The talk of the state last week was about the potential for a massive winter storm to hit the majority of Minnesota over a two-day span. The storm was expected to roll into Hastings late afternoon on Saturday, March 14 and continue into Sunday dropping anywhere from six inches of snow to a potential 30 plus inches of snow. The 30 plus part of that forecast from the National Weather Service had less than a 10 percent chance of actually happening, but there was a chance, so it was reported.
The most likely scenario was the 8-16 inches for the Hastings area, and that was the correct range. To be scientifically accurate, the report must have controlled factors, so, the most controlled space was this reporter’s back yard when it came to accurately measuring snowfall totals. Three spots in the back yard, a spot in the driveway and a spot in the front yard all yielded the same results, 10 inches. Out of scientific curiosity, the end of the driveway was measured after the snowplow created its pile and that was nearly 20 inches of wet, heavy snow. Side note, that pile also went seven feet into the street from the curb.
Thankfully, the equipment used to clear the snow was fully functional and while it struggled with the thicker stuff at the end of the driveway, it made it through and in an hour and a half, the task of cleaning both the two-car driveway and the entire length of the property on the street was complete.
Then it was time to drive around the neighborhood to see how others fared. This trip around town started around noon on Sunday and the exploration was for about an hour. Pine Street and 15th Street were pretty similar. The main driving lane was cleared but the buffer lane was still a mess unless the homeowner took care of that part too. As soon as the adventure turned down the side streets, sketchy was an understatement. Standard sized cars were stuck in the unplowed roadways. The initial inch or so of snow melted faster than the rest when it hit the warmer than freezing pavement and the colder than freezing snow layers caused it to turn to slush and ice making traction almost impossible without four-wheel drive. Even the smaller SUV type vehicles were struggling to traverse the unplowed roads. The slush/ice build up caused a problem earlier in the day for one of the Hastings plow trucks as documented on the Hastings Community Facebook Page. Kudos to the neighborhood for helping the plow truck out of its predicament.
This story seems to repeat itself every March. Hastings is teased by 50-to-70-degree warmth for a couple days with extended days in the 40s and 50s. People put their snow clearing gear away and boom, false spring is blown away by the cursed second winter and a major snowstorm with blizzard conditions. The facts of the work that is yet to be completed do not change much year to year.
Hastings public works has over 105 miles of roads to clear. 105 miles… According to Google Maps, if you were to travel from the Hastings Post office to Grand Casino Hinkley, that is 99.2 miles, it would take one hour and 35 minutes. Hastings to St. Cloud State, 94.7 or 101 miles depending on which way you go, and it would take 1:39 or 1:41, respectively. You could be in Iowa at Diamond Jo Casino by driving 107 miles in 1:45. Slippery’s Bar and Grill, made famous by Grumpy Old Men in Wabasha, is only 56 miles in an hour and 10 minutes, so you would have to continue down to Winona State and you still would only drive 88.7 miles in 1:42. Nearly all those trips are mostly done at 60-70 miles per hour.
Travelling 105 miles at plow speeds is a much longer trip time wise, especially when you have to dodge all the cars that are still on the streets after the snow emergency is declared. Most plows travel at 15-20 miles per hour max down the residential streets, and they are making multiple passes to clear the road ‘curb to curb’ Of course, there is an army of plow trucks out and about, but that still takes an average of eight to ten hours for the roads to be cleared in town according to the City of Hastings.
Even after writing this kind of story several years in a row and guiding people on social media to the answer, people are still confused about who is responsible to clear sidewalks. The owner or renter of the property that the sidewalk is on is responsible.
Hastings has a simple city code for sidewalk snow removal. Code requires you to clear sidewalks on your property within 48 hours after the end of a snowfall for general public safety. If it has been over 48 hours and the sidewalk is not cleared, that can be reported to public works at 651-480-6185. Once reported, the property owner or renter will be notified to perform the work otherwise public works will clear the sidewalk and the owner will be billed. For this storm, it makes sense to consider Sunday evening as the start time for the 48-hour window. That means, if a sidewalk is not properly cleared by the end of Tuesday, a call to the city on Wednesday morning is more than acceptable to make a report. Yes, it should be reported.
Everyone knows that downtown Hastings is special, but how is snow handled? There is not a lot of space for excess snow to be stored. Downtown is a different animal for processing snow. Property owners need to shovel the sidewalks before the snow removal process begins. Since they have no place to put the snow they shovel, they shovel it into the street. Then, plows come by and move all the sidewalk and street snow into the middle of the street to open the parking spaces and allow safe access to businesses. The issue is, now there is a huge pile in the middle of the street that needs to go somewhere to fully open the roadway. This initial phase of the snow removal process happens early on in the cleanup.
Sometime within 24-48 hours, public works crews return downtown to bring the snow to its final destination, the back of the Lake Rebecca parking lot. This is the perfect spot because it is out of the way and allows the snow to melt back into the river over time. The process is interesting to watch, it is a ballet of big orange dump trucks, a giant snowblower and a plow. The snow blower fills the trucks, the trucks carry the snow away and the plow cleans up what is left of the snow as the rest move to the next block. The whole thing for this most recent storm appeared to take 4-5 hours of work.
As has been stated in the previous year’s stories, the good news is, the third spring is almost here which means we could be done with the colder temps soon and have maybe another week where we could get a snowstorm. The bad news is, now the dog droppings are on the docket to clean up next to get the yard in order for summer. The good news is that baseball fans only have to wait about 45 days for the first baseball game at Veterans Park!