Snow Strands 300 on Ontario Highway

A state of emergency has been declared near the southern Ontario town of Sarnia after a fast-moving snowstorm walloped drivers overnight.

About 300 people are waking up somewhere they don’t want to be this morning: inside their cars on a snowbound stretch of Hwy 402. Authorities in southwestern Ontario declared a state of emergency and military helicopters were dispatched to the area, but they may be unusable because the bad weather continued into Tuesday morning. Police were using snowmobiles to check up on stranded drivers and take some of them to nearby emergency shelters, while some drivers managed to reach a Tim Horton’s off the highway and spent the night there with staff serving them coffee and donuts. Snowplows were pulled off the road midday Monday due to reduced visibility and snow quickly piled up, rendering the road impassable.