Storm stories
By Mike Danahey mdanahey@stmedianetwork.com February 1, 2012 8:34PM
Chuck Armstrong of Wheaton takes advantage of the unseasonablly warm weather Tuesday while golfing at St. Andrews Golf & Country Club in West Chicago. | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media
Updated: March 3, 2012 11:32AM
ELGIN — While no one seems to be suffering post-traumatic snowstorm disorder, lots of us undoubtedly still have vivid front-line memories of the big blizzard of 2011 that had struck the Fox Valley a year ago today.
“I remember watching the weather forecast (the Sunday morning before) over my first cup of coffee,” Elgin Public Works Superintendent Dan Rich said this week. “There was a large band of moisture coming up from the Gulf — so large, in fact, it looked liked a big inland hurricane.”
Rich recalled that early snowfall predictions for the region ranged from 14 inches to as much as 30 inches (most areas ended up getting about 20 inches from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning, Feb. 1 and 2). So after watching the weather for another few minutes, he began making some phone calls.
“Everyone who is in the snow business was watching, too, and we were all in a brief state of denial,” he said. “The running joke is that weathermen are wrong 50 percent of the time. This time they were dead on. This was definitely heading our way.”
First thing Monday, staff started to plan the operation.
“The rest of the week is just kind of a snowy blur that held long hours — 138 that week — drivers coming and going in shifts, not enough sleep, and too many lukewarm cups of coffee with pressed-turkey lunch meat sandwiches on spongy white bread,” Rich said.
“I promised all of the staff two things prior to the start of the event: that everyone involved was going to do an excellent job; and that when then event was over, that they were going to be really tired of seeing me. They did indeed do a wonderful job keeping the traffic moving and clearing the ice and snow from the city streets. If they were tired of seeing me, the feeling soon faded in favor of the many other duties we perform at public works.”
With weather this week being almost spring-like, Rich joked that he might celebrate the anniversary of the blizzard with a round of golf.
Blizzard battle
Like Rich, Elgin Police Lt. Glenn Theriault remembered all the preparation that went into battling the blizzard. His preliminary duties included securing four-wheel drive vehicles from Enterprise Rent-A-Car and from Biggers Chevrolet.
Once the bad weather hit the afternoon of Feb. 1, Theriault worked a shift that lasted more than 20 consecutive hours, supporting public works and police as well as driving an SUV with city council members who wanted to see how things work and with City Manager Sean Stegall.
Stegall used his iPad and iPhone to keep residents updated through the Internet and social media, while Theriault drove him around the city.
Stegall said the experience showed him how well city staff works together and how well-prepared Elgin was for the blizzard. It also demonstrated the power of social media for communicating and for getting out information instantaneously in an emergency situation.
From his time out on the streets, “I remember coming to a standstill along Randall Road, somewhere between Route 20 and Highland Avenue,” Theriault said. “It was like the scene at the start of a ‘Star Wars’ episode — but instead of stars rushing at you, it was snow so hard and so windy you couldn’t see the road or exactly where you were.”
With the brute force of the blizzard, Theriault said, even a few big plow trucks from the Illinois Department of Transportation wound up in ditches.
Theriault also remarked that with today’s technology and weather predictions so on the mark, there were relatively few major incidents. And the storm seemed to bring out the best in people.
“I do remember one woman we encountered complaining she had already waited 20 minutes for a tow and demanding one be sent immediately,” Theriault said. “Everyone else was helpful, friendly and had a good attitude.”
Mailbox hunts
For city crews doing the plowing on 12-hour shifts, conditions were such that Mike Zabran remembers crawling along looking for mailbox posts at the end of driveways to use as markers when digging out streets on Elgin’s far-west side.
“It got to a point where you had to stop because the winds were like a hurricane’s. It was crazy,” Zabran said.
With drifting and blowing, fellow equipment operator Tom Lutz said, some drivers lost their bearings and wound up stuck on top of snow-covered concrete islands in the middle of routes.
Lutz plowed main thoroughfares on the west side such as Big Timber Road, Route 31, and National and South streets.
“We normally plow in tandem, and things were so bad that at times I couldn’t see a truck 15 to 20 feet ahead of mine,” Lutz said. “It definitely was the worst storm I remember, and I have been working here 15 years. The one good thing is most people used common sense and stayed home. There were barely any cars out.”
In contrast, the weather has been so nice this week that Lutz was on a crew that was able to repair a catch basin by the bison pen in Lords Park, while Zabran has been saw-cutting pavement so utility repairs can be made.
The aftermath
As for the day after the storm, Downtown Neighborhood Association Executive Director Tonya Hudson recalled that Elgin’s city center, like a good part of the Chicago region, was closed for business Wednesday.
“I remember Elgin Public House was open, because people joked on Facebook about their food being worth the trek to get there,” Hudson said.
She added, “Everything was pretty much business as usual by Thursday, except for the huge mounds of snow piled on corners and along curbs. There’s just no place to put the snow until it can be hauled out of downtown by dump trucks, which the city did overnight that Saturday and Sunday. City crews went above and beyond to assist with sidewalks starting Wednesday and throughout the weekend. By Monday, you would have never guessed 20 inches of snow had been dumped downtown just days earlier.”
While the blizzard didn’t leave major catastrophe in its wake, it did leave big bills related to it.
To that end, early this year, Elgin — like a number of other northern Illinois cities and towns — received reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recoup some expenditures incurred during from the storm.
Elgin got a check for $213,838.40, with total expenses for the Feb. 1-2 time frame tallied at $378,185.
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