Stranded travelers wait out blizzard closure of I-70 from Airpark Road to Kansas
"Do we hang out until everything goes? And how long is that going to be?" asked Colleen Kassel, as she and her husband waited on the side of a snowy highway. It's a question that's on every stranded traveler's mind.
"A lot of disappointment and wonderment, cause where do we go from now?" Colleen's husband, Ron, added.
The Kassels are two of many travelers impacted by the shutdown of I-70 from Airpark Road, east to the Kansas border. CDOT says blizzard conditions shut the highway down in both directions at 4 a.m. Tuesday. Even with snowfall easing, high winds can blow and drift snow to create visibility concerns.
The closure has cross-country travelers scrambling to find alternate routes, but finding other storm closures on many.
"It looks like the only option is to keep going south another 50 miles to cut across into Kansas," said Ron. The Kassels are heading home to Minnesota after a trip to visit their son in Denver.
"I got my kids and my work so they're waiting for me," said Jose Estrada, who was stranded on I-70 on his way home to Indianapolis.
Many travelers are looking for somewhere to spend the night as the closure stretches past 12 hours.
"We're going to wait a little more and if they're not going to get it open, we'll probably have to get like a hotel or something," said Estrada.
Other travelers decided to wait out the storm.
"I got TV, I got a radio, I'll just sit down and read my Bible and just relax," said Texas-based truck driver Allen Johnson. It's not the first time he's sat out a blizzard on I-70.
"The last time I was here about four or five days on the side of the road and that was back in the 80s," said Johnson.
This time around, Johnson hopes it won't be that long, but CDOT says when I-70 reopens, depends on mother nature.
"Sometimes we just have to take the bitter with the sweet and keep on going," said Johnson.
Outside of safety concerns related to visibility, traction, and snow drifts, CDOT is also looking at weather behavior in Kansas, because they don't want to open one stretch of highway just for people to get stranded again at the border. As of Tuesday afternoon, I-70 is closed all the way to Oakley, Kansas.