MPR’s Marianne Combs reports on gusting winds and drifting snow that trapped hundreds in areas of Minnesota. Combs interviews some of those that were trapped and officials who rescued them.
Considered a winter “bomb” cyclone, the February 22-24, 2019 blizzard brought blinding snowfall and enormous drifts, prompting mass rescues across southern Minnesota. The snow and wind led to extraordinary 5 to 8 feet snow drifts along open-country roads.
SPEAKER 1: State transportation officials are beginning to reopen portions of Interstate 35. MnDOT says travelers now may use the northbound lanes between Albert Lea and Owatonna, but the southbound lanes of that stretch are still closed because of ice and snow drifts.
Many roads remain unsafe to drive on in far Southern Minnesota. Gusting winds and drifting snow trapped hundreds of motorists and others in the past 48 hours. Marianne Combs has this report.
MARIANNE COMBS: Despite warnings from the National Weather Service and major media outlets, some people still felt compelled to get in their cars and go until they couldn't go any farther. In Freeborn County, that's led to the largest county-wide rescue effort in at least 25 years.
Sheriff Kurt Freitag says between his department and the National Guard, they rescued 87 people who were stranded in their vehicles. Freitag says in some cases, it tested their limits.
KURT FREITAG: We had our tracked ATV. It seats five. It has a heater, and it's relatively comfortable, but we had 11 people in there. It's supposed to seat five.
MARIANNE COMBS: Freitag says at one point, an ambulance responded to an urgent medical call in Emmons, near the Iowa border, but was blocked by a large snowdrift just south of Albert Lea. He says the National Guard's Delta Company came to the rescue in their small unit support vehicle or SUSV.
KURT FREITAG: And they drove to the ambulance, picked up the paramedics, and then drove all the way to Emmons to provide medical care and then to transport the patient all the way back to the ambulance so that they could get them to the ER.
MARIANNE COMBS: More than 70 people ended up taking shelter at the armory in Albert Lee, where Freitag says the Red cross, Salvation Army, and Public Health Department were all hard at work.
KURT FREITAG: Everybody's got cots. Everybody's got blankets. They're being fed. Lunch today is chicken. We've got hygiene products for everybody. So it's kind of cool. We planned for this. And this is the first time that we've done it on a larger scale, and wow, did a great job.
MARIANNE COMBS: Elsewhere in Southern Minnesota, St. Cloud state's hockey team, the Huskies, were making their way home after locking up their third NCHC Conference Championship in Omaha. Senior defenseman and team captain Jimmy [? Schulte ?] describes what happened as they approached Mankato.
[? JIMMY SCHULTE: ?] Unfortunately, we went through one snow drift that was pretty tall but manageable. And then once we got through there, it became visible that there was a much bigger one up ahead, and we were stuck in between the two.
MARIANNE COMBS: The team was stranded for two hours before authorities got them out. They had a hot meal at Watonwan County Jail and waited for the winds to die down before making the rest of the trip home.
On Central Minnesota's Lake Mille Lacs, Megan Larson of Inver Grove Heights was ice fishing with her family from several ice houses. She says her sister decided to head home Saturday night after looking at the radar.
MEGAN LARSON: And my brother was just like oh, we will be fine. Like, it'll be OK. And we're like, OK, whatever. And then the next morning, we woke up and it was just zero visibility.
MARIANNE COMBS: Ultimately, they were just fine after some digging out. But as of this morning, hundreds of anglers were still marooned on ice as drifting snow trapped their cars and trucks and wiped paths off the lake. Department of Natural Resources spokesman Joe Albert says he expects everyone will be plowed out by the end of the day. In the meantime, he says, resort staff have been using snowmobiles to bring food and propane to trapped anglers.
JOE ALBERT: Conservation officers have been out there along with other local law enforcement agencies just making sure that-- checking in on people, making sure they're OK. And a lot of people have decided rather than getting a ride into shore, they want to stay with their car and their fish house and wait to get plowed out.
MARIANNE COMBS: That might in part be due to the good fishing. Megan Larson says she caught six walleye, two of which were keepers.
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