The blizzard that shut down portions of both I-90 and I-35 in Southeast Minnesota Tuesday, Jan. 29, stranded dozens of motorists. Many were forced to make unexpected layovers at cafes, bars, and farmhouses. While I listened to a TV interview of several truckers who spent the night at a cafe in Dexter, I recalled a similar experience I had endured 30 years ago. 

I was a young journalist, fresh out of college, working as the news editor of the Tracy Headlight-Herald.  Tracy is a community, located in southwestern Minnesota, about the same size and makeup as Caledonia.  The Headlight-Herald was printed each week at a central printing plant in Sanborn, located 25 miles to the east of Tracy on Highway 14. The trip was usually quite uneventful.  Walnut Grove was the first burg I’d travel through, then Revere, then Lamberton, and finally Sanborn.  It was usually a nice quiet 30-minute drive.

A big storm was brewing out in the Rocky Mountains.  Most of the winter storms that hit southwestern Minnesota roared out of the Rockies, swept across Nebraska or South Dakota, and buried western Minnesota.  We’d been hearing reports of a major snowstorm moving out of the Rockies on Tuesday.  Wednesday morning, as I was finishing up the paper, the publisher, Jim Kuel, asked me about the impending storm.  He suggested we borrow his brother-in-law’s four-wheel drive pickup for the trip to Sanborn.  That sounded like a good idea to me.  The truck was a heavy-duty 4x4 with a topper.

We loaded up the box containing the layout sheets, photos, and mailing lists.  I had my snowmobile suit, winter boots, extra mittens, etc., packed in the back and off we went.

We had been listening to radio reports of the approaching storm all morning.  There really isn’t anything to stop or even slow down a winter storm out on the prairie.  We knew it was coming, but just when we would experience the brunt of it was still a guess.  We’d already received three or four inches of snow.  I nearly needed a stepladder to climb up into the 4x4 and I figured it would have to get a lot worse than it was before our progress would be impeded by a storm.

We drove to Sanborn, got the papers printed, addressed, bundled, and loaded into the truck as fast as we could.  By this time the storm was upon us.  The publisher from Cottonwood stumbled into the printing plant covered with snow.  He had driven the 45 miles from Cottonwood, fighting the storm the entire way.  He reported that Highway 14 to the west was nearly impassible, and that it had taken him over two hours to drive the 45 miles.

I looked out the window at the storm, looked at the huge 4x4 with nearly three feet of clearance and over 3,000 newspapers stacked in the back for extra traction, then looked at Jim.  I’ve always enjoyed snowstorms, and figured it would take one heck of a storm to slow us down.  He must have felt the same way.  All he said was “Ready to go?” and we were off.

It is truly amazing how different a blizzard can look when one is in the protection of a town and then drives out onto the prairie.  Southwestern Minnesota is flat as a tabletop, and we were driving right into the jaws of quite a storm.  The 10-mile drive from Sanborn to Lamberton took nearly half an hour.  The blowing snow was the biggest problem…we just couldn’t see where the highway was.  I think Jim must have thought for a second or two about holing up in Lamberton, but we’d made it that far, so we plugged on.

The whiteouts got so bad between Lamberton and Revere that I had to get out of the truck several times and walk in front to make sure where the road was.  As we pulled into Revere, it seemed like the storm was letting up a little, so we pushed on. 

About a mile out of Revere it became impossible to see.  I got out in front of the truck and tried to work my way through the drifts that were now between knee and waist deep.  It seemed like all I could see was white…like there was a giant white wall in front of us.  I reached out and felt something very solid.  It was hard like steel.  I brushed it off and discovered a bumper of a truck sticking out of the snow. Jim got out of the truck to see what we’d found. 

The wind let up for a few seconds…long enough for us to realize we were looking at a semi tanker truck that was stuck in the railroad underpass.  The semi had attempted to drive under the bridge, got stuck in the huge drift and now was completely encased in the drift. 

We banged on the side of the tanker, then heard someone shout.  It was the driver of the semi.  He was able to get his door far enough open to squeeze out, jumped onto the snowdrift and walked back to the 4x4 with us.  We headed back to Revere.  With the wind behind us, we were able to motor along at five miles per hour.  Once in Revere, we found lights on at the Detour Bar.  What an appropriate name for our haven from the storm!

We spent the night at the Detour Bar.  We dined on pizza, chips, and found plenty of beverages to ease our thirsts.  I slept on the pool table.  There were folks sleeping in the booths, on the bar, and on the floor.

The next morning the sun was shining, the wind had let up, and it was 20 degrees below zero.  A café down the street was open for business, so we enjoyed copious amounts of coffee, a trucker’s special, and we were ready to find our way home. 

We gave the semi driver a ride out to his rig. By the time we got there, the highway department had a huge snowblower grinding away at the drift that engulfed the tanker truck. It took about an hour before the 18-wheeler was freed from the drift and the underpass cleaned out. We got back to Tracy about 11 a.m., delivered the newspapers to the post office and then went back to the newspaper office to tell our tales to anyone who might listen.

I couldn’t find my car, which had been parked on the side street next to the newspaper office.  A quick call to City Hall solved the mystery. My car had been towed and impounded because it hadn’t been moved when the snow emergency had been issued.  When the chief of police found out why I wasn’t able to move my vehicle, he must have felt sorry for me.  He let me get my car out of the city impounding lot without paying a fine.  I recall his remark was that it would be better to waive the fine than have me write in my next column about my car being towed away while I was risking life and limb to get the paper out. I did write about my exploits with Mother Nature in my next column.  And I did thank the police chief.     

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