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Minnesotans Digging Out After Historic April Blizzard

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Waking up to a foot of snow in the middle of April -- it's not a nightmare, it's just Minnesota.

St. Paul residents woke up Sunday morning to learn the city is under a snow emergency. Some were able to move their cars Saturday night, but for those who waited until Sunday morning, digging out their vehicles was a major undertaking.

You could drive down any street in St. Paul and see people helping each other shovel and push cars out of snow banks and alleyways. Streets were impassable in some places, so some people just left their cars in the middle of the intersection after they got stuck.

St. Paul resident Allan Richardson had to get up early to move his roommates car, and he never thought he'd be doing this in mid-April.

"Its sad, but true -- this is sort of how it is," he said. "I didn't think it was going to be mid-April. I fondly remember going snowboarding early April back when I was younger because we would have these April Fools snowstorms, just like we had this year, too."

After the record-breaking snowfall, WCCO Meteorologist Matt Brickman says there's still more to come.

Despite plows working round-the-clock overnight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, officials were only able to open two of the airport's three runways. The major airport shut down all flights for an unprecedented seven hours Saturday night before reopening one runway later in the evening.

St. Paul snow emergency rules started Saturday night at 9 p.m. Minneapolis declared a snow emergency Sunday morning, which begins parking restrictions at 9 p.m. Check the WCCO Snow Emergencies page for the latest updates on other cities.

More than 100 churches and schools canceled activities Sunday. Visit the WCCO closings page for the latest updates.

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