Winter storms are sowing more chaos across the U.S. The weather shut down much of Portland after the city experienced its second snowiest day in history and paralyzed travel from parts of the Pacific Coast all the way to the northern Plains. The nearly 11 inches of snow that fell in Portland stalled traffic during the Wednesday evening rush hour and trapped drivers on freeways. Some spent the night in their vehicles or abandoned them altogether as crews struggled to clear roads. The storms brought heavy snow to places that rarely see it, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and grounded or delayed thousands of flights.
