Cedar City gets a snowy Sunday surprise


72 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

CEDAR CITY — Some Utahns woke up to a surprise winter wonderland Sunday morning, and many were without power as well.

A spring storm slammed Cedar City with wet and heavy snow, causing trees to fall under the weight of it. Big branches buried cars and littered city streets and the cemetery.

The National Weather Service said that by 7 a.m., there was already 6 inches of snow on the ground.

Cedar City resident Nannette Batty woke up to more of it.

"This morning at 8 a.m., there was 8 inches on this deck; and there's got to be a foot there now," she said Sunday afternoon.

Batty was ankle-deep in snow walking through her yard.

"This is the first Mother's Day blizzard I can remember," she said. "It's been crazy. It's been really crazy."

The spring storm caused a mess and damage throughout the city. It also left thousands of people in the dark.

Officials from Rocky Mountain Power said at one point, 6,700 customers in Cedar City were without power.

"Most of it is because of ice and snow buildup on the power lines," said Tony Barney, owner of Barney Brothers' Electric in Cedar City.

It was a busy morning for Barney. He maintains the city's street lights and was working fast to clear the power lines.

"This is the first time we've had to do anything like this in (the) 25 years I've been an electrician," Barney said.

People who hit the roads were stuck snow traffic jams. I-15 in the Beaver area quickly became packed with snow, and Utah Highway Patrol troopers said there were 21 crashes, at least 19 slide-offs and a semitruck rollover all within eight hours. One driver told KSL News it took an hour to travel a mere 10 miles.

Meanwhile, Batty said she was dodging branches while clearing her trees of snow.

"While I was doing that, other big branches were falling around the yard," she said. "It's pretty scary."

Batty didn't know what would survive the storm. But having lived in Cedar City for 50 years, she knows spring in Utah means anything is possible.

Rocky Mountain Power said power outages were scattered throughout the city Sunday evening, and crews were going from one spot to the next. They were working as fast as possible, but officials said it's a time-consuming process because they have to locate each source of damage and repair them one by one.

Contributing: Devon Dolan

Photos

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Sandra Yi

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast