By Maria Hickey/KWMU/AP
St. Louis, MO. – Lambert Airport says flights have been canceled for the rest of the day due to a combination of freezing rain and sleet.
Deputy airport director Gerard Slay says there are about a thousand people still at the airport.
Airlines are trying to book them into hotels that are rapidly filling up in the area.
The mix of freezing rain and sleet also is making driving conditions nasty.
MO-DOT spokesman Tom Miller has this advice for those who have to drive
"What people also need to do is slow down," Miller said. "We are having an increase in wrecks out on the roadways due to people traveling too fast for the road conditions."
National Weather Service meteorologists said parts of central and northeast Missouri were expected to be hardest hit by the storm.
As many as 14 inches of snow were possible in communities like Columbia and Hannibal.
In Springfield, freezing rain and sleet knocked out power to 15,000 customers.
In the St. Louis-area, Ameren officials said there were no weather-related outages.