Print edition: 
CLAY CENTER — It wasn't so much the 12 inches of cold powder snow as the freak nature of shifting winds that closed every rural highway and road in the county during Tuesday's snowstorm.
"I've never seen anything like this," county road supervisor Steve Liby said. "And I've been here 35 years."
In most snowstorms, the wind blows out of the north, drifting east-west roads and leaving the north-south roads relatively free of drifts.
But not this time. Virtually every road in the county was impassable, the first big test for the newly organized "county unit" system of road maintenance.
Drifts of 6 to 8 feet kept rural residents at home, waiting for a chance to get out. But the county road crews had 680 miles of county and township roads at least passable by 8 p.m. after 14 hours of non-stop effort.
Nine graders, two dump trucks and two loaders were put in service to clear 175 miles of blacktop two lanes and 505 miles of gravel road at least one lane.
"We wanted everyone to at least have a way out," said Liby, adding that crews would be out this morning to clear the second lanes on the gravel roads.
The snow kept people at home so county crews weren't fighting a lot of traffic, Liby said. Crews ran across some people stuck in the middle of the road. One farmer had detached a snow blade from his truck and left it behind.
Had residents not been trapped, a lot of time would have been spent clearing the roads of stalled vehicles. In the process, two road-clearing vehicles, one manned by Liby himself, had to be dragged out of drifts.
