GALENA ? A winter storm that plastered southern Kansas with 5 to 15 inches of snow lumbered eastward out of the state Tuesday, leaving behind hundreds of motor vehicles damaged in accidents and some road crews facing a not-so-merry Christmas.

At least three traffic deaths, all occurring Monday in south-central Kansas, were blamed on the storm, which hit the state with a one-two punch Monday afternoon and again early Tuesday.

Snowfall was heaviest in the state’s corners, with smaller amounts in between.

Liberal recorded 7 to 8 inches, Pittsburg had 10 inches by the time the storm trailed off Tuesday morning, and the Cherokee County town of Chetopa was buried by 15 inches of snow, said Joe Engle, a Pittsburg-based area maintenance supervisor for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

The department put crews on 12-hour shifts that began Monday morning in an effort to stay ahead of the storm with salt and cinders, and to clear the roads after it. The work was to continue (today), Engle said.

“We’ll be out ’til it’s cleaned up,” Engle said Tuesday afternoon during a brief break from repairing a plow truck that broke down earlier in the day.

Employees are familiar with the drill, he said.

“Nobody likes it, but they know it’s their job, their responsibility,” Engle said. “If something happens where we can break them loose so they can spend some time with their families, we’d like to. But that’s not necessarily going to be the case.”

The disabled truck had broken down around 11 a.m. in Galena, about 30 miles south of Pittsburg. The truck’s crew waited more than two hours for a tow but remained in good spirits, knowing that wreckers were in high demand.

“Got no choice. We just gotta keep mushing,” said Jeff James as he stood on a Galena street behind the truck, its plow already transferred to a flat bed to make for easier towing.

The needs of some Christmas Eve shoppers notwithstanding, few vehicles were moving through Galena. Many stores had closed early — or hadn’t opened at all.

Cameron Matthews, front, Kristen Keilhorn, center, and Evan Matthews slide down a hill in Winfield after heavy snowfall. Residents of south Kansas were hit with snow Monday just in time for the holiday rush. Not everybody welcomed the snow; road crews were busy Monday and Tuesday, and slick roads caused many accidents, including at least three fatalities.

Traffic was generally scant throughout the four counties in the transportation department’s Pittsburg-based region, Engle said.

“With this storm, surprisingly, a lot of people apparently stayed in,” Engle said.

That was just as well, given the conditions Tuesday morning. A couple of transportation department trucks slipped off the pavement and onto the shoulders of roads they were treating as the snow reached blinding strength, Engle said.

Hundreds of accidents, most of them minor, were reported across southern Kansas during the first snows on Monday.

Near Medicine Lodge, about 70 miles southwest of Wichita, an elderly Attica couple died in a crash Monday afternoon on U.S. 160 in Barber County. The Kansas Highway Patrol said Kenneth Trantham, 80, and Agnes Trantham, 77, were killed when their car went out of control on the snowy highway and slid into the path of a pickup truck.

Interstate 135 in Wichita was partially closed for about two hours Monday evening when a car entering the highway spun out of control and was hit by a pickup truck. A passenger in the car, Christa M. Stannard, 21, of Andover, was killed, the patrol said.

And in Oklahoma’s Pawnee County, a Wichita woman was fatally injured Monday afternoon when her vehicle collided with a tractor-trailer on the Cimarron Turnpike. Monica G. Quintus, 38, died at a Pawnee hospital following the 2 p.m. accident, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.