Dig-out from Blizzard Brianna under way

APPLETON - While snow totals varied, Blizzard Brianna has all but guaranteed us a white Christmas and cleanup efforts are under way across Wisconsin.

The familiar sights and sounds of winter have arrived with Blizzard Brianna.

"Its been pretty hectic, mainly cleaning up sidewalks and salting and then I have to go back and fix snow blowers too," said Allan Mayer, plowing out business parking lots in Grand Chute.

Blizzard Brianna left so much snow behind, Mayer, who isn't a regular plow driver for D & D Landscaping, was called into action.

"We've got 63 people working and they've pretty much been working around the clock," he said.

So have many others - or so it seems. Many people are clearing their driveways and sidewalks for the third or fourth time in the last 24 hours. Some people using it as a way to pass the time while the wait for their power to come back on. The heavy wet snow leaving 2,500 Alliant Energy customers without power in Fond du Lac County Friday morning. Outages for other utilities were scattered throughout the state.

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"Our hope is to get power restored to all of our customers that are without power, we hope that will happen by the end of the day but that is a pretty lengthy process," said Steve Schultz with Alliant Energy.

A towing ban on Highway 41 and Highway 441 in Outagamie County left many drivers waiting to get their cars towed out of the ditch and that made for a busy day for tow truck drivers.

"I'm grateful for the tow ban because I'd rather pull a vehicle out when it is bright and sunny then me not seeing a car and a car not seeing me. It's a lot safer for us to do it during the day than it is in the blizzard," said Kourtnee Rowe, tow truck driver for John's Towing in Neenah.

A blizzard that many of us won't soon forget.

Power companies say they don't expect to see any more outages with high winds tapering off over the next few days.