4A
Nation/World
Tuesday October 28,1997
Blizzard blankets Rockies, Plains
Record snowfall hits Colorado, El Niño blamed
The Associated Press
DENVER — Rescuers used helicopters, snowmobiles and military vehicles Sunday to pick up snowbound travelers and residents left without heat by a record blizzard that piled snowdrifts up to 15 feet high.
About eight people were unaccounted for Sunday in southeastern Colorado.
"We're making Herculean efforts to get into some of these areas," said Steve Penney, a regional planner with the Colorado Office of Emergency Management.
At least three people died during the storm. An unattended candle supplying light in a house without power started a fire that killed one woman in Omaha, Neb. It took firefighters about half an hour to reach the house because
of the weather.
Grand Island, Neb., police said 50-year-old James Blowon died Sunday of an apparent heart attack while snow-blowing his property.
An 11-year-old boy from tiny Stratton in eastern Colorado died Sunday at Children's Hospital in Denver after he spent a night in the cold, a hospital spokeswoman said. The boy got lost sledding Saturday, Denver's KMGH-TV reported.
The blizzard that blew through the Rockies and onto the Plains on Saturday left as much as 50 inches of snow in the Colorado Rockies, 22 inches in parts of Denver and 35 inches in the city's suburbs.
The storm moved eastward Sunday and snow fell from eastern Kansas through Missouri and Iowa into Wisconsin and eastern Michigan. Heavy snow had fallen in Utah on Friday and flakes fell in the Texas Panhandle on Saturday.
Thousands of customers were without electricity for light and heat Sunday in Nebraska and Iowa.
Hundreds of miles of highways remained closed Sunday, including one 185-mile stretch of Interstate 80 across eastern Nebraska.
and some travelers in Kansas were stymied by 4-foot drifts.
The Nebraska State Patrol estimated that 200 vehicles involving 500 people were stranded on the interstate and highways Sunday.
There were no immediate reports of injuries to those stranded on the highway. The patrol worked to free the stranded motorists all day and expected many of them to get out on their own.
At least 1,000 vehicles abandoned in the snow made it difficult for Colorado crews to plow out a 160-mile stretch of Interstate 25 that was closed from south of Denver to near the New Mexico state line, said Bill Vidal, executive director of the state transportation department.
"The problem is locating the drivers or getting wreckers to move them out of the way." Vidal said.
I-25 reopened Sunday afternoon. In Denver, most of the city's major and secondary roads had been plowed open by Sunday afternoon, mayoral representative Andrew Hudson said.
"We've plowed about 5,000 lane miles since Friday," he said.
adding that crews would begin working on residential roads before nightfall.
Airlines began restoring flights Sunday out of Denver International Airport, which had been shut down since Saturday. Said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon.
It was the biggest October snowfall on record for Colorado and one of the state's five worst for any time of year, said forecaster Chad Gimmestad at the National Weather Service.
While many people blamed the violent storm on the El Niño weather phenomenon — expected to cause a wet and stormy winter in the West — Gimmeld said meteorologists in Denver weren't ready to place blame for the blizzard.
"You can't really say that any particular storm occurred or not because of El Niño." Gimmestad said. "The best we can say is there is a tendency for certain events to happen, looking at El Niño years, and being able to speculate on a physical connection between a particular storm and El Niño."
Rat hormone may lead to MS treatment
The Associated Press
DETROIT — Researchers have found a hormone that stimulates growth of the protective sheath around damaged nerves, a development they say could help in the treatment of some degenerative nerve diseases.
Damage of the myelin sheath interrupts signals between the brain and nerves in nerve diseases like multiple sclerosis, diabetic neuropathy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Experiments conducted at the University of Michigan focused
on diabetic neuropathy, a severe condition in some diabetic patients that destroys the nerve endings in feet and can lead to foot amputation.
Laboratory tests found that an insulinlike growth hormone produced by the liver called IGF-I lessened the damage from diabetic neuropathy on nerve cells in rats, University of Michigan scientists reported yesterday.
Though several growth factors are being studied,IGF-I appears to be most effective at inducing the growth of the sheath and preventing neural cell death, according to Michigan
researcher Hsin-Lin Cheng.
Stephen Reingold, a physician from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in New York, was cautious about the results.
"They certainly are jumping the gun by saying that it could help with multiple sclerosis. IGF-I has never been studied with MS," he said.
The Michigan scientists, who presented the first results from their experiments with IGF-I at a conference in New Orleans yesterday, removed nerve cells called dorsal root neurons from newborn rats and grew them in a dish.
They found that if they simulated the conditions of diabetic neuropathy in the dish, by stripping the myelin sheaths from the cells, and then applied the IGF-I, it helped the nerves reconnect, said Eva Feldman, associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"This may provide a new treatment for a whole group of diseases we couldn't treat before," Feldman said.
Tests with the hormone are underway on about 40 people with neuropathy caused by unknown conditions at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Strike gives Ontario a lesson in fairness
The Associated Press
TORONTO — Parents across Ontario scrounged for baby sitters, and students faced the prospect of homework by Internet yesterday as the largest teachers' strike ever in North America shut down classes for 2.1 million children.
Joined in some cases by students and parents, picketing teachers trudged through snow and rain at hundreds of public schools to protest the provincial government's attempt to take over policy-making powers now held by local school boards.
The Conservative government, a target of repeated labor protests since 1995, says it wants to improve the quality of education by taking control of matters such as how much time teachers spend in the classroom.
The unions representing Ontario's 126,000 public school teachers say the bill proposing these changes would set the stage for layoffs of up to 10,000 teachers. They are demanding that the government withdraw or rewrite the bill.
"We hope the government will feel the pressure," said Eileen Lennon, president of the Ontario Teachers' Federation. "This bill scares people. Parents want to have some influence over their schools."
The dispute has sparked an intense battle for public opinion.
Most of Ontario's schools were closed by local school boards yesterday, but some buildings stayed open — without classes — under the supervision of administrators and nonteaching staff. There were a few reports of teachers crossing picket lines, but overall support for the strike appeared widespread.
and polls show Ontarians are sharply divided over whether the strike is warranted. The government is depicting the unions as selfish, while the teachers depict the government as eager to cut education spending to finance a promised tax cut.
"I'm thinking the worst," said picketing teacher Peter Shaw in Kitchner. "We could be out here for weeks because this government is really trying to break us."
Working parents of elementary school students scrambled to find baby sitters or spots in day-care centers. The government has promised that parents with children under 13 will receive $30 in U.S. dollars daily during the strike to help cover the costs of child care. The payments would come from money that school boards save on travelers' wages.
The strike is illegal because virtually all the teachers are still under contract with their school boards. The Canadian Auto Workers and other trade unions have threatened walkouts in support of the teachers if they feel the government reacts too harshly.
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