Snowstorm shuts down Denver airport DENVER (AP) =97 Two Frontier Airlines jets full of passengers turned around= =20 mid-flight and 1,000 travelers were stranded as a storm dumped snow at=20 about 2 inches an hour Tuesday at Denver International Airport. United,=20 Frontier, American and Northwest airlines stopped flights, airport=20 spokesman Steve Snyder said. The airport eventually shut down overnight=20 Tuesday and was expected to remain closed much of Wednesday. Frontier's=20 decision forced jetliners to return to San Francisco and Los Angeles. As=20 many as 400 people waited up to two hours for taxis to take them to hotels.= =20 Some gave up and decided to stay at the airport. "I'm camping out," said=20 Joy Ames, whose flight to Bozeman, Mont., was postponed until at least=20 Wednesday night. "I'll just read, I guess." Rich Magrath and Jay Jumper=20 were in Denver on business when the their flight to Atlanta was canceled.=20 "We just rented a car. The alternative was to stay here until Friday,"=20 Magrath said. "At some point, Mother Nature calls the shots, and she's=20 giving us a pretty good punch right now," Snyder said. The storm was expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow in parts of metro=20 Denver by Wednesday, with several feet expected in the mountains. Snowplows= =20 struggled to keep runways clear and roads to the airport open, before it=20 eventually closed during the overnight hours. Airport officials were having= =20 trouble finding shuttles and cabs to transport people out of the concourses. A blizzard in October 1997 paralyzed Denver and forced a technical closure= =20 of the airport, in which runways were open but no flights were scheduled.=20 Back then, some 3,000 travelers were stranded and had to rely on coats and= =20 other winter gear for bedding. On Tuesday, the airport had a cache of=20 bottled water and diapers along with 1,000 blankets and 850 cots. "In an=20 incident like this, it probably isn't going to be enough," Snyder said.=20 "Our No. 1 priority is to get them to hotels and keep other travelers from= =20 coming here." Some vendors were prepared for an onslaught of stranded=20 passengers. Besides yogurt, the TCBY at the main terminal was selling=20 muffins, bagels and warm drinks, including coffee. A special crew was=20 scheduled to arrive in the afternoon to keep the store open around the=20 clock, said manager Kurt Hartnett. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.thehummingbirdonline.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************