A winter storm blanketed parts of the Midwest and Northeast with up to a foot of snow, causing a 59-vehicle pileup and at least four traffic fatalities across the entire area. The local traffic was really slow on Wednesday when Greg headed to the northside to shovel snow.
FOX 59 News: In Indianapolis, snowplowing crews, on the road 24/7 since Monday night, aren't even half-finished. They'll be plowing and dropping salt "probably through Sunday," said David Sherman, director of the Department of Public Works.
Temperatures are expected to stay well below freezing for the next few days, which means the snow is not going to melt. And so the city will move it -- at least the big piles Downtown -- to a Public Works lot on the Southside. Yay! Close to Greg and Shelly's neighborhood!
The storm was pretty major, said FOX, with 12.5 inches of snow dumped over the central and southern parts of the state. It was the most snow that had fallen on Indianapolis since 1996, and the city was fairly paralyzed. Schools closed, garbage trucks were parked, and Mayor Ballard urged residents to "stay home" if at all possible and "stay safe."
In addition to the 75 city-owned snowplow trucks, at times augmented by 20 plows that were affixed to garbage trucks, 135 private contractors were out in their trucks plowing as of midmorning Wednesday.
Greg, along with 4 other guys from his Church, were right out there with them! They were called out at 3AM, by another Blogger friend and arrived back home at 4:30PM to a major drift of snow, piled up off the road, at the foot of his own driveway, meaning he had to plow HIS drive before he could even pull into the garage.
FOX reported that atleast two people have died as a result of the weather, victims of a traffic accident in Marengo (Crawford County) and a snow-shoveling incident in Jackson County, a 62-year-old Seymour area man who suffered a heart attack Wednesday. (OOPS! And it was while he was shoveling snow!)
It's possible -- there's a 30 percent chance -- that more snow could still arrive. The chance of snow tonight: 40 percent. But, it would be less than an inch, authorities have said. Warm weather better hurry up!
