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CITY OF CROOKSTON PREPPING FOR FIRST WINTER STORM OF THE YEAR

With a winter storm poised to hit northwest Minnesota and most of the northern plains, the forecasts for Crookston range from mostly rain to over two feet of snow, the City of Crookston Public Works Department is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. City of Crookston Public Works Director Pat Kelly said they have been working on getting the snowplowing equipment ready the last two weeks while still trying to get fall work like patching potholes done.  “It’s going pretty good,” said Kelly.  “We’ve been going through our snowplow equipment last week and this week.  We have pretty much all of our stuff reading to go right now.  We have one wing left to put on one of our motor graders.  That will hopefully get done later this afternoon once we get done with what’s probably going to be our last pothole patching day.”

Kelly said he is still hoping the snow we’ll primarily stay west of Crookston because he was hoping to ease new staff who haven’t plowed before into the winter season.  “Hopefully, it’s going to stay out west, but you just have to watch the forecast and radar,” said Kelly.  “Our guys are aware.  Hopefully, we don’t have a really big one.  We’re not only shorthanded, but several people are working for me who haven’t plowed snow yet.  This year will be their first.  We’re hoping to ease them in a little bit, but if not, we’ll pull some people in from other departments if we need too.  We’ll be ready when the time comes.”

Heavier snow should probably limit the amount of drifting in Crookston, but Kelly said it’s possible his crews will have to be out both Friday and Saturday cleaning up. “In all likelihood, it will be heavy, wet snow, so it’s hopefully not going to [blow] too far,” said Kelly.  “If it gets up to what they are talking about, we’ll be out Friday and probably back out again Saturday, hopefully in more of a cleanup mode.  Each storm is a little different, and you have to play them as you go.”

Kelly also noted that with the rain, alleyways and gravel roads would be soft, limiting what the snowplows can do without tearing them up. “This early, the gravel roads and alleys are going to be soft,” said Kelly.  “We’re going to probably have to keep our blades up a little bit if it gets too heavy.  If it’s lighter snow we’re probably not going to go in the alleys and gravel roads because we end up with the plow blades tearing them all up.  That will be trickier, and it might be that we have to come back with front end loaders when we get the opportunity and clean them up better.   That’s one thing that is going to be tough about this one.”

If the snowfall is significant, the City of Crookston has been working throughout the fall to improve signage regarding no parking days for snow removal. “If we do end up going downtown depending on snowfall, we can sometimes get the whole downtown in one night,” said Kelly.  “A heavier snowfall like this one [could be], it’s north-south streets no parking Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  The downtown is pretty well signed right now.  We’ve been resigning in the early fall to make it clear what streets you can and can’t park on to make it clearer.  Hopefully, we won’t have to do that.  It appears we’re going to have a little warm again getting into the 40s and maybe 50s, so hopefully, in a week and a half, this stuff will be gone.”

The Red Lake River is also high, and there was some talk already about closing a few valves around town.  Kelly said the possibility is there that they could both be in snowplowing and high river mode depending on how the mix of rain and snow hits Crookston. “It’s a possibility,” said Kelly.  “It did get up to 15.3 ft, and we discussed closing some valves.  It’s down a little over a foot now and is forecast to trend down.  Allegedly they take into consideration precipitation for the next 24 hours, and this [storm] is a little beyond that.  If that’s the case, we may have to switch into high water mode a little bit too.  One thing is if it comes down as snow is, it will get to the river a little bit slower so that in of itself will help somewhat.”

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