Winter Storm Gia arrived in the Midwest this weekend, causing crashes, flight delays and power outages in states across the area — including large parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kansas — as well as Virginia.
The storm is also blamed for the deaths of at least 10 people, who died in weather-related crashes, including an Illinois state trooper, according to The Weather Channel.
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, trooper Christopher Lambert, 34, was driving home when he stopped to help at the scene of a crash. He was struck by a passing vehicle and died in a hospital a few hours later.
“He’s a hero,” Illinois State Police director Leo P. Schmitz said at a news conference. “Trooper Lambert deliberately placed his vehicle in a position to protect the lives of the victims of the previous crash, and took on the danger himself.”
According to the Associated Press, at least five people were killed in crashes on icy roads in Kansas and Missouri. The AP reported that these included a woman and her 14-year-old stepdaughter in Clinton, Missouri, a 62-year-old man who skidded onto the Kansas Turnpike and a 41-year-old driver from Mexico.
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Topeka resident Bradley S. Horton, 62, died after crashing into a barrier while driving in the snow in Kansas on Friday, KSNT reported.
In Indiana, one person was killed in a crash on Interstate 70 in Greenfield on Saturday, according to WISH-TV.
A West Virginia man died on Saturday when his car “spun out” and collided “nearly head-on” with another vehicle, Marshall County Sheriff Kevin Cecil told The Intelligencer.
Illinois State Police said Allen Reinacher, 73, was killed in an accident on a snowy highway on Friday, KSDK-TV reported.
The storm has also affected airports and electricity across the Midwest. Hundreds of thousands of power outages have been reported across Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina, according to Poweroutage.us, and over 650 flights have been canceled as over 1,100 have experienced delays across the U.S. on Sunday as of 12 p.m. EST, according to FlightAware.