Hundreds of crashes reported in Kentucky snow

A winter storm blanketed parts of the South with snow, freezing rain and sleet Thursday, tying up roads in Tennessee and Kentucky. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned that the snow hitting his state was “both real and dangerous,” with hundreds of car crashes across the state.

Some areas had already received more than a half-foot by early afternoon. Search and rescue teams were activated for safety checks on stranded motorists. Beshear closed state offices at noon Thursday and later extended the closure through Friday.

The largest snowfall by Thursday evening was 8 to 9 inches in a swath from Elizabethtown to Bardstown and Nicholasville to Lexington. In Elizabethtown, officials said a pileup of 20 to 30 cars in snowy conditions Thursday afternoon closed both lanes of the Western Kentucky Parkway. Kentucky transportation officials said the snow fell so fast that by the time they finished plowing some routes, they were already snow-covered again.