubbock, Abilene, Midland, Odessa and San Angelo reached the Dallas-Fort Worth area by midmorning.

About a half-inch of snow fell in the Dallas area and up to 1 inch was recorded in the Fort Worth area, but the storm was expected to diminish by Friday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Harris said. The snow was turning to ice on the roads, making driving dangerous, he said.

"The roads are going to be bad through the night hours," Harris said.

A winter weather advisory was in effect for the Dallas-Fort Worth area through Saturday evening.

Nearly 400 arrivals and departures were canceled Friday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, according to flight tracker Flightaware.com. About a dozen flights were canceled at Love Field in Dallas.

And baseball fans who hoped to score tickets in-person at the Rangers' Globe Life Park on the first day of individual-game sales were out of luck. The ticket office closed late Friday morning due to deteriorating weather conditions, a team statement said.