Escape-city iReporter on-scene - Minnesota got pummeled over the weekend. I had the day off on Friday and was running errands. Mid-afternoon I started hearing reports all over of a winter storm watch of 12-24" of snow starting on Friday at "9pm". Weather reports were largely correct, the snow started around 9:30, picked up quickly and didn't stop until 26 hours later.
I live in the south east metro, about 30 min from the dome. Winds blowing from the north throughout the storm caused 5' drifts, and severely reduced the ability to travel. Major freeways and roads were reduced to 1 lane, and according to stats dropped between 17" and 21" across the metro. This was the 5th largest snowstorm in history on record for the metro area, and is similar to our locally famous "halloween '91" blizzard. Temperatures hovered around 1 degree, and windchill included reduced it to -18.
I must say that the escape performed superbly, (I was determined to travel 10 miles to my local Buffalo Wild Wings) whereas many of the neighbors had their widget cars were all stuck at the bottom of their driveways/30 feet from home in the street. Also thankful for my 9.0HP snowblower, i can't imagine hand-shoveling all of that snow.
Local news had the deflation story first, but Fox News/NFL Network were all on-scene preparing for the football game and weren't far behind. It supposedly happened around 5:00a, and the video is pretty stunning. The metrodome is a unique type of venue, I had fun reading some of the stats I didn't even know about the place in the link below. I've been going to the dome since I was born, and previously has deflated 3 times, once in 1981, 1982, and 1983. I believe that this is the first time there was a breach related to deflation.
http://www.msfc.com/about.cfm
This is SilverAthlon - local iReporter for Escape-City.
:worry:
