Coming Snowstorm Puts Girls Basketball Tourney At Risk
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- At Gillespie Sports in Rochester, boxes of basketball hardware is getting loaded up, ready for the weekend.
This weekend's girls' youth basketball tournament, billed as one of the largest in the state, will draw 260 teams from the three-state region. Unfortunately, the teams may be met by up to 18 inches of snow.
"We had this three years ago and we managed to get through it," said tournament director Greg Bone.
Rochester Public Schools are cancelled Friday, but no teams have pulled out of the weekend tournament so far.
Some are checking into hotels early to get around the difficult, dangerous driving.
"It looks like it's lining up to really hit us right through this midsection of our district through Rochester," said MnDOT's Rochester Spokesperson Mike Dougherty.
City, county and state plows are locked and loaded. MnDOT alone will operate 12-hour shifts to keep its 100 trucks on the southeastern freeways and roads.
"They're talking an inch an hour into the early morning hours," Dougherty said. "High-moisture content and then high winds, so it's just that bad combination, so we have been put in a blizzard warning."
Blizzard or not, basketball games are on. And for Ann Nicometo, who helps organize the tournament, she's getting out of town for good reason.
"My boys are playing the tournamen in Roseville, so we're heading up Saturday morning," Nicometo said.
A boys' sectional game has also been moved up a couple hours Thursday night in Rochester, and will now start at 6 p.m.
MnDOT says if you want a true reflection of road conditions Friday, log onto their "511" site and check out their plow cam, which provides a bird's-eye view of what they look like from the plow's perspective.