Snowy Roads Keep State Patrol, MnDOT Busy

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – As yet another snowstorm moves through Minnesota, the roads are already getting dangerous.

State Patrol said between midnight and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, there were 140 crashes statewide. Someone was injured in 17 of those crashes, and one person was killed in Benton County.

There were also 178 spinouts.

Metro Transit said as of 10:40 p.m., 35 percent of buses were delayed. The average delay was seven minutes.

Snow is expected to fall throughout the night Saturday and into early Sunday morning. The Twin Cities should see somewhere between 4 and 7 inches.

Streets and highways were hit the hardest -- snow packed, ice covered and dangerous to anyone attempting to drive.

"Us and the counties and the cities will be busy at work clearing roads," Kevin Gutknecht with MnDOT said.

Gutknecht said crews are doing all they can to keep up with the heavy snowfall.

"We have 19 truck stations around the metro area and we kind of divide them in half. So half of them switch at noon to midnight and the other half switch from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So we've always got somebody out on the roadways clearing roads," he said.

Gutknecht said temperatures near freezing are actually helping road crews.

"We may have done some pre-treating in some places but yesterday the road was really pretty dry. The temperature is such that the chemicals are going to work really well," he said.

Highways are not the only problem. Side streets are a mess, some untouched and hard to get traction on. Major streets are full of slush and plenty of slick spots.

It's not only hard to drive on but nearly impossible to walk in.

Hearty Minnesotans say, What do you expect living in the bold north? But the folks responsible for clearing a path for you to drive and walk say...

"I believe that if folks don't need to travel now they probably shouldn't," Gutknecht said. "Just put it off."