ODESSA, Texas — For some West Texans, the day before New Year's Eve was spent trapped with nowhere to go.
"Oh my God. I wanted to pull my hair out cause I was like, I can't take it anymore," Denisse Nieves, stranded driver, said.
When they hit the road, the Nieves family thought their drive from Gardendale to El Paso would be uneventful.
"It was dark already, it was cold. We were trying to make it with the gas," Nieves said.
But it wasn't. Their five hour road trip turned into 15 hours.
They were driving along fine until I-20 turned into I-10.
"We were driving on a road that is supposed to be a 70, 80 mile per hour (road). We were going 10, 15 miles per hour, one behind the other because it was really bad. You couldn't really see the lanes or where you were going ...and then as soon as we got to I-10, that's when we stopped," Nieves said.
And it wasn't just the Nieves family. It was hundreds of others too, including Jordan Cummings.
"I've driven through snow before, but I've never driven in complete basic white out conditions. I mean you couldn't see more than 2 feet in front of the truck," stranded driver Cummings said.
He was driving the opposite direction, from El Paso to Odessa.
Both groups saw semis spill over into shallow banks and people turning on and off their cars to save gas.
"My daughter woke up and she was like, 'Mommy, please I want to go to bed, I want to go home' and I was like we can't do anything baby. We can't move. We have trucks behind us, next to us, in front of us," Nieves said.
The Nieves family wasn't able to move their car until 7 a.m. Thursday.
But they did finally make it to El Paso. However, the trip may have spoiled some of those New Year's celebrations.
"I just don't even feel like celebrating New Years right now. I just feel like going to sleep and just wake up and okay it's New Years," Nieves said.
Thankfully everyone made it through the storm, but they did get an ending to a year they'll never forget.