Winter wasn’t done with us yet. After we were teased with some beautiful sunny 60 degree days Mother Nature sent a blizzard our way. The snow fall totals weren’t that substantial, but just a few inches of snow combined with sustained winds of 30 miles per hour and gusts in the 50 plus mile range made travel after dark nearly impossible.

Many of you woke up the next morning to find the sun out and little snow on the ground and thought ” what was all the fuss about?” There were blizzard warnings and programming interruptions by your favorite weatherman telling you how bad things were and little evidence the next morning to validate the warnings.

As someone who has commuted 18 miles to work for over two decades, I can assure you that once you leave the city limits and get into the country the visibility can be zero or near zero when there’s fresh snow and lots of wind. There is very little in this flat part of the state to stop the snow from blowing and creating whiteout conditions. You can drive through snow drifts and I’ve done it many times, but I don’t like driving when I can’t see the road or what’s coming at me from the other direction. That was the case Sunday night.

The Messenger prints after midnight. Our drivers who deliver the newspaper bundles to post offices and stores typically load up and leave the loading dock between 2 and 3 a.m. Sunday night that didn’t happen. The plows were pulled, the interstate was closed, and anyone with common sense was in their home, not on the road in some really dangerous conditions.

The Fort Dodge Post Office needs to have our newspapers to them by 4:30 a.m. to ensure same day delivery. With blizzard conditions persisting until the sunrise that was not attainable on Monday morning without putting our drivers in jeopardy. Our drivers who deliver papers to area communities outside of Fort Dodge drive over 100 miles per night. The deadlines for delivery to some of the small town post offices that we drop at is later than Fort Dodge but in most instances we will miss the rural delivery route deadline if we get there after 8 a.m.

Our drivers are some of the most dedicated people I know. Many have been delivering newspaper bundles for decades. They take it seriously and they are committed to driving in many conditions that most people would deem far too dangerous. But sometimes Mother Nature is too much even for them. We don’t want anyone to get injured or stranded in dangerous cold.

The picture of a kid trudging through deep snow to deliver a newspaper to a front door is somewhat nostalgic, but today’s technology means that the same kid can be in his house, warm and safe, and you can still read your newspaper. Every print subscriber can read the online edition at no extra cost. It’s an exact duplicate of your printed newspaper. You can read it before the sun peaks above the horizon and you don’t have to walk through snow and endure the cold to pick up your newspaper from your mailbox. If you have a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smartphone you can access The Messenger from the comfort of your home, office, or workplace. We aren’t trying to replace the printed newspaper with an online version. We know that many of you like to hold the newspaper in your hands and share sections with your spouse. But we are glad that we can make the newspaper available for you to read when Mother Nature does her best to stop us.

Thank you for subscribing.

Grant Gibbons is the publisher of The Messenger.