[ad_1]
The weather report for today is a treat: a high of 45 degrees and partly cloudy.
Flashback 27 years and it wasn’t so tasty. Halloween, Thursday, Oct. 31, 1991, started with rain. From there, it changed to freezing rain and then snow, lots of snow.
When the storm finally pbaded, two days later, Duluth had a final total of 36.5 inches and Superior received 45 inches.
The Leader reported Hutchinson received just over 15 inches of snow between Oct. 31 and Nov. 2.
The winter storm closed schools on Friday, and clbades were two hours late in Hutchinson and surrounding towns on Monday.
Ken Giles, Minnesota Department of Transportation area supervisor, summed up the weekend in one word: long.
MnDOT employees had little sleep between Thursday and Sunday. Plowing began on Thursday. On Monday — five days later — area highways had still not been entirely cleared.
“It was one of the worst storms I’ve ever been in,” Giles said.
State Highway 7 East between Hutchinson and Silver Lake was closed for a few hours on Friday because of poor visibility and due to the number of vehicles stuck in the roadway.
Also on Friday, a segment of U.S. Highway 212 was closed west of Glencoe because of stuck cars and poor visibility. State Highway 261 east of Hutchinson was closed briefly after two milk trucks became stuck and traffic could not get around them.
Mail service was disrupted, too. There was no mail delivery on Friday and only limited delivery on Saturday. On Monday, the post office was attempting to deliver Friday’s and Saturday’s mail. Delivery was expected to be caught up by Wednesday or Thursday.
Cash Wise Video rented 700 movies on Friday and 830 went out on Saturday. It was business as usual at Hutch Liquor. Although City Hall was closed and despite blowing snow and travel advisories, the liquor store opened on schedule. Business was reported to be steady Friday and Saturday.
For the Hutchinson Police Department, the storm contributed to reducing the level of activity typical for Oct. 31.
“Thursday was the quietest Halloween we’ve ever had,” Sgt. Ron Kirchoff said.
Leader readers shared their Halloween Blizzard memories on social media. Here is what they had to say:
”It was my daughter’s first trick-or-treating experience and boy did we have fun walking through the snow. We lived on Miller Avenue back then and there were many trick-or-treaters out that night. It was so memorable.” — Judy Peik
”I was living in Maple Grove at the time. My daughters were 8 and they wanted to go trick-or-treating. It took quite a while to get home from downtown Minneapolis via bus. The Cities were paralyzed. When I got home, I took them trick-or-treating in the neighborhood fighting the drifts and wind. Needless to say, no one worked the next day.” — Carol Runke
”The Shaw band played in Mankato that night and we made it home. Took us 4 hours to get home. We blew every stop sign. If we would of stopped we would have never gotten going again. The snow was so deep. We followed a semi truck from Winthrop to Hutchinson and stayed in his track all the way home. I’ll ever forget that night.” — Greg Muellerleile
”We were living in downtown Minneapolis, and my husband had to drive to Winona to work. After one false start, he managed to get out of town with the storm chasing him all the way. He was stuck for three days in Winona. My neighbor and I put on our winter gear and trudged through deserted Minneapolis streets. It was really cool.” — Lena Mowlem
”I was a sophomore at St. Olaf College, and my roomie and I were trudging our way across campus to see ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ It wasn’t so hard for me, as I am quite tall, but she was just 4 feet 11 inches, so I had to help her get through a lot of the snow drifts. We were exhausted, both from the effort and from constant giggling the whole trip.” — Sara Shorter
”I was 11 months old … but my mom said it snowed so much that her cousin had to come dig her out of the driveway with his plow. We weren’t going anywhere.” — Shonda Lynn Houchin
”I drove home from college in St. Cloud with a couple of other girls. My parents were not very happy with me. It was a long and slow drive home and (I) didn’t get stuck until I was going up the hill to my house.” — Shari Schutz Graf
”We had a court appointment to finalize the adoption of my youngest son. No way would we let 30 inches of snow keep us from getting that completed.” — Diane Knorr
”I was in high school (Lester Prairie). We had a Halloween dance. What would normally take my parents 20 minutes to drive to the school, took my mom almost 2 hours just to get to the school and almost 2 hrs to get back home.” — Deanne Wemhoff
”I was working at Telex in Glencoe and very pregnant. My husband drove over to pick me up as he didn’t want me driving alone. We got stranded on the side of the rode and a snowplow stopped in front of us. The driver got out, came over and said he would lead the way to Hutchinson. We followed him to our front door. Never got the gentleman’s name but what a godsend he was that night.” — Kelly Melmer
”I remember Highway 7 was barricaded at the city limits.” — Brian Ortloff
”We were building our home on Lake Stella. We had to use a Bobcat to remove snow from our walkout basement.” — David Franzen
”I was 7 years old and I still went trick-or-treating. I dressed up as a hockey player so my snow gear wasn’t too noticeable.” — Jenny Jaunich
”I still harbor resentment. My friends were doing a big costume party that I was really looking forward to. It was located out of town. I was at my parents’ earlier in the day, getting my costume ready. The storm hit and there was no way to make it safely. Of course, many went earlier and got snowed in there and had a blast.” — Beth Lindberg Gbader
”We lived in the original Sioux Hills. Not a paved road and we had to stay in the house for two days. Plows came on second day. Cars were buried alongside the road, making it not possible to get out until the cars got out. Sad thing was … the snow stayed ‘til spring.” — Mary Christensen
”I was 6 years old and still went trick-or-treating. I was a fairy that year and was so mad that I had to wear snow gear over my pretty costume. On the bright side, not many kids were out trick-or-treating so the neighbors were very generous with the candy.” — Anna Nehring
”We were invited to a wedding in the metro area. Many went. We made the decision to stay home and so glad we did.” — Geri Karlstad Johnson
”(I was) driving my children to Halloween parties and a few homes and the alternator went out on my Olds Delta 88. Driving home in a sudden snowstorm, no headlights, no dashlights. We safely made it home, but will never forget how fast and furious the snow fell. Definitely had a guardian angel watching us that evening.” — Lori Pichotta
”Oh, I remember that like if it was yesterday. It was our first winter in Minnesota coming from Texas where we had never seen snow, to waking up that morning to snow above the windows. I still think that was Mother Nature’s way of saying welcome to Minnesota.” — Jaime Borjon
”I was planning my wedding for that weekend and with all that snow, we still got married Nov. 2.” — Bonnie Schmidt.
Schmidt’s wedding experience was reported in the Leader on Nov. 5, 1991: “The decorations didn’t make it. The soloist didn’t make it. The photographer wasn’t there. The cake was a day late. The rehearsal dinner consisted of cheeseburgers and french fries in the Our Savior’s Lutheran Church kitchen a few hours before the wedding. It was really a different wedding.”
”Hutch High was supposed to play in the football tournament in the Cities. We, along with the parents of one of the players, planned to go, then stay and go to the Vikings game on Sunday. We foolishly made the trip and got there safely. The high school game (was) canceled. The drive home after the Vikings game was no picnic either.” — Deb Rannow
”I was living at Echo Manner apartments. I was to be to work at 1 p.m. I shoveled my garage open so I could get out. I went to take a shower to go to work, when I got back to the garage it was filled in so I took my chances and plowed through the snowbank and got hung up. I didn’t make it to work at 1, but at 5 p.m. they closed HTI. Lots of people went to the Legion.” — Kathy Bogatzki
”I lived in Minneapolis. I was going to school at Brown Institute. It took almost a week for the plow to remove the snow from our apartment complex. To get in and out, we had to shovel out a small area for just our tires because there was so much snow. Best part of the blizzard, we got free tickets to the Minnesota Vikings football game on that Sunday, as General Mills, who bought out all the extra tickets so games were sellouts, couldn’t give the tickets away to school kids as there was no school that day. A guy who worked for the company was walking and gave us some tickets. What a crazy event. — Todd Tepley
”I remember it like it was yesterday. I wore my snowpants and winter jacket under my costume and still made it to all the neighborhood houses.” —Miranda Piepenburg
”It was suppose to be my first year trick-or-treating but mom didn’t take us because of the storm.” — Chelsie Lynn Bloch
”Our cat had kittens in that storm.” — Jimmie Thomas
”I remember getting stuck on Franklin Street while taking the kids trick-or-treating. Also it was the only time none of my daycare parents could make it to work so it was a day off for my kids and me. Of course we had to shovel.” — Lois Beilke
”I had just moved to Sacramento, California, the month before. So I remember thinking: How cool it was sunbathing at the pool in 80-degree weather in October.” — Maureen Rita
”It was the first time for trick-or-treating for my first child and there was so much snow we only went across the street to one house.” — Sharon L Grivna
”I was a temp at 3M, working overnights that day. Back in the day, 3M had costume contests. It was my wife’s idea to dress me up as an old lady (with a) red and white polka-dot dress, pantyhose, painted fingernails, sprayed and curled gray hair, high heels, make up, eyeliner and the works. I got off at 8 a.m. but they held us there that day until about 10ish due to snow. On my way back to Cokato, I hit a big drift and got stuck. Mind you, this was the day after Halloween. We definitely did not have cell phones so I started walking after failing to get my car out of the drift. A truck came by and stopped to help the old lady walking in the snow. It turned out to be a guy I graduated with. He was quite surprised to learn who I was and why I was dressed up the day after Halloween. Needless to say, I did not go to my next clbad reunion in fear of the story being brought up.” — John Klein
”I brought my 15-day-old preemie baby home from Abbott in that storm. Talk about white knuckles.” —Kathy Nowak
”I remember stuffing ad inserts into the Leader Shoppers on Nov. 1 since most of the inserters couldn’t make it in. Of course, most of them never got delivered over the weekend since the people who were supposed to deliver them were not able to pick them up.” — David Paetow
”Senior year of high school in a small school. Student Council party. Then some fairly innocent mischief where we ended up way out in a field running from someone chasing us. As we were hiding it started snowing. We were in short sleeves. Went to bed. Next day it was like the apocalypse.” — Corey Roskamp
”Hutchinson Lions Halloween Party at the Rec Center. How could one forget?” — Dave Sebesta
”I was a temp at 3M. I had worked 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It took me over 2 hours to drive home to Dbadel. When I got home, my son had taken his sister (Katie Smith) out on his sled so she could go trick-or-treating. Never forget it.” — Janeen Linden
”I got my drivers licence that day.” — Jenny Kalenberg-Anderson
”We took the kids out for dinner at the truck stop before trick-or-treating. Kids ate free that night if they came in costumes. During dinner, we watched the snow coming down pretty heavily and told the kids that they would never forget this night. We stopped at home for boots, hats and mittens and went out trick-or-treating. What a crazy night!” — Lynn Brown
”I was in second grade and my sister was 3. Our mom had made us angel costumes for Halloween, which we wore for a Halloween party that we had at our farm the weekend before with some cousins and aunts and uncles on my dad’s side. Then Halloween night came and it was snowy and cold. We wanted to go trick-or-treating so bad and mom said that we had to wear all of our winter things. I was mad that I had to cover my costume up with a winter jacket and boots and hat and mittens, so mom came up with a new costume idea for me. I ended up being a pumpkin! She cut holes for my legs in a pumpkin leaf bag and that way I could wear it over my coat. I used an orange hunting hat and put a toilet paper roll ‘stem’ and made some vines out of green material. Dad had to get the 4-wheel-drive truck out and after farm chores we went trick-or-treating in Glencoe. It was still fun and of course we got a lot of candy.” — Vanessa Gail Feist
”It was surprising that we had more trick-and-treat kids than a usual Halloween night. They came by cars, vans and 4-wheel-drive vehicles. Kids piled out of the vehicles and came in huge groups. It was a great night, as most expected no school the next day.” — Betty Pedersen Brandt
”I got off work at 7 a.m. at 3M. I lived off Bear Lake Road. I finally got home at noon. My vehicle was stuck 1/4 mile away from the house. Luckily the neighbor kid was out on his snowmobile and gave me a ride home. It was two days later when the plow went through.” — Mary Wornson
”I was in seventh grade, middle school, I walked home from school. My brother and I went trick-or-treating to several neighbors in knee-deep snow.” — Shanna Lynn Luebke VanDyke
”I took my son to Glencoe to trick-or-treat. He was 6 years old and I remember telling him to remember this since it was so rare. We stopped at the grocery store to get bread, eggs and milk before going home. We live between Glencoe and Lake Marion. We met my husband on the road as he was returning home from work in Hutchinson. He drove up the gravel road first since he had a larger car. It was deep but we both made it into the garage. I don’t recall how many days it took for the plow to come past.” — Dawn Wolter
”I was not living in Minnesota in 1991. I was living in North Dakota, however my husband was living here in 1991. He drove home in the storm from Waconia to just outside Hamburg. The morning after, he had to go to his mom and dad’s place to do laundry. There was a semi behind him on U.S. Highway 212 (that) jackknifed on the bridge just before the truck stop, closing 212. His brother never made it home as he was stuck in Norwood. So much for a dusting, as that is what the weather man said you were going to get.” — Carrie Huitt
”John and I were living in the metro area. On the day of the storm, none of the streets were plowed in the residential areas, so all the guys got out their snow blowers and made paths to each other’s homes so kids could get together. We were the only one that had a SUV, 4-wheel-drive to get through snow, so we took a run for milk, bread and eggs for the neighborhood. Quite the day.” — Linda Kohls Kalenberg
”We live at rural Stewart and I was working nights at HTI. I went in to work early but kept in touch with my son who was also working nights there. I left my car in the parking lot at work and drove home with my son. We went in the ditch with his truck turning into our driveway — going too fast to make the turn but would have been hung up in the snow if we had not been. My husband pulled the truck out of the ditch and we were snowed in until Sunday afternoon when the plow went by. We have an aerial picture of our farm after the snowstorm.” — Judy Hatten Sondergaard
”(We) were adding an addition to our house. The hole was filled with snow.” — Paul Burandt
[ad_2]
Source link
