DENVER -- The winter storm moving through Colorado forced Denver officials to close Denver International Airport through Thursday evening.

The DIA Web site indicated the airport was closed "due to whiteout conditions."

"It was impossible for our snow removal crews to safely plow in whiteout conditions," said airport spokesman Steve Snyder. "We've closed Pena Blvd. as well due to whiteout condition. People who want to leave do so at their own risk."

Snyder said the airport would do its best to accommodate people stranded at the airport. DIA will remain closed until Thursday evening, he said. That's when the winter storm is expected to move out of the area.

"All flights have been suspended," he said. "Please do not come out to DIA tomorrow morning, due to ongoing blizzard conditions. "

Prior to that announcement, major airlines serving Colorado's largest airport had already canceled scores of flights, eventually canceling them all. That about 3,000 travelers contemplating spending the night in a chair or on the floor.

The last thing on Sara Kelton's mind was garlands, sugar cookies and Christmas presents.

Instead, the musician from Boulder was looking for a patch of carpet she could stake out for the night, while the blizzard blanketed eastern Colorado, shutting down the airport.

The concourse was packed with stranded travelers who queued up at food stalls and ticket counters, occupied every table and chair, waiting, worrying and using their cell phones to call airlines, motels and relatives. Hundreds lined up for blankets that were handed out by airport workers.

Kelton, 27, planned to spend the night at the airport and try to catch an early morning standby flight to Pennsylvania, where she was to spend the holidays with her family.

For comfort, she had the pillows she'd bought her mother for Christmas; to pass the time, her guitar.

"I'm just happy to be alive. It was a terrifying drive," Kelton said of the two-hour slog over slick, snow-clogged roads. "If I can just get out of here by 6 a.m. tomorrow then I'll be fine."

That probably wouldn't happen.

The Red Cross was summoned to help provide food, and Snyder said concessionaires reported ample supplies to last through Thursday.

Airport officials distributed hundreds of cots and blankets in various colors, along with baby formula and diapers, but there wasn't enough bedding to go around.

"It feels like I'm a refugee," said Lisa Maurer, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming who got stuck on her way home to Germany.

Maurer said she got one of the first 20 blankets distributed. She decided to share the scratchy, bright blue wrap with a woman she'd met in the airport, and the pair planned to bunk on the floor by an elevator.

Stacey Shepard opted for a nearby hotel after spending hours in the terminal with her husband and two young children, hoping to get a flight.

"We have our snacks, our clothes and we have blankets in the car," Shepard said earlier in the day, sitting surrounded by luggage in the terminal.

She helped daughter Ruby, 2, to crackers and granola bars from a pink backpack as the girl shared headphones on a portable DVD player with brother Miller, 4.

Shepard was headed from Fort Collins to Chicago for a midwest holiday visit with relatives. She said the delay cast a pall over the 11-day trip. But she was resigned to the wait.

"I think everyone who got here this morning knew that this was coming," she said.

Airport officials urged travelers to go home or find hotel rooms. They also said anyone traveling on Pena Blvd., would do so at their own peril.

Spokesman Chuck Cannon said the facility only had a few hundred cots and limited supplies of blankets, diapers and baby formula.

But for travelers like Randy Daigle, 32, heading for a hotel room over treacherous roads was not an option. Daigle, his wife and two young sons were headed for Houston to visit Daigle's family through the New Year.

"It's better for them to be here and safe," he said as his boys lay on the airport floor, playing with toys. "We still have high spirits. We're just taking it a little bit at a time. We're just keeping the eye on the prize."

The biggest crowds were in the airport's central concourse, with soaring, tent-like white roof and giant windows giving onto a panorama of blizzard and whiteout.

"It's very surreal," said David Ryan, 35, headed to Frankfurt, Germany. "There's a full-on storm outside and I'm just very fortunate to be in the airport right now."

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