MPR’s Mark Steil reports from Worthington, detailing stranded motorists and power outages as a blizzard moves through Minnesota, with up to a foot of snow.
Termed a “Land Hurricane," the storm swept across the state dropping heavy snow. Winds gusted up to 60 mph over parts of central and southern Minnesota. Storm’s also noteworthy for the all-time lowest barometric pressure record (the 28.43 reading at Austin and Albert Lea broke the old record of 28.55 that was set in Duluth on January 11, 1975).
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MARK STEIL: As much as 10 inches of snow are already on the ground in Southwest Minnesota and Eastern South Dakota, winds have gusted to near 60 miles an hour most of the day, and many roads have drifted shut. No travel is advised.
Interstate 90 is closed from Jackson, Minnesota west to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Tim Salter left his home in Adrian, Minnesota, this morning, heading to work in Sioux Falls.
As he approached the South Dakota border, traffic on I-90 came to a standstill. A jackknifed truck blocked traffic. Salter waited three hours in his car before a National Guard rescue vehicle took him to the nearby town of Beaver Creek.
TIM SALTER: I suppose right now, we've probably got 10 to 12 inches in the area, and it's still blowing gusts. Last I heard 45 miles an hour. Visibility is not too bad. We can see a little ways. Not too far, but here we are at a convenience store, eating all their hot dogs.
MARK STEIL: Motorist Brent Panic was in a four-wheel-drive truck heading for Wyoming. He stopped in Worthington for coffee, then decided to drive on despite blizzard conditions.
BRENT PANIC: Drove on all the way to La Verne and it was quite a trip. It took like two hours and it was really unsafe doing it. I probably shouldn't have done it anyway because it was pretty nasty travel.
MARK STEIL: Scattered power outages have also been reported. More than 1,000 customers of Sioux Valley southwestern Electric Cooperative along the Minnesota South Dakota border have lost electricity. An official with the company says getting to the outages is the biggest problem, as even heavy four-wheel-drive repair trucks are having difficulty breaking through the drifts. This is Mark Steil, Minnesota Public Radio.