Baton Rouge gets 8 inches of snow, most in 85 years | News

Baton Rouge woke up Tuesday to the unthinkable: snow falling for the first time in seven years and temperatures in the 20s.

At least 6 inches were reported in most parts of East Baton Rouge, Prairieville and Denham Springs, according to National Weather Service. Areas in Geismar and southwest Baton Rouge had as much as 8 inches by early Tuesday night when the snow finally subsided, the weather service said.

It is likely the second largest snowfall in Baton Rouge history, eclipsing the 6-inch snowfall in January 1940. The all-time record is 12.5 inches, which crushed the city in February 1895.

Portions of Interstate 10 and I-110 remained closed in both directions Tuesday night. Westbound lanes of I-12 were closed between Airline Highway and the I-10/I-12 split. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue said residents should expect road closures on state roads throughout Wednesday.

State and federal courthouses in Baton Rouge will also remain closed Wednesday.

Snow disturbances widespread

Even gambling took a break when the Queen Baton Rouge casino stopped rolling the dice at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Casino officials said they would announce when the site will reopen.

The freezing temperatures and rainfall covered many roads in the area with a sheet of ice. Officials also expect treacherous roads Wednesday. There was “black ice” on bridges and certain streets, making driving extremely dangerous.

Public schools will remain closed Wednesday, and a few on Thursday.

At Baton Rouge Metro Airport, the airfield was closed to all but emergency helicopter operations, officials said. While the terminals remained open, the three major airlines – Delta, United and American – canceled flights until Wednesday morning. More cancellations are expected through Thursday due to severe weather in Louisiana and several other southern states.

Residents and businesses in Sorrento struggled with a natural gas outage due to an equipment failure in the Atmos Energy system. The company said the outage is temporary and crews were working to restore service to homes and businesses Tuesday. There was no evacuation and city officials and the fire department were notified.

City officials in Gonzales and Donaldsonville issued overnight curfews, and Livingston imposed a parish-wide curfew restricting roads to emergency responders and essential personnel until 1 p.m. 10 Wednesday.

The big thaw is expected on Thursday, when the high temperature will be almost 50 degrees, say meteorologists. Any remaining snow will melt away.

‘This is magic’

At LSU’s Parade Ground, students enjoyed the chance to play in the snow Tuesday.

Kim Huynh-Truitt and Ian Frick made snowmen in the middle of the field, while other students threw snowballs and sledded across the first layer of snowflakes to fall on campus since January 2018.

“I’ve never seen snow in my life. This is my first time. This is magical,” Frick said. “I feel like I’m in a movie right now. It’s crazy. I never thought I would see this in real life in Louisiana.

Huynh-Truitt is more familiar with the bad weather — she spends every Christmas in Denver. Even she was surprised by the amount of snowflakes dumped on Baton Rouge on Tuesday.

“I didn’t expect to see so much snow fall so quickly,” she said. “I was expecting to miss it, and I was also expecting it not to stick or be like slush.”

Baton Rouge residents Stacey Patterson and Jay Byars walked down 3rd Street downtown Tuesday and enjoyed the white stuff falling from the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” Patterson said.

Both were here in 2018 when it last snowed. Although they liked the unusual weather, they didn’t want snow more often.

“It’s not Baton Rouge,” Byars said.

Stay safe from the roads

About 30 miles of city and state roads in East Baton Rouge Parish were closed at 1 p.m. Tuesday and are expected to remain closed through Thursday until workers deem them safe for motorists, Baton Rouge Transportation officials said.

“We’ve salted a lot of the bridges that we were going to and some sections of the roadway that we were looking at in some areas,” city Transportation Director Fred Raiford said during a press conference Tuesday. “It’s held up pretty well through just the early part of the snow.”

Raiford said he and others are monitoring weather patterns to determine when services such as trash pickup and others will resume in Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge EMS said a few cars slid off the road Tuesday, but miraculously, no dangerous crash rescues were reported. The West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office responded to two weather-related car crashes, but no injuries or fatalities had been reported as of noon.

City Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Charlie LeDuff reported that 130 people stayed at the St. Vincent de Paul shelter Monday night and 55 more stayed at the Salvation Army shelter.

“We have beds available if you know someone who has insufficient heat,” LeDuff said.

St. George opened a cold-weather shelter at Woodlawn High School with 20 beds available Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, sleet and freezing rain remained south of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area Tuesday. That’s why no traffic fatalities had been reported in the city by mid-morning, according to the Baton Rouge Police Department.

Capital Area Transit shut down bus lines for another day and suspended service through Wednesday.

With Wednesday’s highest expected temperature of 36 degrees, the snow is slowly starting to melt. However, remnants will remain, especially in shaded areas, through Thursday.

Big thaw on Thursday

The white will disappear on Thursday afternoon, when the temperature will reach almost 50 degrees.

That will “do pretty well” for Baton Rouge’s snow, said National Weather Service meteorologist David Schlotzhauer.

The bone-chilling cold had knocked out power to about 30 Entergy residential customers in East Baton Rouge. The cold affected more than 200 DEMCO residential customers in Livingston Parish at one point in the afternoon, but power was restored to all those homes by 5 p.m. Tuesday, officials said.

Baton Rouge Women’s Hospital remained open for inpatient and emergency care Tuesday and will remain open Wednesday. However, the medical facility canceled all elective procedures, as well as suspended outpatient and outpatient services for both days, hospital officials said.

Ochsner Health’s emergency rooms are open, but its clinics and urgent care facilities will remain closed Wednesday.

Rare winter event

This is the first snowfall the city has seen since January 2018. And the city hasn’t had snow of this magnitude in 85 years.

State officials are asking residents to stay in their homes and avoid driving Wednesday. Gov. Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency due to the rare winter weather. Baton Rouge’s mayor did the same.

Residents ventured out to bask in the wintry conditions and onto LSU to make a rescue of sorts. Six LSU students tied a canoe to the back of a truck and drove to a neighborhood near campus to pick up their favorite priest, the Rev. Matthew Dunn, pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church on the university’s campus. Dunn was happy to take a trip down the street in the canoe.

Even large supermarkets such as Rouses and fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s closed their doors Tuesday in the Baton Rouge area and beyond.

Door Dash also suspended service in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Alexandria and said in its announcement that deliveries would not resume until at least noon Wednesday.

Christy Clark, a downtown Baton Rouge resident, strolled along Main Street Tuesday morning to check on the snowfall.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Clark said.

Lawyer journalists Christopher Cartwright, Quinn Coffman, Claire Grunewald, Patrick Sloan-Turner, Haley Miller and Jan Risher contributed to this story.