companies are pushing the rate increases through now before the july 1st deadline. martha: before they have to explain why they are doing it. reporter: exactly. martha: tough stuff, anita, thank you very much, in l.a. bill: mother nature, she s at it again, in a big way, too, another storm causing problems in the plains and the midwest and en route back to the northeast and thousands of flights delayed already, and st. louis, they are told if you don t have to leave the house, don t do it. stay home. look at that, as the truckers move the way down the highway. we re watching all of this with the help of our reporters across the country and affiliate stations from dallas and oklahoma city. tulsa, st. louis, into chicago, the storm will carry on into indianapolis and detroit and cleveland and another wallop in the northeast and, as it moves it will be ice, and there will be snow and there will be winds, winds could easily top 40 miles an hour and in many ways is the most dangerous aspe
out here along i-70, 45-minute drive west of st. louis proper and this is going to be ground zero for the heaviest snow in the state and we have been fighting back and forth between freezing rain and sleet and snow and what we have had so far, this accumulated yesterday, overnight last night and this morning, freezing rain and freezing the power lines and tree limbs to a quarter-inch, some of the suburbs southeast of town a half to an inch thick in some cases, leading up to the snow and we are starting to see the precipitation change over to snow. and, just west of my location, there were reports of thunder and lightning and snowfall at the rate of four inches per hour, not far to the west of here and we re going in and out of that kind of snowfall and behind me, this is i-70, from st. louis west to kansas city, snow packed and sleet packed and treacherous, in fact we are hearing i-44, in the southwest part of the state, down by joplin, missouri has been closed in some cases. now, norm
snow in the midwest and st. louis, we don t get huge snows, we get run-of-the-mill snows and can use a 12 inch ruler to measure it and this storm, we ll pull the crocodile dundee and that is night ruler, that is a ruler, right there! 24-inch ruler and in some cases what we will need in missouri. bill: you are waiting on it, aren t you and you have a little on the ground but the tough stuff hasn t hit yet? reporter: yeah. we have a half inch, maybe, an inch of new snow and it is a combination of things, that have fallen since midnight through this morning and the bad stuff is about 30, 40 minutes off to the west-southwest and is moving our way and on top of that, a big concern here is the winds will push 45 miles per hour at times, later on today and create blizzard conditions and doesn t happen around here often and that will lead to power outages because of the heavy snow. and the heavy icing that we have had. all the way around, the governor declared a state of emergency
if you get 30, 40 mile-an-hour winds, everything will be frozen. martha: a lot of the stories we have had here have been fluffy white snow, 6 inches which is drivable, not bad but when you get the ice and the wind, that is when you get dangerous conditions going on here. so, this is not one to you know, storm fatigue and snow fatigue and people figure out i ll fight through it and i have done it all winter but you need to take a close look at this one. it could be tough. bill: and the radar doesn t look severe but if you have seen the pictures and images we have gotten from our reporters out there, you can see on the ground how bad it can be and we ve had nice, white, fluffy snow and we have had sunshine. and then it snowed and the sun came out again but this is a far different picture. okay. with us now, ktvi, out of st. louis, and chris higgins is live at a truck stop in missouri, outside of st. louis. how it is going out there, chris? reporter: guys, yeah, we re