Last-minute shoppers in Minnesota trudge through snowstorm

If you were among the people who waited until Wednesday to do holiday shopping, you probably regretted it.

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (FOX 9) - If you were among the people who waited until Wednesday to do holiday shopping, you probably regretted it.

In Eden Prairie, there was plenty of foot traffic at the mall as well as Cub and Eden Prairie Liquor. The mall remained open for most of the day, as managers monitored the conditions but closed early at 7 p.m.

At Cub, we spoke with a range of people: Some who were already planning to hunker down for the holiday and a few who were preparing for dinner with people outside their household and now were changing plans.

"You know, we weren't going to do much but now I think we are going to do less," said Kristin Derus. "And I bought extra frozen pizza and things. So, if we get stuck for a few days, we'll just have a pizza Christmas, I think."

Hennepin County Road Operations Manager Andy Kraemer says while they've pretreated the last couple of days and had a full fleet of plows out all day Wednesday, this will be a struggle to get ahead of this storm until the snow stops falling.

Then with the cold and salt now working below 10 degrees, he says don't expect the roads to be great on Thursday. He wants people to think long and hard before traveling anywhere for the next couple of days.

"I don’t foresee the roads being good by tomorrow," said Kraemer. "Just with the temperature drop, our salt stops working at about 10 degrees and then really nothing works. We can put some sand down to help get traction, but it doesn’t help melt the ice."

"Hennepin County, the state, a lot of these cities, we have the best snow-fighting vehicles and chemicals and Mother Nature still wins when she wants to," added Kraemer.