(Lake Park)– As if the ice storm wasn’t enough, now mother nature has worsened things with a heavy wet snowfall.
About four inches of slushy snow fell on the Iowa Great Lakes, but much more than that fell in western Dickinson county, already hit hard by Wednesday’s ice storm. 6-7 inches has been reported in the Lake Park area.
The heavy wet snow, combined with upwards of a half-inch of ice on trees and power lines in the Lake Park, Round Lake, and Worthington, Mn. areas combined to bring down even more tree limbs and power lines late Wednesday night and early this (Thursday) morning.
In Lake Park, Emergency Management and law enforcement personnel were urging residents to stay indoors due to falling tree branches and downed power lines. Street and utility crews have been working nearly around-the-clock trying to clean things up.
The City Administrator of Worthington says the scape of that town has been changed forever as a result of the storm. Craig Clark says it has been “raining branches” in that city after about 6 inches of heavy, wet snow fell on top of already ice-coated trees and power lines.
Worthington has been operating on back-up generator as about a third of the city lost power. That, in turn, has resulted in the JBS meatpacking plant and local schools shutting down.
No injuries have been reported so far.
(Staff and wire reports contributed to this story.)
