Deer Park Area News and Events

Heavy Snow Hits Deer Park and Area on March 13, 2006

March 2006 Snowstorm
Heavy snow blanketed Deer Park and the surrounding area on March 13, 2006. Here is a scene taken by Lowell Fouks at his farm just west of the village. Note the vehicle buried in the snow.


‘One hell of a mess’
Thursday, March 16, 2006
New Richmond News
By Jeff Holmquist, Karl Puckett, News staff reporters

A pregnant woman, thinking she was about to give birth, was trapped on Interstate 94. An ambulance couldn’t reach her.

A wrecker ran over a semi-truck driver whose vehicle he was trying to pull out of the ditch.

The driver of a milk truck, blinded by white-out conditions, hit the breaks at the last second but couldn’t avoid being hit by a train.

Stories like those abounded Monday, when the nastiest snowstorm in years struck fast and with fury.

School was canceled. Main street was deserted. Hundreds were stuck in the ditch or stranded on major highways. Thousands more lost power to their homes.

Western Wisconsin residents won’t soon forget where they were on March 13, 2006.

“One hell of a mess,” St. Croix County Sheriff Dennis Hillstead said.

Officially, 14 inches of snow fell in New Richmond, according to the National Weather Service.

But the numbers alone don’t capture the impact of a storm that highway and law enforcement officials said was the worst the county has seen in 15 to 20 years.

What brought the county to a standstill, they said, was not necessarily the amount of snow that fell but rather when it hit, how fast it hit and how commuters seemingly weren’t ready.

Jim Harer, patrol superintendent for the county highway department, said he was expecting 7 inches of snow. As much as 20 inches fell in some locations.

“That’s a completely different ballgame,” Harer said.

The wet, heavy snow began pouring from the sky early Monday morning and continued at a clip of about an inch an hour until early afternoon.

Rush-hour commuters got stuck on the highways or slid into ditches. Law enforcement personnel were overwhelmed with calls and they themselves often got stuck. So did wrecker drivers.

“Pretty darn stressful,” Carl Olstad, a 9-1-1 dispatcher at the St. Croix County Communications in Hudson, said of the day coordinating the emergency response efforts.

During Olstad’s shift between 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., the number of calls to the center, combined with dispatches to law enforcement, was almost 700.

“That was just our shift,” he said. “I know the afternoon shift was overwhelmed as well.”

The Sheriff’s Department even dispatched two deputies on snowmobile to reach people on side roads.

Some of the most difficult calls came from motorists who were stuck along an icy, 30-mile stretch between Knapp, which is east of Baldwin, and the Minnesota border.

“It was tough goin’,” Sgt. Dori Pitznick of the Wisconsin State Patrol said.

A woman who was seventh months pregnant dialed 9-1-1 from her vehicle, which was stuck just east of the Baldwin exit. She was convinced she was going to deliver.

A language barrier between dispatchers and the woman, who was Hmong, slowed the response, authorities said. Road conditions hurt the response as well. Finally, a four-wheel drive vehicle with the Baldwin Fire Department was able to reach the woman and transport her to another four-wheel drive vehicle, this one an ambulance, that was waiting off the freeway just down the road, said Craig Nelson, the EMS chief for the village of Baldwin.

“She had been in the car for about seven hours,” Nelson said.

She was transported to the Baldwin hospital. Last Nelson had heard Tuesday, the woman had not delivered.

West of the Baldwin exit in I-94, a tow truck driver accidentally ran over the driver of a tanker truck carrying fuel. The tow truck driver was there to pull the man’s rig out of the ditch.

“It knocked him to the ground,” Nelson said.

He also was taken to the hospital and “is doing pretty good,” Nelson said.

Hillstead said that Adam Deutsch of Menomonie was not injured when the milk truck he was driving was struck by a Canadian National railways train on 150th Avenue at Sandy Creek Road north of Glenwood City.

Because of poor visibility the sheriff said Deutsch didn’t see the train until it was too late.

“Especially in outlying areas, there were so many spots where it was just pure white-out,” Hillstead said.

Area schools called off classes Monday and some took a few hours off Tuesday morning as well.

Brian Johnston, director of building operations for New Richmond schools, said the decision to call of school was easier than most.

“‘Oh man,’” was his reaction when he woke up Monday morning and looked outside. “We probably only had about 4 inches by then, maybe 5, but winds were blowing and visibility was low.”

On Highway 63-64 east of New Richmond, more than two dozen motorists were stranded at several Four Corners businesses as huge snowdrifts stopped people’s plans for the morning.

At the Jorgas II Convenience Store on Highway 63-64, more than 15 people passed the time by reading magazines and watching other motorists struggle in the mess.

“We watch them get stuck and then we welcome them in,” said Chris Aeschliman, 18, a Boyceville High School senior who had been stuck at the station for more than two hours.

The Holiday store across the way was filled with between 40 and 50 people, according to assistant manager Sherry Dunn. Customers used milk crates as make-shift seats, and several were starting a poker game as they waited.

“I told them they had to give me half the winnings,” Dunn said.

Sheryle Schnegelberger, Deer Park, had been waiting out the storm at that business since 7 a.m. Once she got to Four Corners, Schnegelberger said she knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

She remained in high spirits as she waited for help. She wasn’t optimistic that she would be headed home soon, so she made the best of her unscheduled down time.

“I’m visiting with everybody else,” she said. “I’m getting to know my neighbors.”

In the Hudson area, about 5,000 Xcel Energy Customers lost power when a tree fell on a power line, said Xcel spokesperson Chris Ouellette. Power was out for almost two hours; it was restored about 10:24 a.m.

Larry Gilbertson, line superintendent of St. Croix Electric Cooperative, said about 3,000 customers west of Baldwin, as far south as River Falls and north to Somerset were without power for a few hours beginning at 7 a.m. A transmission line circuit opened when ice formed on the three individual lines which caused the lines to begin “galloping.” Eventually, the lines touched, shorted out and twisted together.

Another 250 lost power in scattered outages in the area, according to SCEC.

Content © 2006 The New Richmond News


SNOW CLEAN-UP CONTINUES
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
WXCE Radio

So what are people calling Monday’s record snowfall in Northwest Wisconsin? That depends on where you live. In some parts of our region, they’re calling it a pain in the rear-end, such as in The tiny-town of Gile in Iron County was the award-winner for snowfall totals so far with a total of 32-inches yesterday. The Town of Mellen in Ashland County had 27 inches, and the dig-out continues. While most people were inconvenienced at least, students in many school districts are calling it a gift as school was called off without exception from Chisago City to Barron. But all in all, the March 13th near-blizzard was a test for man and machine as some parts of the area got up two feet of snow yesterday - and most of it will stay around all week. Temperatures in the north are not expected to reach the 30's until Saturday. That means most of the 23-inches that fell at Haugen – in northern Barron County won't go anywhere. Ditto for the 19-inches in Rice Lake, and 17 at Clear Lake. New Richmond had nearly 14-inches, as did Amery. Luck had over a foot of snow, and yet some parts of the region had just a few inches. Traffic issues - Afternoon rush-hour commuters ran into a nightmare going from the Twin Cities to western Wisconsin. Traffic on Interstate-94 had thirty-mile back-ups in each direction in Saint Croix County at Hudson. That's also where a milk truck collided with a passing train in near-whiteout conditions at Glenwood City. No one was hurt, and the D-N-R cleaned up three-thousand gallons of diesel fuel that spilled. Drifting got so bad that plows from Washburn and Barron counties quit early, before they could get stuck. But conditions were worse in parts of neighboring Minnesota. X-Cel Energy called in workers from Wisconsin and as far away as the Dakotas to help restore power in the Twin Cities area. Power outages were significant in the area south of Taylors Falls, that after a powerline fell under the load of heavy snow and closed State Highway 95 for much of the day. Up to 13,000 people in that area were without power because of the powerline fall. Road Issues - The road situation was so bad in parts of the region that many roads were just closed outright. Washburn County Sheriff Terry Dryden closed all county roads early Monday. St. Croix County Highway Commissioner Tim Ramberg says hundreds of drivers were trapped on I-94 Monday morning – among them were the road crews meant to alleviate the problem.Ramberg said it was coming down at over an inch an hour. Stretches of US Highway 8 in Barron County were closed for several hours, also. Barron County Sheriff Tom Richie is defending his decisions to close a number of roads in his county, and left over 200 vehicles in the ditches. Sheriff Richie said that over 30 vehicles were stuck dead in their tracks in and around Poskin, making it impossible to get emergency vehicles through. Besides Highway 8’s closure, portions of State Highways 53, 48 and 25 were closed in Barron County as well for a spell. The Minnesota State Patrol had their work cut out for them, as well. The State Patrol has tallied up the number of storm-related accidents reported between six Monday morning and 4:30 that afternoon. There were around 300 crashes statewide involving property damage or injuries and there were another 400-plus vehicles that ended up in ditches. Closures and cancellations aplenty - Many school districts are still closed today, as the clean-up continues from the Monday snows. Schools closed today include Amery, Clear Lake, Clayton, Turtle Lake, Ricer Lake, Barron, Cumberland, Cameron and Chetek. Half-a-dozen schools had late starts. The two biggest school districts in the area – Hudson and River Falls - were already off for spring break. Finally- Some folks in Northern Minnesota saw a rare weather occurrence following the big snowstorm. Some very wet, wind-whipped snowballs were seen rolling across fields like Arctic tumbleweeds. George Rybakowski saw it north of Thief River Falls, saying some of the snowballs got as big as basketballs. By the way, meteorologist Mike Westendorf says there is a possibility of more heavy snow in the coming week. Keep the plows mounted.


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