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THURSDAY, Feb. 3, 2011 galesburg.com 75 CENTS

B L I Z Z A R D 2 0 1 1  T H E A F T E R M AT H

Blizzard drops
Can you dig it? Drifts make streets, National Guard, Residential streets
15 inches of snow highways impassable snowmobiles rescue expected to be cleared
on Galesburg Tuesday-Wednesday stranded motorists by this morning
SNOW D AZE
Local Snowfall Totals
Abingdon ..........20 inches
Monmouth ........20 inches
Avon .................18 inches
Kewanee...........17.6 inches
Galesburg .........15 inches
Knoxville ...........14.8 inches
Galva ................14.5 inches
New Windsor.....11.5 inches
Sherrard ...........10.5 inches
Source: National Weather
Service

Storm facts
 51 mph: The highest wind
gust recorded at Galesburg
Municipal Airport during
Tuesday’s storm was 51
mph.
 A record? Galesburg’s
record snowfall for a
calendar day is 15 inches on
Feb. 22, 1938. The record
for a 24-hour period is 16
inches over Jan. 2 and 3,
1999. A spokesman for the
National Weather Service
said it is still determining if
Tuesday’s storm will break
any records for Galesburg.

Garbage pickup
 Waste Management will
Buy these photos at galesburg.com NICK ADAMS/The Register-Mail resume garbage collection
New Galesburg resident, Jennifer Works, treks across Henderson Street at Monmouth boulevard on Tuesday night. Works recently moved to on Thursday, picking up
Galesburg from Texas and had never experienced a Midwestern blizzard.  MORE PHOTOS: Page A6 Wednesday’s route. The
remaining routes this week

Blizzard Travails of
will run one day late.

Street situation

paralyzes traveling in
 The city of Galesburg
set a target of having every
street in Galesburg plowed

region
by this morning.

And now severe
cold slides in
BY LISA COON
The Register-Mail
GALESBURG — Area
residents are on a wild
weather ride this week as
they dig out from snow-
falls ranging
I NSIDE from 10.5
inches to 20
 Winds, snow inches and
cause problems now have to
for furnaces. prepare for
Page A7
dangerously
low tempera-
tures and wind chills.
The blizzard of 2011
ripped across the area, par-
alyzing travel and stretch-
ing plow crews to the limit.
The system brought with it
thundersnow and lightning
that added to the heavy
snowfall Tuesday night.
“We have several reports
 More photos from Tuesday’s blizzard: galesburg.com �
Neftali Garcia, 10, tries to find a place to shovel while his
father Mario, left, does the driveway on Chestnut Street on
Wednesday.
of thunder and lightning
from the Galesburg and
Peoria area and as far
south as Jacksonville,”
Chris Geelhart, meteo-
rologist with the National
Weather Service in Lin-
coln, said Wednesday. “The
worst was in northern Illi-
nois, and parts of Chicago
even got some hail.”
The thundersnow “can
create the rate of snowfall
much like a thunderstorm
and rain when those occur.
We had reports of 2 to 3
NICK ADAMS/The Register-Mail
inches of snow an hour
during the heaviest” of
the thundersnow, Geelhart
said.
Throughout the day
Wednesday, winds dimin-
ished from the peak gusts
of 51 mph reported at the
Galesburg Municipal Air-
port at 9:35 p.m. and 10:25
p.m. Tuesday. The dimin-
ished winds created better
visibility and allowed road
crews to continue to clear
See BLIZZARD, Page A7
the storm
“Our goal is to have every
street plowed by 7 a.m.
in the morning,” the city’s
public works director Larry
Cox said Wednesday.
Whether by foot, auto or By late afternoon
Wednesday, Cox had a team
train, many found it ‘crazy’ of 13 workers, about half
BY TOM LOEWY the city’s crew, manning
The Register-Mail snow plows on the streets of
Galesburg. Page C1
GALESBURG — The storm that
buried Galesburg in roughly 15 inches
of snow started Tuesday morning,
Police, GHAS busy
reached its peak after
the sun set and barrelled NSIDE I  The Galesburg Police
into Wednesday blown Department received 241
 Police, fire
by winds that reached 40 service calls on Tuesday, well
respond during
mph. above the average of 100
City street crews had to blizzard calls they experience on
slow for a time Tuesday, conditions. more moderate winter days.
as visibility made any Page A5 By 1:30 p.m. Wednesday,
kind of driving — even in the department had taken in
parts of the town — dangerous. 119 calls.
Said one man, as he attempted to
walk from North Seminary Street  The Galesburg Hospitals’
to just beyond Chambers Street just Ambulance Service also
before 5 p.m. Tuesday, “Man, this is the received an uptick in calls,
storm of the century.” with 36 coming between
The wind made snow flakes feel like 7 a.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m.
sharp shards that stung any exposed Wednesday. On average,
skin. the department will receive
between 25 and 29 calls.
See STORM, Page A8

WEATHER INDEX DEATHS SPORTS

4 sections • 24 pages • Glenn Kitchin/Monmouth Streaks football standout signs with WIU
HIGH LOW
Advice D4 Obituaries A2 Not even a historic blizzard could keep Galesburg High School senior
OBITUARIES: Page A2
16 2 Classified C6-8
Comics D3
Opinion
Record
A4
A2 www.galesburg.com Ryan Ricketts from delivering a promise Wednesday morning to play his
college football career at Western Illinois. Ricketts was an All-Western Big The Register-Mail • Galesburg, Ill.
Full forecast: Page A3 Local A5-6 Sports B1-4 Stay connected with
Nation/World C6 TV C2 continuous news 6 selection his final three seasons with the Streaks. Page B1 Vol. 142 • No. 33