BEATRICE - First there’s the snowstorm.   Then….it’s deciding on how to remove all of it, from close-quarters downtown areas.

That was the job for Beatrice Street crews early Wednesday.   Ridges of snow piled into the center of several streets in the business district were being hauled off.

All you need is people willing to work in the dead of the morning…..a couple of graders, several city dump trucks…a side dump truck, or two…..a large private company dump truck…..and a snow blower on steroids.  

Crews were finishing chopping into the ridges of snow, loading it into dump truck beds and then hauling it off just to the west of the downtown area. 

Trucks are dumping the snow at a city-owned site at 1st and Ella, off the banks of the Big Blue River.  

A loader was being used to push this week’s storm into a Mount Beatrice-looking pile.

Conditions on highways, major routes and residential areas are getting back to normal….just in time for the possibility of another shot of snow, Thursday afternoon and evening.  The current National Weather Service forecast calls for the potential of 3-to-7 inches of snow Thursday night into early Friday.

This week’s storm on Monday and Tuesday was the first major wintry storm for southeast Nebraska this season.