Bus passengers left stranded for days at station in California in freak winter storm

• Dozens of passengers were left stranded in a Sacramento bus station after highways closed this week.
• Travelers at the station said Sacramento was helpful in providing necessities, but still said the experience was a nightmare.

Dozens of travelers in California were forced to stay overnight at a bus station, as winter weather shut down highways and halted travel.

According to local news station KCRA, about 50 travelers were stuck overnight at a Greyhound station in Sacramento this week after their buses were either canceled or delayed. Some would-be passengers slept at the station for days, KCRA reported.

Winter storms closed freeways and canceled several Greyhound routes on the West Coast into this weekend, as unusual snowfall continues across California. This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom placed 13 California counties under a state of emergency due to winter weather.

Although Sacramento was not under a state of emergency this week, winter weather and closed freeways still left travelers stranded at the Greyhound station.

"There were a lot of folks that had been here for a couple days, some of them with limited access to food and water, so we initiated a shelter-in-place operation," Daniel Bowers, director of the City of Sacramento's Office of Emergency Management KCRA.

According to Bowers, stranded travelers were better off sheltering in place. He told KCRA the city worked with the Red Cross to provide necessities like blankets to the passengers at the station.

"This is the location that they want to be because their buses may depart or may not depart. They want to have that information readily available to them," Bowers told KCRA.

One traveler at the station told KCRA that being stranded was miserable, but the city was accommodating under the circumstances. A local restaurant provided hot meals to the passengers while they were stuck.

"It was very helpful, and we truly are in appreciation of everything that Sacramento is doing," traveler Barbara Frederick said. "It was very, very, very heartwarming."

It's just one in a string of recent travel fiascos, after winter weather caused headaches and created dangerous conditions across the country last month.

According to CBS, Greyhound service resumed Wednesday at the Sacramento station — not soon enough for many travelers.

"The chairs in here are all wired, metal and they're hard. They're stiff and they don't recline. There's nothing soft in here," Daniel Woodward told CBS of the Sacramento bus station.