How much snow fell?
Doesn’t actually
look like a lot, maybe four inches, when you see it in your driveway. Not so
much at all, given the fact that it was snowing non-stop for 15 or more
hours.
That’s because the
snow was so wet, with the consistency almost of slush, that it began
compacting as soon as it touched ground.
And that’s the real
story of Wednesday’s blizzard, at least in Duneland: the snow’s sheer gloppy
mass.
Chesterton Street
Commissioner John Schnadenberg told the Chesterton Tribune this
morning that it’s taking something like three times longer than usual to
clear a street “because the snow is just so wet and heavy.”
“It’s very hard
pushing,” he said. “The plows have to make three passes on each side of the
street. We even had a couple of dump trucks get stuck last night.”
Even so, to
Schnadenberg’s knowledge no roadway in Chesterton was ever impassable, to
the point of vehicle’s getting stuck. And as of 8:30 a.m., the main roads
were open--scraped clean down to the asphalt--and the plows were still
working on side streets. The graveyard shift, after 12 hours, knocked off at
9 a.m., at which time the day crew took over, to take a crack at alleys.
“We’re tying to get
into the subdivisions too but it takes so long,” Schnadenberg added.
Town of Porter
Porter Public Works
Director Brenda Brueckheimer made much the same report: roads all open, snow
sloggingly heavy.
She also had an
estimate: 10.5 inches, compacted way down.
Brueckheimer did
say that the town’s just passed snow ordinance--banning on-street parking in
subdivisions during snowfalls of three or more inches--proved to be a boon
to plow drivers. “There were no problems in the subdivisions. Cars were off
the streets.”
And in general
residents were very “gracious,” Brueckheimer added, despite the
inevitable--and unavoidable--way a plow has of leaving a mound of snow at
the foot of everyone’s driveway. “We’re trying to do everything we can not
to bury people in,” she said. “But it is what it is.”
In the County
The story in the
unincorporated areas of Porter County was a little different, however, where
vehicles were getting stuck and being abandoned all over the place.
“It seemed everyone
was driving Mustangs yesterday,” Highway Superintendent David James joked.
“With racing tires. You spit and they spin out.”
The problem, of
course, is that a driver who walks away from his car is leaving a clot in
the roadway a county plow driver just can’t get through. “We can get the
roads plowed all right,” James said. “But we’re running into streets with,
like, six cars stuck in them.”
The county’s
emergency ban on travel was lifted at 12 p.m., after which time James was
hopeful of getting his plow drivers into the subdivisions. “We’re diligently
working. By noon we should have the main roads all open. But I doubt we’ll
have the snow all curbed in the subdivisions by the end of the day.”
Accidents
Sgt. Jamie Erow,
public information for the Porter County Sheriff’s Police, estimated that
over the blizzard’s duration there were something like 30 crashes, “a lot”
of slide-offs, and in the neighborhood of 20 abandoned vehicles.
The Indiana State
Police posted these numbers: between 6 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, across
the state, there were 60 personal-injury crashes, 228 slide-offs, and 176
motorist assists.
Lines Down
Lines were reported
down in two locations in Porter on Wednesday, Fire Chief Lewis Craig said: a
NIPSCO line at 2:12 p.m. in the 600 block of North River Road; and a Comcast
or Frontier line at 3:36 p.m. in the 500 block of North Third Street.
The PFD also
extinguished a small chimney fire at 8:50 p.m. in the 1100 block of South
Vine Street, where residue on a chimney screen ignited. Firefighters put a
ladder up to reach the screen--which was reported to be glowing red hot--and
doused the fire. There was no extension, Craig said.