WINONA, Minn. – A water main burst on the busy Mankato Avenue thoroughfare near the main entrance to the Far East End retail district. The flooding, just after dark, froze on road surfaces in a two-block stretch from Sarnia Street to Frontenac Drive. Police put up barricades on Mankato. The barricades blocked the usual access from downtown and the East Side to the Winona Health hospital. Ambulance drivers were told to divert two miles away to the Huff Street causeway across Lake Winona. Shoppers on the Walmart-Menards complex needed to exit to the south on Riverbend Road or Bruski Drive or through the Fleet Farm parking lot to U.S. Highway 61.
Mankato glazed. The break was near the Gilmore Creek culvert at Shives Road. The creek drains Lake Winona to the Mississippi River.