Storms Again Flail South; Snow Covers Parts of West

Thunderstorms whipped wind and torrential rain through parts of the South on Friday, demolishing part of an airport in weather-beaten Louisiana, while a mid-spring snowstorm blanketed parts of the Dakotas and the West.

The skies opened up Friday and drenched parts of Louisiana and neighboring Texas. The National Weather Service reported that Shreveport, La., recorded more than 3 1/2 inches of rain in six hours, while San Antonio got more than two inches during the same period.

The storm in north Louisiana, already soaked by earlier rains, struck Shreveport around 7:30 a.m., flooding streets and hurling hail and gusts of wind up to 90 m.p.h. for two hours.

“We have had three hangars totally destroyed, another 10 hangars damaged. Four aircraft were destroyed. At least six others were damaged,” said Janet Kaye, flight operations manager at TAC AIR, a general aviation service at the Shreveport Regional Airport.

“The wind picked up freight containers weighing 100 to 150 pounds each and threw them around like dice,” Kaye said. “One hit a Kingair and damaged a wing. Another hit a smaller aircraft, a Mooney, and did considerable damage. They were thrown around like they were nothing.”

No injuries were reported, authorities said.

Winds reaching 80 m.p.h. damaged 10 houses and destroyed a water plant in Wright City in southeastern Oklahoma.

Nine inches of rain doused downtown Longview, Tex., during the morning, and mobile homes were damaged in Waskom, the weather service reported.

A surge of wintry weather reached from the northern Rockies into the northern Plains.

Overnight snowfall in Wyoming included an inch at Dayton, up to two inches at Bear Lodge, and from four to five inches at Meadowlark Lodge.

In Utah, five inches of new snow was on the ground at Alta, and the highway near Snowville was packed with snow.

Bismarck, N.D., had four inches of new snow and Hettinger received six inches, weather officials said.

Also, there was up to five inches of snow recorded in north-central and northwestern South Dakota.