Snow, power outages across region
By Michael Johnson, Editor
The Easter weekend started out with power outages and poor travel for much of McLean County as a storm dumped 5 to 9 inches of wet snow in the area on Friday. According to the National Weather Service, out of Bismarck, the most snow reported was in Wilton with a total of 1 foot of snow, equaling about 1.5 inches of precipitation, from Friday morning and into the afternoon. With temperatures hovering around freezing, the snow came in large wet flakes that piled up on the roads and made travel difficult for many who were hoping to get an early start to the weekend. Wind was also a factor in keeping temperatures low enough to freeze and push the heavy snow enough to break power-line poles. By Friday evening, much of the snowing had slowed and crews were able to get out and push the heavy slush from the roadways. The system moved up from South Dakota and slowed down over Bismarck before pushing on again Friday evening, according to Vern Roller, a meteorological technician with the National Weather Service. But not before the heavy snow took down 130 power-line poles in the area. Crews were still working to fix power lines Monday after a long weekend of work. About 1,700 people were without power on Friday, about one-third of the total customer base according to a McLean Electric Cooperative press release. That number was down to 1,000 by Friday night and 200 on Monday.
