To my fellow Minnesotans...Halloween Blizzard '91

Can you believe it's already been 18 years since the Halloween blizzard?

That evening, it took me two and a half hours to make the drive from my job in Bloomington to my home in Coon Rapids - normally a half-hour drive. I have pictures of the following day where you can barely see our car parked in front of our house.

Being very pregnant at the time, Mr. Rosie would not let me shovel any snow. A mixed blessing, it would have been nice to be able to say I helped shovel the two feet of snow we got that night.

Anyone else have memories of that night?

 

Re: To my fellow Minnesotans...

The snow wouldn't stop. It just kept coming. I didn't have a snowblower and shoveling the alley so I could get one of the cars in the garage where we lived in Minneapolis was brutal.

Then it went below zero and everything froze.

Wiki says 22 people died as a result of the storm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Blizzard

The snow band

 

Re: To my fellow Minnesotans...

I lived in western Wisconsin and I remember the snow coming down. You couldn't tell what anyone's Halloween costume was because everyone was walking in a heavy jacket and winter boots.

 

Re: To my fellow Minnesotans...

I love this thread!

I remember being in school that day, a Thursday, and it started snowing around lunch. We went trick or treating that evening and I kept joking to my friend that school would be canceled the next day. Well, it was. Monday was canceled, too, and we got out of school at lunch on Tuesday. So if that baby had happened on a Sunday, we would have missed an entire week of school!

There was just so much ... snow. I literally spent almost the whole weekend shoveling, and I loved it. You couldn't even tell where roads were because the crews in Duluth simply couldn't keep up. Just a sea of white. Of course, my mom still figured out a way to get me to church that Saturday. Damn her.

Combined with the fact that the Twins had just won the World Series in the best seventh game of all time, October 1991 may be my favorite month ever. And this is definitely my favorite thread, if for no other reason than the chance to take a stroll down memory lane.

Man I want it to start snowing.

 

Re: To my fellow Minnesotans...

One week prior was the Michigan-Minnesota game at the Dome on a Friday night. My dad and I went and cheered for Michigan (I was born there) and got dirty looks; Desmond Howard owned the Gophers and freshman RB Tyrone Wheatley had 70 yards rushing in garbage time.

Weekend before THAT was my college visit to the East Coast (during that short MEA week).

Anyway, on Thursday night, road crews were frantically trying to pour asphalt on the road to our subdivision in St. Cloud as snow fell and steam rose from the road. I was driving home from musical rehearsal with the cute freshman girl who lived near me and played cello. A police car was regulating access to the subdivision, and he stopped me to check for documentation that I lived there. I showed him my license and I passed through. I think we might have had four trick-or-treaters and they were all dressed as eskimos.

The next day, not only was school cancelled but the state cross country meet, scheduled for Saturday at the U of Minnesota golf course in Falcon Heights, was postponed a week and rescheduled for Alexandria; an hour west of St. Cloud they didn't get it as badly as we did. Like you, MSG, I spent a great deal of that weekend shoveling. We had school on Monday but my dad, who worked at St. John's, didn't have to go in because the Johnnie campus was pretty well-buried.

Good thread, Rosie.

 

I remember we had a huge bowl of candy left over. I was so excited - after years of apartment living I was living in an actual residential neighborhood where I'd have tricks-or-treaters, and I was really looking forward to handing out candy.

I remember Mr. Rosie telling me we had a few who braved the storm, but I didn't get to give out any candy since I didn't get home till after 8 p.m.

Driving to work Monday. UGH! Because it had been so warm prior to the blizzard, then the sub-zero temps immediately following, even the freeways were like driving on a washboard. I took 94 to 35W to Crosstown, and by the time I got to work that day, I was sure I was going to go into labor from the jarring.

Anyone remember we had another foot-foot and a half of snow the day before Thanksgiving, just about a month after the Halloween Blizzard? That one it took me three hours to get to Coon Rapids after work, and about a block and a half from the house, my 2WD pickup got buried.

I walked in the dark - seven months pregnant - home through snow up to my hips (No lie, Mr. Rosie can vouch for this.) This was pre-cellphone days. I could see him standing on the steps to the house, looking down the road as I neared the house.

When I got there, I didn't say a word - I stumbled into the house, didn't even take my boots or jacket off, and lied down on the couch (which was right by our front door.) He followed me in and I said to him, "You damn well better hope this baby doesn't come tonight because you'll have to take me to the hospital on the snowmobile."

He just looked at me for a moment, then asked calmly and quietly, "Rosie? Where's the truck?"

Rubbing my middle, hoping for the cramps to stop, I retorted, "That <expletive deleted> truck is at the end of the <expletive deleted> block and it can stay there till <expletive deleted> spring for all I care!"

He didn't say a word as he walked out the door.

A half-hour later, my pains had subsided and he returned, with my truck.

It's the last 2WD truck I've ever owned.

 

Minnesota pansies. In North Dakota we call that summer.

 

I have a feeling someone's gonna get grounded......

 

I worked for a small weekly paper in northwest Iowa and planned to drive to Des Moines on Friday to spend the night with my college roommate before heading to the college the next day for a football game. By the time I was ready to leave, we already had a foot of snow on the ground and my editor forbade me from leaving town.

 

It was either 1990 or 1991 that we got a bunch of snow on Halloween in the Texas Panhandle. There were a lot of costumes that suddenly had to be makeshift made over snow boots.

 

In 1993 I covered my first and only snow football game. It was on the Friday before Halloween and well south of Minnesota. Inkywretchistan, in fact.

 

My mother would tell stories of kids trick or treating in eight inches of snow; and them not seeing their mailbox until spring....