Due to "whiteout" conditions, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Missouri State Highway Patrol closed down I-70 between mile marker 148 in Kingdom City and marker 128 in Columbia for about 11 minutes Thursday.
MoDOT Assistant District Maintenance Engineer Jason Shafer said the decision was made to close the road in the interest of public safety.
"It's kind of a flat open spot there and 70, and with the amount of wind we had it was blowing snow back across the road, it was pretty much a whiteout condition there for a few minutes, the visibility was 0; there's nothing there to stop snow from blowing at all."
Westbound and eastbound traffic was detoured to U.S. Highways 63 through Jefferson City and 54 during that time. Lt. Darewin Clardy of the highway patrol's Troop F said conditions cleared and they were able to reopen the road within about 11 minutes, at which point traffic was allowed to trickle through.