Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 3

Winter's first storm Minneapolis Tribune Friday, November 20, 1981 ft 'Sno secret: Minnesotans have a knack C. ''rW'j: A i Phto by Bruce Bisping i -v a Lisa Roy fashioned a snowman. IS 4 Jv' I snow as Jean Thomson walked her dog, Windsor, around Lake of the Isles. 5 -TTv ill i i Staff Photo by Bruce Bisping George Mastros of Minneapolis stood on a ladder to sweep the snow from his van. ,1 s.

arx mm mem Staff Photo by John Croft Trees bore up under the burden of Darkness left many feeling powerless Twenty-four hours after the lights went out in her Yosemite Av. home, Betty Higgins was wearing a sweater tover her robe Thursday night and describing the stark domestic scene. "There are candles here," she said, sounding like an urban pioneer, "and we're not comfortable." She was one of thousands in the Twin Cities making their way through a cold and dark evening in the wake of a heavy snowstorm that dropped at least 10 inches of snow on the area, downing power lines, shutting down furnace blowers and severing telephone links. There was no heat and no light and one battery-operated radio at the Higgins house. For entertainment, Betty and Donald Higgins shoveled their walk and made a discovery.

"It was warmer out there than it was in here," she said. Dinner would have been a treat. Dinner never happened. "We were going to eat out," said Betty Higgins, who's lived in her St. Louis Park house for 28 years.

"But when they plowed the alley they successfully blocked our car in." "So we couldn't go out. We just had a sandwich. It was a cold sandwich." Gertrude Molander of the 5800 block of 11th Av. S. was by her phone all day and night an odd kind of day and night.

It started unsuccessfully when her bedside lamp failed. Then the overhead light didn't go on. "I knew then," she said. Her worries centered on her refrigerator, in which where a Thanksgiving turkey and "a good rhubarb pie." "I'm worried about them," she said. "The turkey's 10 pounds and I haven't opened that freezer door all day.

But I'm going to do it tomorrow. I hear it (power resumption) won't happen until Saturday." Her heat was working fine. "My furnace kicks in," said the woman, who is "well over 65," "and I'm warm and I have a radio and I have a manual clock and I have plenty to eat and I've got the curtains up high and there's light in here. But I'm alone." Twenty years ago her husband died. In September a companion of 14 years "went to the state fair and never came back.

He died that suddenly. I've been grief-stricken ever since. But today I've been happy. I've been happy looking outside because I thought it was so beautiful. There's a pine tree bowed down to the ground because of the snow.

It's just beautiful and I stayed inside today, but I was happy." George Rickey, a landlord by day, was under the covers by 10 last their cross-country skis Wednesday Otto, right, who were spotted gliding the areas hardest hit by loss of electricity, reported higher and earlier than usual occupancy. "We have been sold out since 4:30, or quarter to 5, when everybody came' home and they realized that they didn't have any electricity," said Robin Cellette, on the switchboard at the Ambassador Motor Hotel, 5225 Wayzata St. Louis Park. Inquiries about rooms kept pouring in all night, she said. "It has been just crazy.

At one point everyone was getting kind of desperate," Cellette said. When the hotel's 200 rooms filled up she started referring them to others in the area. About 40, she estimated, went to people who were put out of their homes because of lack of electricity. At the Ramada Inn, 4200 W. 78 Bloomington, desk clerk Ron Hanson said that by 7 p.m.

the hotel was full and that he had to turn down about 20 people. The Radisson South was one of the few places by 10:30 last night that had more than enough rooms to go around. About 250 of the hotel's 573 were still available, said Zita Ost, assistant front desk manager. Donald Wright trundled himself out of a toasty sleeping bag and sniffled his way to the telephone on a late-evening assignment yesterday. As an information officer for Northwestern Bell Telephone Co.

in the Twin Cities, he felt it was his duty. Wright's south Minneapolis home had been without electricity since 7:42 p.m. Wednesday. He had taken refuge in his camp sack but was rousted out by a call from his office asking him to call a reporter who had called to find out how many calls Northwestern Bell had handled during the storm. Wright didn't know.

He said to call back in the morning, when he was in his warm office. Staff writers Jay Weiner, Jacqui Banaszynski, Elena de la Rosa and Warren Wolfe contribute to this Staff Photo by Bruce Bisping Among those who dragged out were Marcee Sander and Sondra around Lake of the Isles. W. 23rd St. in St.

Louis Park tricity. He decided to call a few hotels and told them to send over anyone who needed a place to stay. "I've got room for about 20 or 25 people, packing them in in sleeping bags." By 10 p.m. he had four takers. "I am sure I will have more by the end of the evening," he said.

"I was hoping I would get some older people or some handicapped, but I don't know how to get in touch with them. They are probably sitting around in the dark." Hotels, near St. Louis Park, one of 'iP Staff Photo by Earl Seubert A. Conrad Posz spent most of Wednesday morning clearing broken limbs from his street, the 9200 block of about 9:30 p.m. last night.

night, wanting desperately to inform all of his tenants that his heat was on the fritz. "I know all of my property has electricity," said Rickey, who lives on Lake of the Isles Pkwy. "They've got heat. If one of them calls me tonight and they say they're cold I'm going to ask, 'How cold are It was 51 in his house and Rickey, 39, was philosophical. "I figure sooner or later I'll have electricity." "In our house it's about 45 degrees now," a St.

Louis Park doctor said at couldn't stand the thought that while he sat around in his four-bedroom house last night, thousands of others without power might be sitting in cold and dark homes. So he opened his home at 2515 Yu kon Av. S. "to anyone who wants to come. "I am a giving person.

God has given me a lot, so why not share?" said Kline, a professional recruiter with National Recruiter, an executive search firm. On the way home last night he heard radio accounts that up to 90,000 cus- tomers were stranded withoutrlec- He refused to give his name because "I don't think my patients want to know I'm shivering. "Our choice is to tough it out, which is not very healthful, or go stay with some relatives where the power went out, only about an hour and a half ago," he said. "Or we could try bundling," the doctor said of the colonial custom of sleeping in bed fully clothed. "Let's not forget Larry.

Kline of. St. Louis Park' just 'ft.