OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) -- More than 300 students and chaperones from an Omaha church group were stranded in rural Pennsylvania for more than 19 hours.
"I was hoping that, by the time we wake up, we'd start moving and stuff, but we woke up and we were still stuck here," said Molly Sambol, a junior at Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Omaha.
A winter storm of epic proportions is battering the east coast, leaving many motorists stranded.
Molly Sambol and her group were attending the March for Life in Washington D.C.
The group was supposed to stay in the nation’s capital until Saturday night, but with the storm quickly approaching, they decided to leave Friday.
After driving two hours out, the conditions worsened, leaving the busses full of students stranded on the turnpike.
Sambol said they are making the best of it.
"One of the first things we did this morning was come outside and play in the snow, so that was fun," Sambol said.
Students have passed the time by watching movies and playing cards in the comfort of their heated bus.
Priests facilitated mass outside in the snow. "They built like, an altar out of snow and they had some twigs together to make a cross," Sambol said.
With food, water and a heated bus, parents like Dave Arkfeld are not worried about their kid.
"We wondered if they would make, persay a ‘run for it’ or you know, stay after,” Arkfeld said. “I think they made the right decision choice to be honest with you. There's just some things out of their control that happened ahead of them that you know, bogged everybody down."
Sambol said the busses began moving again around 3 p.m. after being stalled for almost 19 hours.
The group has made arrangements at a hotel in Bedford, Pa., where they plan to stay one night, with travel conditions to be reevaluated Sunday morning.
