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MARK STEIL: It was already snowing in Nebraska when David Poole began his business calls Thursday. Poole lives near the Twin Cities in the town of Waconia. He works for a company that makes conveyor equipment for moving feed and other agricultural products.

As he headed home through northwest Iowa, the storm intensified. By the time he got to Minnesota late in the afternoon, many roads were closed, barricaded. Poole says he kept pushing his car ahead anyway.

DAVID POOLE: I tried to be one of those goofy guys that you don't have to look at these dumb road closures and try to make it around on county roads, where I should have been smart and stayed there.

MARK STEIL: Poole says the main reason he kept going was he wanted to see his family, including children ages two and four The drifts were still small, and he figured he could make it. The weather, though, was uncooperative.

DAVID POOLE: As it got later in the day, the snow just got higher and higher. It was whiteouts a lot of the time. But you'd hit some of the snow drifts, and the snow would come up over your hood. And you wouldn't know if you were still going straight or sideways or what direction you were going at that point.

MARK STEIL: Poole says the scariest part of his journey was when he realized he had no choice but to keep driving. He figured any slowdown meant getting stuck in open country. He guided by fence posts, electric poles, and other things still visible above the deep snow.

DAVID POOLE: I'm the only one on the road at that point, and you're hitting drifts that are going up to the hood of your car. The snow is causing the alternator and the lights to dim a little bit. And you know at that point, you're just stupid being out there. So St. James here was the first place that I could get off.

MARK STEIL: All the motels were full, so Poole found himself at the local National Guard armory. He says he was happy to spend the night sleeping on a cot in a room full of strangers. Others got stuck in the storm as well. But overall, state officials seem happy that many more people got off the roads.

By Friday afternoon, most state highways were open, including I-90 in southern Minnesota. Craig Gertsema is a MNDOT highway supervisor in southwest Minnesota. As he drives his pickup south of Marshall, he likes what he sees.

Speaking by cell phone, he says he's noticed only a few cars in the ditch.

CRAIG GERTSEMA: The roads are pretty treacherous. We closed them down, and the plows weren't out. So there was some deep snow on the road. But my guys have done a really good job getting the roads cleaned.

There's still a lot of compaction and ice on the roads, but they're passable. And as long as you take your time and aren't in a hurry, you should be able to get where you're going.

MARK STEIL: Gertsema says the cleanup work shows just how dangerous a storm can be. As his workers started plowing early in the morning, conditions were much better than what drivers like David Poole faced during the height of the storm. The snow had almost stopped. Blowing snow was still a problem, though.

Gertsema says one of his drivers lost his sense of direction in a snow cloud and went off the road. Reporting from Worthington, Mark Steil, Minnesota Public Radio News.