SAINT LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Normally this time of year Minnesotans look to the forecast to find out how much snow we're going to get.
However, with temps hovering in the 30’s the question isn’t only how much snow we’ll see, but what kind of snow will it be.
“We don’t know if it’s going to be snow, rain, sleet, a combination of everything, who knows?” St. Louis Park Public Works Director Jay Hall says.
Regardless of what the precipitation looks like this week, the St. Louis Park Public Works Department isn’t taking any chances.
Two crews set out early Monday morning to clear out as many catch basins as they can before the storm comes.
“We have 5,000 catch basins in the city. It’s a lot of work, but it’s important work,” Hall explains.
Catch basins drain water off city streets during times of heavy rain and snow.
Hall says leaving even one catch basin frozen over can cause a lot of problems.
“If one of these catch basins were to become frozen and the line became frozen, the water is going to have nowhere to flow. Everything on the other side of it is going to start backing up and you’ll have more water in the streets, which can freeze and cause problems for cars and also people walking in the area,” Hall says.
Clearing catch basins is also a time-saving alternative to breaking up large sheets of ice on the street.
Hall remembers one difficult case where it took his workers a few days to clear out a frozen street and catch basin that was overlooked.
“It was plugged and there was no drainage nearby. We went in with loaders, scrapers, we were scraping it, throwing salt on there and then coming back later, scraping it again and hauling away ice. It took a few days to clear it up.”
The city uses shovels to clear out the first layer of snow and then they use a high-pressure sprayer to break up the harder layers of snow and ice.
Some catch basins are hidden underneath several inches of snow.
City crews often have to use metal detectors to find them.
“We have a GPS system where we can track all of the catch basins in the city. So, we always have a good idea of where each basin is, but sometimes they’re hard to find when they’re covered in snow,” Hall explains.
Street flooding isn’t the only concern heading into this storm.
At Dean’s Home Services, plumbers like Mike Braun are also preparing to see some flooding in people’s basements.
"If we get a bunch of rain and the ground is frozen, we could see it. I've been in many homes where it's wet socks. The whole basement is flooded,” Braun says.
Braun is encouraging homeowners to check on their sump pumps before the storm comes.
"We just want to make sure those sump pumps are running,” he says.
He also recommends a battery backup, because freezing rain has the potential to cause power outages by weighing down power lines
If a power outage happens and the sump pump isn't able to pump the water out a homeowner could experience flooding
Braun says setting up a water alarm in your basement is also a good idea.
"We always recommend putting these in a couple spots in the basement, around the water heater,” Braun says.
His best piece of advice is to periodically check your basement, yard and street for pooling water, because the quicker you find a problem the better off you’ll be.