The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-04-08
STORMS ISOLATE
 MANY REGIONS
Tornadoes, Sleet, Snow, Bring DesOlation, Isola=
 ton, and Death
(By United Press)

l NDy OAA~Su ANSo|
 Tornado winds, snow. sleet and floods ragged in the western half of the country today while mid spring storm moved into the south from the Rocky Mountains and, whipped by heavy gales, swung northeastWard toward the Atlantic states.
 Snow and sleet added to suffer- ing in midwestern states, where traffic and communications had been crippled by a blizzard We'd resday. Temperatures were below freezing in the entire area.
 Seventeen persons were killed in the midwest and south. An aged couple and eight negroes were killed and 50 injured last night when tornado roared through a section near Aliceville in western Alabama and damaged homes in eight com- munities. Five died in Indiana from falls and in traffic accidents. A man was killed in Iowa when his car crashed into a truck on glassy pavement. A Chicagoan dropped dead while shoveling snow.
 Only the Far west and south eastern states escaped the wintry weather.
 A cutting sleet storm moved diag- onally. from southwest to northeast in the middlewest. A crippling glaze covered central Illinois.
 Kansas City, St. Louis, and Peoria, Pontiac and Bloomington, III, were in the storms path. Communication lines in the Illinois cities snapped as they became laden with ice Telephone company officials at Peoria said the sleet was the worst in several years.
 Several thousand acres of farm land in Green County, Ark, were inundated when the St. Francis river swept away a 300-foot section of a levee. At Mt. Carmel, H., the Wa bash river, fed by rain and melting snow, flooded a three mile stretch of highway. Police and relief sgenceis cooperated in finding homes for refugees driven from lowland farm homes.
 Dust, mingled with snow, was whipped through Amarillo, Texas, by a driving wind. The temperature was 22 there. A heavy snowstorm ragged at Dodge City, Kan.
 Rescuers were attempting to fight their way through snoWdrifts three feet deep east of Elk City, Okla, in an effort to reach 20 carloads of stranded motorists. A blizzard ragged as police and volunteers worked from two directions to reach the scene. The temperature was 20 de- grees. Occupants of 30 other cars, stranded west of Elk City, were rescued yesterday.
 Iowa and Nebraska were hard hit. Telephone company officials esti- mated that 130 towns were isolated Ill Iowa but said communications would be restored to 50 of the com- munities within 24 hours. They es- timated damage to lines and poles in Nebraska at $300,000.
 University of Iowa botanists said damage to trees in Iowa City would total $200,00O. Highways were blocked or only partially open 75 miles north and south of Chicago. Driving was made hazardous throughout the Metro politan area by sleet-covered streets. Chicagoans attended two Easter fashion shows in winter clothes and galoshes.
 SnoWplows gradually were clear ing drifts from trunk lines in Wis., conSin and Indiana. Bus and train schedules neared normal operation but airplane travel was delayed Flights were maintained from Los Angeles to Albuquerque. Traffic east of there was halted.
 U. s. Weather Forccaster J. R