So this was the view for most of my birthday on November 12. I’m sitting on I 94 somewhere around Monticello Minnesota and a joke that I have been telling for years was coming true in a macabre way. I have joked that Minnesota should put a sign on I 94 at the North Dakota border going east, and another at the Wisconsin border going west, that simply says, “you can’t get there from here.” The traffic and the construction has been bad for years but nothing ever seems to get fixed. Minneapolis and St. Paul seem to be conspiring to get folks to simply never drive a car and ride a bike, or better yet, never leave their homes.
Looking between the trucks you can see a large plume of smoke. We found out later this from WCCO
“MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A pileup involving 29 vehicles — half of which were semi trucks — shut Interstate 94 down for hours in both directions near Monticello after a band of snow moved into the area Thursday morning.
The Minnesota State Patrol says it happened just after 9 a.m. near Flenning Avenue Northeast, soon after the first-ever Snow Squall Warning had been issued by the National Weather Service.”
Interesting, the number of dead or hospitalized doesn’t show up for a while in the story. I guess the fact that 9 folks were injured isn’t the “lead”. A snow squall is, and now we have added to the list of sanctioned pronouncements from “officials”, “Snow Squall Warnings”.
I guess I should be privileged that on my birthday that I spent on the freeway in Minnesota two “firsts” took place. 1. A never before issued warning of a “snow squall”. 2. The first ever warning by a governor that because of a virus people should not “talk too loud”.
I didn’t hear about the second until I arrived at home. I wish I would have heard it earlier so my screaming on the interstate would have been curtailed. The governor of Minnesota should make a pronouncement telling people not to pull their hair out too. Screaming and hair pulling are activities produced by traffic and by official policy as well. So speech is being curtailed and evidently so is the volume.
Please pray for the injured. Thank you for the Birthday wishes.
