Aftermath: Record snowfall buries Marshfield

MARSHFIELD – A two-day winter storm still has Marshfieldians dealing with the aftermath of record-breaking snow totals.

According to the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station, 21 inches fell March 14-15, the largest two-day snowfall since MARS began documenting weather data in December 1912.

The city received 10 inches on March 14. The record for that date still stands at 12 inches, set in 1997. However, the 11 inches that fell on March 15 shattered the previous record for the date of four inches received in 1939.

When factoring in the 3.5” that fell on March 12 and 16, the total for March 12-16 stands at 25 inches – which ties the record for a five-day period set March 7-11, 1956.

Marshfield had received 71.6” through March 16, making this the city’s ninth-snowiest winter season on record to date.

Marshfield Ag Research Station measurements are calculated by snow melt in a collection tube, by temperature and with ground measurements.

This NOAA method reduces the influence of drifting snow that may affect snow depth observations.

The all-time record for a single day’s snowfall is 14 inches, set Dec. 12, 2010.

The latest massive weather system hit the Marshfield area March 14 and continued into March 16, shutting down church services, schools and many businesses, including Sanford Health Marshfield Clinic offices in Marshfield, Stratford, Colby, Loyal, Greenwood and Neillsville.

Hospitals remained open, including emergency department/urgent care services at Marshfield and Neillsville.

“Top of mind for us was our patients and then of course our team that was here caring for those patients,” Victoria Varsho, chief nursing officer, told Hub City Times on March 19. “First time in my history — and I’ve been working here for 44 years — that we have ever shut down the Marshfield Clinic for a day due to weather, so really impactful for sure.”

On the hospital side, Varsho said many departments turned into temporary hotels for staff members who decided to spend the entire weekend. 

“We opened up our cafeteria for longer hours so that we could feed our employees. We made sure that they had linen if they needed it, made sure that they had additional scrubs to wear, so really had about 72 hours of employees staying here around the clock to take care of our patients that were here,” Varsho added.

She also told us her Incident Command team worked closely with the Marshfield Police Department and snowplow crews to assist in getting critical staff members and physicians to the hospital to provide care.

“We did some consolidating and we had people that were able to pick up multiple teammates as well. And we did have a situation where we actually had to rely on a county snowplow to help pave the way for an ambulance to get a patient here that needed emergent care,” Varsho said.

Through it all, she said hospital staff maintained care for 266 patients on March 14, and 235 remained as of March 15.

“And we had some hero stories,” Varsho shared. “As an example, we had a pharmacist that was able to go out and pick up as many of his colleagues that he could. We had an emergent case that came in that needed surgery, and one of our team members had a large truck and he just went and picked up his entire team so we had that full team here to be able to take care of that patient.”

“Miserable,” said Brady Hunt, when asked on March 18 what the previous four days had been like for him. “No sleep and just pushing to get everything cleaned up.”

Hunt is owner/operator of Straightline Home Improvement, which took over snowplowing operations this winter for Don’s Automotive. Hunt and his step-father, Rob Schnitzler, are running two trucks this season.

“Normally my route would take me four to five hours on just a two-inch snowfall, and I think I had 18 [hours] on mine, and then I went and helped Rob with half of his, so I was in the truck for 26 hours straight,” Hunt told us. “None of us have ever seen anything like it before.”

Hunt and Schnitzler each have three dozen commercial and residential customers on their routes.

“Once the city came through and the ends of the driveways got to be four feet high, it’s pretty hard to move it again,” Hunt said. “And there were some roads that weren’t even plowed until Monday [March 16], so there were driveways I couldn’t even get to until they did. That was a big challenge as well.”

Since the massive storm, Hunt and a co-worker have been clearing wet, heavy snow off rooftops because of the extreme weight.

As the snow count climbed, so did post-storm temperatures.

Day-time highs reached into the mid-30s on March 18 and upper 40s March 19, with expected readings in the mid-50s and upper-60s March 20 and 21.

Seasonal norms returned earlier this week.

The quick turnaround in temperatures had Wastewater Superintendent Mark Kivela and his staff at the city’s wastewater treatment plant bracing for the worst-case scenario.

“When we know that there’s going to be extra flows, we prepare by getting all of our processes online,” Kivela told Hub City Times on March 19. “The last melt prior to this event when the snow melted and it rained a bit, our flow went from a normal of about three-million gallons a day and we had a peak of about 14 million for a couple hours.”

In a perfect world, Kivela said the wastewater treatment facility, located at 2601 E. 34th Street, would receive no rain or snow melt.

“It is a separated system,” he told us. “Storm water and snow melt goes to the storm sewer system, which a lot of times goes through these retention ponds that are built all around town to try and settle out suspended solids out of the water, and then also to kind of slow down the flow so everything doesn’t rush off the surface all at once and hit the streams leaving Marshfield.

“However, because Marshfield is a clay area and the water doesn’t seep in the ground very quickly, that water sitting there is always looking for any kind of a leak or fissure in the pipes or manholes or any of the infrastructure with a sanitary sewer system. So, with 138 miles of pipelines under Marshfield, even a few leaks per mile, it all accumulates and adds up to quite an extra flow that we get here,” Kivela explained. “I’m not expecting any kind of dramatic emergency problems, but it will be a wallop of extra water that we’ll get for sure.”

During heavy rain events or snow melt, the wastewater facilities can treat up to a rate of 28 million gallons per day.