Stranded motorists dug out of snow on Pennsylvania Turnpike

The big blizzard on the East Coast has stranded a Catholic youth group from the metro. Photos on social media showed trucks and buses covered in snow.

“We have heat, we have a bathroom, we have water, we have light snacks”, chaperone Tine Edge told NBC News on Saturday morning.

They were on their way home from Virginia after winning a game against George Mason. They left early after Friday’s event to try and get ahead of the weather.

Drivers couldn’t go anywhere for nearly 24 hours before traffic started moving Saturday night.

But at least they have company.

“We are a gymnastics team”, coach Umme Salim-Beasley said. They made angels in the snow and visited a group of middle-schoolers from Iowa on the neighboring bus.

Turnpike officials say some pockets of stranded motorists stretch back 2 or 3 miles.

Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement the backup was caused when trucks failed to climb hills. Police and National Guard reached the buses Saturday to make sure that everyone was safe. “We were told the National Guard was coming”.

The bus has outlets, so players have been able to keep their phones charged and remain “attached to the world”, Ferry said.

A few team members trekked almost a mile in two feet of snow in an effort to get pizza delivered to a nearby overpass, while others worked to shovel the bus out from the snow with pizza boxes and trash can lids.

Stranded on buses overnight by a monster snowstorm that has shut down parts of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, hundreds of Catholic high school students from Nebraska and elsewhere nevertheless seemed to have things relatively in hand this afternoon. Honestly, we’ve had two people on this bus who have beaten cancer in the past two years (Derrick Colter and John Rhodes) …

“I just see cars”, said Jackson, who was with about 50 students going from Washington home to Kansas City, Missouri.

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