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Updated 10:51 AM- Valentine's Day will be celebrated a day late at Ridgeline and Cedar Valley Elementary Schools after a blizzard forced the Alpine School District to close the two schools Thursday.

According to district spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley, 99 people, including 65 students, spent the night stranded at Ridgeline Elementary in Highland near the Micron campus due to high winds, blowing snow and road closures. The last student was picked up at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Some students were stuck on stranded busses during the storm. Volunteers on four-wheelers got to the stranded kids, bringing them food and water. They were stuck for two to three hours before the bus drivers managed to get them back to their schools.

"A lot of kids thought it was a great adventure," said Bromley. "They were hungry and needed to use the rest room. But volunteers and the bus drivers had them singing songs and playing games and tried to ease their concerns. Some were scared, but the bottom line is that all were safe and accounted for."

Bromley had praise for volunteers who showed up to help the stranded kids by bringing blankets, sleeping bags and food to the school. Bromley said Kohler's, the only grocery store in the Highland area, contributed, as did many PTA volunteers. She called the response impressive and said it brought the community together.

One of the problems is that the storm closed many roads in the Traverse Mountain and Suncrest areas, making it impossible for parents to get out of their houses to pick up students or in some cases to return home. Kids at the school spent the night watching movies and playing games.

School officials and administrators assessed the situation at 4 a.m. Thursday, consulting the Utah Department of Transportation and weather forecasters before meeting at 5 a.m. to decide which schools to close and which to delay openings.

Harvest, Pony Express, Saratoga Shores and Fox Hollow Elementary Schools delayed opening until 11 a.m. with bus service starting at 10:30 a.m.

A http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/slc/" Target="_BLANK">National Weather Service storm warning remains effective until 11 a.m. from Interstate 80 south to Cedar City. Half a foot or more of snow is expected during the day.

Overnight snow totals ranged as high as 21 inches in the Tooele Valley and a foot at spots in the Salt Lake Valley. Mountain snow totals were in the foot to foot and a half range at various ski resorts. The Utah Highway Patrol said there were about 90 crashes from 8 p.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Thursday. UHP reported another 30 cars slid off roads in that span. Some TRAX trains, meanwhile, ran just one-car long on some trips during the early hours of the commute due to mechanical problems, but normal loads were expected to resume by late morning, a spokeswoman said.

Two jack-knifed semitrailers blocked several northbound lanes near Point of the Mountain, about 5:30 p.m., said UHP spokesman Cameron Roden. Traffic remained bumper to bumper throughout the evening on I-15 and State Road 92 near Alpine.

As the storm blew in late Wednesday, many motorists were caught off-guard. More than a dozen vehicles piled up in a chain-reaction crash on State Road 73 in Utah County near Saratoga Springs, but no major injuries were reported. Ten-foot snowdrifts buried some cars on that road, which remained closed into the night, said Utah County sheriff's Lt. Wally Perschon.

At one point, search and rescue crews on snowmobiles were going car to car checking on motorists, he said. Snowplows were beginning to make their way through the area at the same time.

In southern Utah, about 70 UDOT snowplows were clearing Interstate 15 from Scipio to St. George, where snow totals varied from several inches to more than a foot from Wednesday's storm.

Dan Webster, UDOT safety coordinator for the region, said that plows were called out at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and were still plowing Thursday with the worst spots being north of Beaver to Kanosh in Millard County where the freeway is snowpacked.

Webster said there were numerous vehicle slideoffs during the storm Wednesday night, but no serious injuries.

"When the front came over it was wild," he said. "For a while it was snowing horizontally instead of vertically."

He said crews were bracing for another squall to blow through later Thursday.

As the cold front moves to the Colorado mountains today, a high-pressure system takes hold in Utah. High temperatures will be about 27 in Salt Lake City today. Sunny skies will warm the air a few degrees each day through the weekend.