Winter roars in, people dig out

The double whammy of winter storms on either side of Thanksgiving Day will surely be remembered by those who endured it. Some were lucky enough to be nestled with friends and family for what turned out to be a weeklong holiday for school kids. Others dealt with trying to dig themselves out and get to work or attend to other essential business as the blizzard that hit Saturday and into Sunday dropped 13 to 20 inches on Carlton County. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 26-27, the first significant snowfall hit the region as about 8 inches piled up in time to snarl Thanksgiving travel plans.

Carlton County escaped the largest snow totals in the region, according to the National Weather Service. In Duluth, about 24 inches fell while farther up the shore, inland from Two Harbors and Silver Bay, 36 inches was reported. No matter where you live, there was a lot of snow.

Things got bad enough during the weekend blizzard to close down Interstate 35 from 6 p.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday on the stretch from Mahtowa to Thompson Hill in Duluth. Chris Cheney, a maintenance superintendent with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said stalled cars and "zero visibility" for tow truck drivers forced the State Patrol to close the interstate. It is believed that it's the first time the roadway has been closed since the Halloween blizzard in 1991.

Despite warnings far in advance, drivers still tried to brave the storm.

Troopers dealt with 10 crashes and 36 vehicles stuck on the interstate or just off it. There was one crash with an injury, the state patrol reported.

The Cloquet police department said it dealt with three dozen weather-related calls beginning Wednesday and through the second storm.

"A lot of people took the storm for granted initially, then ended up stranded or in the ditch," said interim police chief Derek Randall. "Unfortunately, other calls for service and crime don't stop during a storm, so it was an added stressor, especially because those cars could become a hindrance and a safety risk."

Hustling to the hospital

Things were abnormal at Cloquet's Community Memorial Hospital, where staff members went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure patients were taken care of and the hospital was a safe and secure place to be.

Jason Peterson, director of environmental services (responsible for housekeeping, custodians and more), snowmobiled in from Barnum at midnight Saturday because none of his staff could get to the hospital. He made it despite heavy snow that was blowing sideways due to high winds. He cleaned rooms and shoveled throughout the night.

Health unit coordinator Eric Simon stayed to clean rooms and scrub toilets, not part of his usual clerical job duties for the unit.

Dr. William Haug, an emergency room doctor who lives in Duluth, walked a half-mile in waist-deep snow to get an Uber to get to CMH. Fellow doctor Jeff Rapp drove on a mostly deserted and partially buried I-35 to get there. Director of emergency services Etta Souder also made her way in and worked.

Dr. Ken Ripp had to ski to the hospital twice during the storm. On Saturday night he was the overnight doctor and got stuck trying to back into the street from his driveway. On Sunday, after he finished his shift, he returned on skis to deliver a baby.

Although he is an avid cross country skier and lives a little more than a mile from the hospital, it was the first time Ripp had ever skied to work. He said he skied down the middle of streets to get there. The wind was at his back on the way in Saturday night. The return trip home in the morning was tough, he said.

Then he got a call from a nurse at about 1 p.m. Sunday. A woman was in labor and on her way to the hospital in an ambulance that was struggling to get there. Again, he donned his skis. Luckily, a snowmobile had gone down the road and compacted the snow, and Ripp said he made good time getting back for the birth.

"Both mom and baby were fine," Ripp said. The baby was sent to Duluth in one ambulance and mom followed in another ambulance.

"It was a war zone there," Ripp said of the snow snarl in Duluth. "She ended up walking the last two blocks because the ambulance couldn't get through."

In the meantime, a total of 28 CMH staff members who couldn't get home continued to work and slept on the floor and in reclining lounge chairs. Pat McCoy, the director of nutritional services, came in and opened the kitchen to serve meals.

"Throughout the storm, everyone at the hospital did what they had to do," Ripp said. "Every spare bed taken, you'd open a door and someone would be lying there. But no one complained. They knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure."

Complicated removal

Local industry didn't stop, either. Sappi interim mill manager Tom Radovich praised his staff and Kiminski Paving, which did a good job of keeping the roads clear enough to keep the mill running.

"They're probably regretting that (contract) now," he said with a chuckle. "Our site is challenging, it's so spread out, with lots of doorways, overhead doors, and we need to get trucks in and out. The question after a while is where do you put the snow? We have lots of piles of snow."

Radovich said about 250 logging trucks come and go from the site every day, and nearly as many trucks leave the Sappi mill loaded with paper products.

Some supervisors went to pick up workers who couldn't get out of their driveways. "We didn't slow down at all.," Radovich said.

Digging out

The blizzard ended Sunday morning and then it was time to dig out. With drifts 3 and 4 feet high, it was slow going for people and plows.

Cloquet public works director Caleb Peterson said the city had to change its usual plowing strategy to tackle the 77 miles of streets and 5 miles of alleys it plows, along with numerous parking lots.

"On Sunday alone, we had to pull trucks out 29 times," Peterson told the Cloquet City Council Tuesday. "We found out really quickly that due to the depth and the density of the snow, our normal plowing operations wouldn't suffice."

Normally, the Cloquet crews plow with both a front and wing plow down. They couldn't move doing that on Sunday, with the volume of snow. A grader went down the middle of streets to "punch down one lane," then plow trucks would come along and widen the path. "What would usually take one or two passes became four or five passes," Peterson said.

City staff also had to work a lot of overtime - 440 hours among 17 employees - between cleaning up after Wednesday's storm on Thanksgiving Day and the blizzard Saturday into Sunday. The smaller city crews couldn't work around the clock, but they worked long hours, including 16 hours on Sunday, when they were still clearing side streets in the heart of town after 5 p.m. Peterson said the city threw everything it had at the snow, including some plows that were semi-retired, to get the roads clear as fast as possible.

Most county roads and city streets were cleared with at least one pass of a plow by late Monday, with most city streets widened beyond that but still narrowed by the mounds of snow along each side.

"We lost all our snow storage in one storm," Peterson said. In short, there's no place along streets for snow to go, so removal will be done throughout the month.

Weather permitting, he said city crews will get the main roads cleared, then spend a few weeks clearing all the city streets of the extra snow, and carrying it away to make space for the next big storm.

"Staff and I got a chance to sit down the morning and regroup," Peterson said Tuesday. "We're pretty happy with where we're at, especially if you look at the surrounding communities."

Pine Knot News reporter Mike Creger contributed to this story