Myles: hello and welcome to the County Pulse podcast. I'm Miles Danhausen Jr. and I am shoveled out. Deb Fitzgerald, are you shoveled out completely? Is driveway clear? ⁓ Debra Fitzgerald: The driveway is clear. You can't get to my front door, but you definitely can walk up my driveway and you can get to my propane tank. Myles: You Hey, those are big victories now. ⁓ I drove by Plateau Road this morning my way in and it's actually cleared out yesterday. There was a massive drift at the end of it and I was thinking, ⁓ they going to get to it? But they're catching up. It is Friday as we record this. We went through, the county went through about five, the storm itself was... Debra Fitzgerald: They're huge. Myles: first wave was Friday, the bulk of it was like Saturday afternoon through most of Monday, correct Deb? You were here for it all. I was lucky enough to be in Chicago. Debra Fitzgerald: Well. Yeah, it actually, it was really weird because Thursday, well, I think you went to Chicago on Thursday night, right? To escape the storm Myles: and I had been planning to go there for quite a while to take my kids to museums in Chicago and by Thursday I was starting to get from friends who ⁓ knew I was leaving and they were like, your plan? And I was like, I don't know, go tomorrow. And they're like, have you watched the weather? And I am one of those guys who kind of ignores it and never believes that it's gonna be what they say it's gonna be. And then by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, my wife and I talked and we were like. Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Myles: Yeah, maybe this might be our best shot. Otherwise, we might not be doing this at all. So we went down packed rapidly through a bunch of the kids' stuff in a bag and went down Thursday night. man, am I glad we did that. ⁓ Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah, because it was kind of a surprise. So this wasn't even Elsa. I mean, that had really nothing to do with Elsa. It was a precursor storm. It dumped between four and eight inches of really sloppy wet snow. About 2,400 people lost power by Friday morning. it was kind of a surprise. The winds were pretty bad because one of our evergreen trees just dumped a whole bunch of branches. It took us like two and a half hours to clean that out. So that happens on Friday. And then Saturday, ⁓ was a beautiful day, all day. And when had the St. Patty's Day Parade in downtown Sturgeon Bay. It was just an absolutely beautiful day. Myles: Hmm. Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: all the way up until the time, you know, I went to bed and then you wake up the next morning and it is a completely different world. It was so overnight is when the storm started. Myles: And yeah, my dad was in the St. Patrick's Day parade with the Historical Society. And then that was probably the last time he was outside for days. ⁓ Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was sunny. It was kind of warmish. It was really nice. Myles: So when did it start getting intense for you? And I guess like if somebody's been living under a rock, this turned into Winter Storm Elsa, which dumped anywhere from what, 30 to 40 inches, depending on which? video, how far you walk in any direction of where the snow was and had these amazing drifts. But it starts, what was it like for you on Saturday night and how did, what was the storm experience for you? You live a little north of Sturgeon Bay between Sturgeon Bay and Ag Harbor. Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm about 10 miles north of Sturgeon Bay. And normally we're pretty protected because it's typically a westerly wind that comes off the bay. And this storm was unique in that it was an easterly wind, you know, of about 60 miles per hour and coming from the east and northeast. So it was. It may have been one of the reasons why we didn't lose power at our house, but we were prepared for it. I mean, we had like 60 gallons of water in the basement, which is, always 55 degrees. We sure we were going to lose power because we always do. And, so were just kind of waiting for that. Meanwhile, you just can't even see out your windows. ⁓ Like we woke and ⁓ all of the were just. completely covered with snow. So the wind was just whipping them. So it was like being inside an igloo, you know, the first time that you woke up and, and it was always, and I don't forget this. remember watching one time a documentary on dust bowl, you know, the great plains and the wind that lasted for like, I don't know, five years, ⁓ ⁓ wind always roaring, always like in the background. That's what you could hear constantly. So it was just this really intense feeling ⁓ were assaulting pretty much all of your senses, you know, instead of just, so, mean, you know, you could hear it, you could see it, you know, you could definitely feel it for the 1100. people who lost power, I'm sure, because it, you know, so it does that all Sunday. And then you're accustomed to a storm coming through and then you expect the next morning to wake up and you know, it's a new day and you dig out, right. And it was just Groundhog Day on Monday. It was almost worse on Monday. It just didn't stop. Myles: Dig out, you clean up. Debra Fitzgerald: And we were trying to keep up with the driveway. we a snowblower, and we did it twice, ⁓ then we just gave up. And I can't even believe that we did it at all, because it didn't even look like it. So anyway, it dumped, you know, upper 20s ⁓ It's weird. The midsection of the peninsula got the most snow, like from Sturgeon Bay up Egg Harbor. Myles: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Debra Fitzgerald: And then a little bit less Northern, far Northern and far Southern, but we're talking inches, little bit less. So when you're talking feet of snow, it doesn't really matter, you know, but I, yeah. Right. Right. Right. And so, but you know how we are, we're all like snow bragging, right? Oh, the drift at my house was, you know, 12 feet. Well, mine was 15 and you know, that kind of thing. Myles: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, once you get to 20, you're like, well 24 versus 26, like, ah, you guys had it easy. Debra Fitzgerald: So. Myles: I was sitting there Sunday watching this from afar and just waiting for all the photos to roll in and there weren't a lot and the ones that were, I realized how bad the storm was because there wasn't really anything very photogenic. It was just pictures of snow blowing across the camera lens and so because you couldn't see that much and that is something that is pretty unique in my time. I'm 47. Debra Fitzgerald: Yep. Nothing, yeah. Myles: This is definitely worst storm of my lifetime that I can recall. I've never, like we've had a lot of snow before, not this much, not quite this much. but the blowing and the duration of it and the fact that people were pretty much stuck inside from like you said Saturday afternoon prepping to end of Monday. And then also home from school Friday. So basically schools were canceled Friday, Monday, Tuesday. And that's why I was like, thank God I got out of town because. I'd have been stuck inside the house with just my three kids and myself for the couple days because my wife was going to be gone. And ⁓ I would have gone insane. Because ⁓ you get the winter storm and by the afternoon you can take the kids outside and enjoy the snow. everyone I was talking to up here was like, yeah, we're just stuck. It's not enjoyable storm weather. ⁓ But I also expected, I expected. Debra Fitzgerald: No. Yeah. Right, right. And I tried to take some. Myles: all this tree damage. I expected all these major power outages and we had some, but not like we've had in some of these storms the last couple of years. you talked to some folks, why weren't there more trees down and more power out? Did the previous storms knock down all the weak trees already? Do we just not have any more trees to fall or what's going on? ⁓ Debra Fitzgerald: Right, right. There is a theory that it was the wind direction and also the consistency of the snow. That it was not sticking to branches the way the precursor storm was. know, that one was wet, sloppy, really to tree branches. This one did not. It was moving too fast, too dry. And so it just didn't have that accumulating effect. you can tell by the drifting, right? I mean, we don't get lots of big, huge drifts when the snow is really wet and slushy. So that is ⁓ theory ⁓ ⁓ the people that I spoke with. It was hard to, you know, it was. It was hard to capture it also on, on camera. took like some video of it I look at the video, you know, and it was at the height of it. And I just walked down to the end of my driveway and some video ⁓ and like, know, that just doesn't look as intense as it actually But we, I mean, our model the peninsula pulse, we get so many. ⁓ Myles: Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: photographs and video that are submitted to us because people love sending us the photos because we use them. And you're right, like by Sunday evening, I'm like, where are the photos? though I can see that there's no way that anybody is going to be going out there. ⁓ it. Myles: Yeah. Yeah, like where are all these people who sent us a million sunsets? Where are they to capture this for us? But there were some, one interesting thing is there were several different photos of deer going into roads. James Larson sent some video from Husbees and there were three, once the sun came out on think Monday afternoon, late Monday, three. Debra Fitzgerald: Right, right, right. Yeah. Myles: young deer walking down the hill in Sister Bay, walking right down the highway 42. And then couple other people had pictures of big gatherings of 10, 15, 20 deer in the middle of road. And I can only assume that's just because they were getting, they were looking for anywhere they could walk without going through four foot drifts. So they were just gathering on the roads that were plowed. Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. was really unique to see a herd of deer like that. I think it was on a hillside in Ag Harbor. yeah, because. Myles: Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: drove around a little bit yesterday. We were out of, we all worked from home. ⁓ hadn't been in the office even Friday because Bailey's Harbor lost power. So none of us could go into the office even with the precursor storm. So we were all working from home remotely at different locations for a week from last Friday. And our first day back in the office was Thursday, yesterday. And so I took a ride around up through Ephraim and those areas where Ephraim had the hardest time clearing State Highway 42. And so it took a long. Myles: Yeah. Yeah. Why was that? was... Was it just... Were there just massive drifts there? Or what was it that made it particularly difficult there? Debra Fitzgerald: Yep. Massive, massive drift. Like truly a 10 foot tall or higher drift. mean, it was just a fortress of snow. And I just from, there were probably about a couple of six foot drifts in my backyard. And I started freaking out thinking I had to dig out the propane tank because I wasn't sure. ⁓ You know what happens if it's buried? And of course I look it up. I look it up and of course, you know, it's all these warning, warning, make sure it's uncovered. Well, it's under like, you know, seven feet of snow. And so I know what it was like just to shovel through that. So I can't imagine 10 feet wide. So it's not even just, you know, like one little, one little drift. ⁓ it was just. Myles: Yeah. Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: solid, like right blowing off of the water. So, but anyway, mean, the it remarkable between yesterday morning when I was driving on some of the side roads, the that are single lane. You know, normally there are two lane and they're single lane with mountains of snow on the corners. So you can't see any of the traffic. And then last night when I was going home, it was like a different, a different world. mean, so much had been cleared so much had melted already, you know. Myles: Hmm. Yeah. Well, like you mentioned, we were working from home. Let's talk about the people who really worked. throughout this. You know, we have the luxury of sitting on a computer throughout this storm and be able to do what we do and getting on a phone. The people clearing the roads, the people who have to deal with and prepare for this, we all prepare for it to take ⁓ of ourselves. That's most of the people in the county. We're leading up to a storm saying, do I have enough food? Do I have water? Do I have a generator? Do I have the medicines that I need? But then there's all these people who have to prepare for a storm and and you spoke to a lot of them, and they prepare for it by how are we going to take care of others when this hits? You know, the emergency services, the snow plow drivers, fire departments. What were some of the stories that you uncovered talking to those folks, and what was their experience like ⁓ trying to ⁓ people in those four or five days of nonstop wind and snow? Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, that was one of the first calls I wanted to make because I was thinking while I was sitting in the storm, you know, what if I had a medical emergency, you know, what if I had to call 911 for something? So Erin LeClair, who is the director of emergency services, so the ambulances, wanted to know how many calls they had and what happened. And of they had calls. ⁓ And ⁓ Sunday the of the storm, they had really critical calls, like cardiac strokes and ⁓ traumas, and to all way to Green Bay. because they couldn't just take them to the local hospital due to the severity of the cases. so then they would have to enlist the highway department to ⁓ have escort ⁓ of plows. so they would be leaving where they were plowing to try and escort ⁓ these ambulances ⁓ And even they to the county line, They received escorts like from Keewanee and Brown County, like everybody was working together to try and get these emergency vehicles their destinations. Because when it comes down to it, that's what the highway department is even trying to do is just keep that main artery open for those kinds of emergencies. Well, Myles: Right. Debra Fitzgerald: Not all emergencies happen on the main highways. And by Monday, they were having to abandon the ambulances hoof it on foot, as Aaron put it, to get to the patients. these, I know, I mean, I can't even imagine. And if you're the crew, you know, ⁓ who wants to get there, you have to drive in these conditions. Now you're trained to be a paramedic and to handle medical emergencies, but driving in those kinds of conditions in a vehicle that is, Erin described it, is basically a glorified pickup truck. or a glorified van. They're not built to, you know, make it through everything. And I think that's what people always think. Even of plows, like the plows just kept getting stuck. The squad cars in the city kept getting stuck. So none of these vehicles are, know, humvees that are built for ⁓ kind of weather. Myles: Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: And yet we still require those services, you know, and they do what it takes to make sure they happen. Myles: I was surprised talking to two garbage waste management companies up here going in GFL Environmental and they both said, yeah, we don't. we would try and send our garbage trucks out, but we kept having to pull them off the road because, you know, they'd get stuck or it just wasn't safe or there's all these one lane roads. And if you send a big garbage truck out and you get stuck or you're going down a one lane road and there's a plow coming the other direction, you're just clogging things up and people can't get the garbage to the curb anyway. if they, ⁓ probably can't get their garbage out of the snowbank anyway. ⁓ But those also are not four wheel drive Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Myles: humvees either. Like, so they are easy to get stuck and if they get stuck, those big vehicles, they're really hard to get unstuck. So they can really clog things up. But both told me that didn't stop them from getting complaints from people saying, well, when are you picking up my garbage? As if, and we talked about this a little bit in the office, but there are certain people who experience these things in a silo as though they are the only one experiencing this and somehow not able to look out the window and go, Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Myles: I can't get to my job, that probably means some of these other people can't do the other services that I was expecting. So they were, so you know, I talked to people who, it's amazing how many people still are demanding ⁓ even in the midst of this, for little inconveniences. Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah, right, right. And it, right, and it kind of reminded me a little of COVID. Like you always learn what services you rely upon and the people that you rely upon, those transactional things ⁓ you don't recognize until they aren't there. ⁓ And a storm like this, mean, you know, there is just a, there is just a. Myles: Right. Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: you know, there's that danger element it, of course. ⁓ I would that most people, the majority of people were patient. And I that some people were stuck in their for a long period of time because the plows, the private plow companies were overwhelmed. I got a couple of texts just last night Myles: Mm-hmm. Debra Fitzgerald: from a couple of the firefighters and ⁓ personnel ⁓ the Harbor fire station. And they were telling me how they were all using their pickup trucks to help the county ⁓ out plowing roads ⁓ because county couldn't get. to everything. They have contracts with municipalities in addition to doing the county roads and they couldn't get to everything. So everybody was just like helping and you know trying to get people out as quickly as possible. And as you pointed out earlier, even as late as yesterday, I went to get gas in Carlsville. in a side road, was still a huge drift. You could not drive down that road. those people, you know, were stuck there until then, until Thursday, you know, when they finally got them out. So ⁓ ⁓ does kind of ⁓ wake up to. ⁓ Myles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: What personal resources do we have? And if something like this happens, how are we going to get out? Because Jeb Salins, who is the Emergency Management Director for the county, he also was at the Sister Bay Liberty Grove Fire Station for the warming component of it in case people lost power. They had like seven people there, but they had to go get them. and they were receiving all kinds of non-emergency calls on the 911 line from elderly people. who were just alone and afraid. They were physically okay, but they were uncertain. They didn't know how they were going to get out of it afterwards. One woman ran out of baby formula, and so they snowmobiled that into her. All these types of things remind us that maybe we need to have a better network. at home and I know that emergency management and emergency services and all of the officials are going to get together like with the Door County Sheriff's Office and the county and of do a recap ⁓ what to happen and I know one thing that they told me is a PR campaign about knowing your neighbors ⁓ and Myles: Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: trying to take care of your own personal needs so that the public safety officials can take care of what they are supposed to do, which is public safety, you know? Myles: Yeah, because some of these things are not as simple as, emergency services should take care of that, or my town government should figure that out. There is some of this that, no matter how well they're planned, if, this has come up in some of these storms the last couple years, we got really lucky when... these major storms hit that we didn't have a major fire at the same time. You know, like when we had all those trees go down and all that power go out, if something like the shipwrecked fire or the Raleigh's Bay fire or just a major home fire happened at that same time. Debra Fitzgerald: ⁓ I know. Yeah. Myles: how quickly the resources would be diverted and then also how many roads would not go cleared because so many emergency personnel would have to descend on that one place. Same thing in this storm had there happened to be a major fire or something you know maybe the storm would have put it out I don't know but you you think about that and and what how quickly you would just be overwhelmed by it. So from a personal standpoint, I live a mile from the piggly wiggly and I generally go into these things thinking, yeah, I can get up there if I need something or I got friends around, but like in this storm, you couldn't get anywhere. And even if you're, you know, as one of those were like, well, I could call my plow guy. Well, the plow guy can't even get down my road to get to my driveway. You know, those sorts of things that you start to see that trickle down of like how all these networks are tied together and need each other to function to hit each of these things. Even as Dave, Dave worked his butt off here at the pulse offices to clear parking spaces in hopes of opening the office. But then even if you clear a bunch of those in front Debra Fitzgerald: No. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Myles: of our building is it we basically hit like well is it good to ask 10 employees to come in here and park on the road when the plows are trying to get through in clear snow and you're just what's the Debra Fitzgerald: Bye. Myles: can do all that work and it's kind of like, ⁓ no, let's stay home another day and let them clean some more, even though you could technically use those spots, it's just like, is it worth it? So it's just, there's so many different aspects to it and it's learning experience and that's, ⁓ I know, I mentioned this yesterday as we were chatting, maybe it's recency bias, maybe it's purely anecdotal, but we've had two of those huge April... ⁓ ice storms that knocked down tons of trees and knocked out power. We had last summer's major storm. We had this big snow storm and back in 2018 we had a big snow storm. So all of those events are bigger deals than, I mean, the only thing I can compare them to is, you know, there was the tornado that came through back in 98, but that's a very like isolated incident, right? But I just don't remember this many storms that had this kind of wide ranging impact the way that we've seen. And it might just be a little blip on the radar, but that'll be another thing to look at as we go forward is, is this Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Myles: these things that we thought are like, wow, we'll never see that again, or I haven't seen one of those in a long time, and it seems like we've had a couple of those in recent years. Debra Fitzgerald: Yeah, I believe there is data that shows that these events are becoming more extreme across the country. So it's no surprise, that we, ⁓ we do get these systems, that they are definitely more ⁓ Meanwhile, we're dealing with three feet of snow, which apparently we haven't received since 1888, It's 105 in Phoenix. mean, they're breaking records down there. ⁓ it's winter. I mean, today is the first day of spring when we're recording this. ⁓ mean, it is, I remember either when I lived in Door County prior to moving away. Now in Minnesota, storms like this happened. ⁓ Myles: Right? And it's winter there. Yeah. Debra Fitzgerald: Minnesota and South Dakota storms like this happened all the time. Like, like what we got. Yeah. Myles: Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. This is probably not that shocking from your Minnesota days. Debra Fitzgerald: No, and the difference would be that there are a couple of differences that happen more frequently. And then right after a huge snowstorm, you would always drop down to like minus 20, minus 30. Like it was always the case. And then it would shoot up to like 75 or 80 two days later. And so then you would have massive flooding. and not be able to get out of your roads. mean, it was such an extreme environment, you know, it's here. It looks like. We're going to be in the 40s for the next. When I was talking to the meteorologist at the Green Bay WNS office, National Weather Service, he said it looks like we're going to be in the 40s for the next couple of weeks, know, like high 40s. And so it should be a slow thaw because that's what they're worried about. Obviously, is flooding after an event like this, so. It looks like it will happen slowly. And was surprised. They estimated that there was only about 1 and 1 half to 2 inches of liquid in this in this storm, which also attests to the dry. Yeah, which I was I it just was a very dry kind of snow. So, yeah. Myles: That's it. Wow. Yeah, I would have guessed a lot more. Well, thank you and the rest of our staff for a lot of great reporting on this. There's more in this week's issue of The Pulse. ⁓ And there's also a big election insert in this week's issue that we will talk about on the podcast next week. But yeah, ⁓ know, you're just doing your typical spring election rush and then you just throw this massive ⁓ in the middle of it. So thanks for all your work on this, Deb. And Debra Fitzgerald: Mm-hmm. Tch. No matter how prepared you are, you know, I know, I know I was, I was so excited because we were, you know, we have the repulse coming up as well, ⁓ you know, preview of that. And so we've been working on that and we're way ahead on so many things. And I was, I was pretty proud of us at that point. And then, yeah, you get something like this that Myles: ⁓ yeah, I encourage people to... Yeah. We get ahead on one thing and something else throws you back. Mm-hmm. tosses you for a loop. only March, we might have a couple more storms like this coming, ⁓ prepared Deb. ⁓ new thing is to prepare as if every weekend is going to be a massive storm. Hopefully not. ⁓ thank you to listeners as always for listening to the Door County Pulse podcast. You can find archived episodes of the podcast at doorcountypulse.com slash podcast and we'll be back again next week to talk elections and hopefully nothing to do with snow. Debra Fitzgerald: Yep. I know. Right.