The Great Dig Out

The snow has ended, and yes, it's the biggest snow fall at one time since 1991, so there are great many in Minnesota who have never seen anything like this. The snow falls range across the Metro area from 15 - 20 inches depending upon one's location.

The Vikings were to play the Giants today, but the New York team got diverted to the Kansas City airport. The game was re-scheduled for Monday evening to give them time for travel. However, last night the roof on the MetroDome collapsed due to the weight of the snow. This is the first time that has happened since the early 1980s. So the game will be on Monday, but in Detroit.

Last evening the snow emergency started and our area did get plowing on the north-south streets as expected. That doesn't help this area much because the north-south streets are only one block long. Everything here runs on east-west streets, which are plowed secondly.In the afternoon plows came to do the east-west street, and we got cleaned up very well.

Cars on east-west streets have to be moved today. This photo shows just how much fun this is. I saw something truly amazing. One guy waited until most everyone had moved their cars, and then managed to get his car out of drifted snowbank and moved away using only his hands and feet to dig, supplemented by a window brush. He wasn't the only one who had only a window brush as a tool. I expect there will be a few shoppers for snow shovels in the next few days.

About once a week the 911 folks show up to go to the building at the end of the street. They appeared this morning and I wondered what they would do. Well, the first rule obviously is: "Don't get the ambulance stuck." The ambulance was left on the corner and the EMS personnel walked down the street.

This photo was taken about 9 AM this morning. That is morning sun shining between the buildings.

Walked down to the mailbox and looked out the back. There are some snow drifts out there about 4 feet high from the wind blowing the snow across the river. The building is the first thing to stop the snow and it really piled up. Looks like a good old-fashioned winter!

Updates: All three services of my church were canceled because the streets in the are were not plowed.  I can't ever remember that happening before. And St. Paul declared a 2nd day of snow emergency so that plows can go over all the streets again and try to remove snow in places the cars were not cleared simply because so many were stuck and not yet moved. I've not been out of the house for two days and won't be tomorrow either since everyone from work is to come here for a party honoring our retiring Dean. From what I've read the downtown area must be a mess with traffic down to one lane on many streets until greater snow removal can occur.

Now at 11 PM the plows are back out the door here trying to clean up some of the mess.