BLIZZARD TAXES RESCUERS; AT LEAST 8 KILLED IN MASSIVE STORM THAT HITS ROCKIES, PLAINS.

Byline: Martha Bellisle Associated Press 

Rescuers used helicopters, snowmobiles and military vehicles Sunday to pick up snowbound travelers and residents left without heat by a record blizzard that piled snowdrifts up to 15 feet high.

By Sunday night, all stranded motorists were believed to have been rescued, said David Holm, chief of operations for the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. He said a few hunters remained missing and crews would resume searching today.

At least eight people died during the storm.

In Colorado, four people were found dead in their cars and were believed to have died from freezing or carbon monoxide poisoning.

An unattended candle supplying light in a house without power started a fire that killed one woman in Omaha, Neb.; it took firefighters about half an hour to reach the house because of the weather.

Grand Island, Neb., police say 50-year-old James Coon died Sunday of an apparent heart attack while snow-blowing his property.

An 11-year-old boy from tiny Stratton in eastern Colorado died Sunday at Children's Hospital in Denver after he spent a night in the cold, a hospital spokeswoman. The boy got lost sledding Saturday, Denver's KMGH-TV reported.

The body of a Texas County, Oklahoma, woman who tried to walk home in a blizzard was found Sunday buried under about 18 inches of snow less than a mile from her home, authorities said. Irene Fast, 77, tried to walk home after her car got stuck in a snowdrift Saturday.

The blizzard that blew through the Rockies and onto the Plains on Saturday left as much as 50 inches of snow in the Colorado Rockies, 22 inches in parts of Denver and 35 inches in the city's suburbs.

The storm had moved eastward Sunday and snow fell from eastern Kansas through Missouri and Iowa into Wisconsin and eastern Michigan. Heavy snow had fallen in Utah on Friday and flakes fell as far south as the Texas Panhandle on Saturday.

Thousands of customers were without electricity for light and heat Sunday in Nebraska and Iowa.

Hundreds of miles of highways remained closed Sunday, including one 185-mile stretch of Interstate 80 across eastern Nebraska, and some travelers in Kansas were stymied by 4-foot drifts.

At least 1,000 vehicles abandoned in the snow made it difficult for Colorado crews to plow out a 160-mile stretch of Interstate-25 that was closed from south of Denver to near the New Mexico state line, said Bill Vidal, executive director of the state transportation department.

``The problem is locating the drivers or getting wreckers to move them out of the way,'' Vidal said after flying over the region by helicopter Sunday with Gov. Roy Romer.

I-25 reopened Sunday afternoon.

In Denver, most of the city's major and secondary roads had been plowed open by Sunday afternoon, mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson said.

Airlines began restoring flights Sunday out of Denver International Airport, which had been shut down since Saturday, said airport spokesman Chuck Cannon. Hundreds of would-be passengers were stranded at the airport overnight by snow-choked roads.

It was the biggest October snowfall on record for Colorado and one of the state's five worst for any time of year, said forecaster Chad Gimmestad at the National Weather Service. Snow fell at a rate of about an inch an hour Sunday in Omaha, where the 9.5 inches by midday was a record for the date.

While many people blamed the violent storm on the El Nino weather phenomenon - expected to cause a wet and stormy winter in the West - Gimmestad said meteorologists in Denver weren't ready to place blame for the blizzard.

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Photo: Ryan Hyde, 11, left and his sister Maureen, 9, scoop snow off their parents' car in Denver on Sunday.