Blizzard 2011 photos, Morton Grove, Illinois

I just got back from my hour walk around my Morton Grove neighborhood. Yes, to use the cliché, people are digging themselves out from 20 inches of snow. But blizzard snow is capricious, it only took a few minutes to free my car from the grips of Jack Frost. Other people aren't so lucky.

The owner of this car thought ahead and popped up his windshield wipers.

The Cadillac hood ornament remains unsubmerged.

The Illinois Department of Transportation operates a fleet of lime green-colored "Minuteman" trucks to assist in emergencies. On Interstate 94, the Edens Expressway, there was not much traffic this morning.

Lincoln Avenue, a major Chicago street, ends in Morton Grove. It was a lonely ending earlier today--and it still is. On the left is a fence that was partially blown over by the blizzard winds--gusts reached 70 miles per hour.

Plowing snow is to some extent an exercise in futility today--wind gusts have died down to just 30 miles per hour--and a blizzard warning remains in effect until 3:00pm even though it stopped snowing four hours ago.

There are people inside this Morton Grove bungalow--I could see them walking around from the street. (I'm not a Peeping Tom.) Their front door is blocked by a snow drift--hopefully the back door of their home is free of drifts.

This home was also blocked by a drift. The teen who helped carve a path to her front door told me she was too young to remember the Chicago area's last blizzard, which was in 1999. During that storm, the Marathon Pundit family was driving home from Florida, we gave up fighting the elements in Mattoon, Illinois. We spent the night in a Red Cross-run emergency shelter.

Everyone I know was told either not to show up to work today, or they decided not to go. This spirited young woman, whose car is among those buried in a snow drift, was told to report to her job. She works at a major retail outlet--and she told me that she doesn't expect much business today. I agree.

If you look closely, you'll see a small white dog.

I enjoyed walking the near-empty streets of Morton Grove, it brought back memories of the area's worst blizzard, The Big Snow of 1967. My father didn't go to work that day--a rarity for him on a non-holiday weekday. We walked together down the side streets of Chicago's Roseland neighborhood to the Hi-Lo grocery store on 103rd Street. My dad bought some milk and other essentials and he packed our groceries on a sled and he pulled them home--with me at his side. Very cool--especially for a five year-old.

There is asphalt under that snow.

I'm injured, so I'm not able to run even in the best of conditions. This man told me "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" as he ran past me on Lincoln Avenue. He's not wearing gloves.

Not too far away from that long-since closed Hi-Lo store is where Pat Hickey lives--here are his photos from this morning. Diane of Respublica grew up in Roseland, she lives in Illinois' Metro East area. They didn't get as much snow as we did, but she posted some photos all the same. The carbon monoxide detector went off at the Cal Skinner household in McHenry County--snow may have blocked a furnace pipe. But all is well there. It's My Mind has video from the 1979 snowstorm that led to the electoral defeat of Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic.

All the way from California, ThirdWaveDave tells us that part of the roof of Wrigley Field has been damaged by the blizzard winds.

UPDATE 8:15pm CST: Pitchpull got the same apocalyptic weather forecast I did. Only he got rained on.