While the agenda for Wednesday morning’s Marshall County Board of Supervisors was relatively light and none of the regular agenda items garnered much discussion, the public comment period at the end provided an opportunity for the supervisors and department heads to praise county staff for their response to the recent snowstorms that hit a large swath of Iowa over the last week.

Board Chairman Jarret Heil kicked off the public comments by thanking emergency management, the sheriff’s office and the secondary roads department for all of the work they’ve done.

“It’s still treacherous out there in some places, but we appreciate all the work,” he said. “The sheriff’s office, well, helped deliver a baby, and we had help from other departments to get there, so it’s a nice team that’s been working through the storm.”

Before sharing a brief update on the siren project (the poles have arrived), Emergency Management Coordinator Kim Elder described the response as “a huge team effort” and said she fielded a few calls when the secondary roads department had a phone down.

“It was great that the county put out information — and I shared it too — from (County Engineer) Paul (Geilenfeldt) on Facebook because you get a lot of questions out there and people concerned, running out of baby formula and animal food, so we fielded a lot of calls,” she said.

Geilenfeldt then took the podium and joked that he couldn’t complain about offloading the siren poles because the driver who brought them was from Mississippi.

“He was having a tough day,” he said. “And I assured him that six months from now, it’ll be just as hot as Biloxi.”

He described the storm as “a different one” and said it was one of the worst he had encountered during his 28 winters working in county roads. The snow drifts, in particular, have hardened because of the extreme cold.

“You drive right over them. I’ve never seen a drift on old (Highway) 30 that our snowblower couldn’t cut, couldn’t get through,” Geilenfeldt said. “And I haven’t seen drifts where when we hit them with a motor grader, that it folds a V plow. I didn’t think you could do that to a V plow, so I appreciate everybody’s patience. Our administrative crew over in the office has only been called names a couple of times, and we’re trying to get the message out that the people answering the phone are just the link between you and getting the services that you want.”

While the secondary roads department isn’t anywhere close to done with their work, Geilenfeldt said they’re very close to providing every resident with at least one way out from their rural roads.

“It’s not likely your shortest way. It’s not likely the way you always go, but it’s a way,” he said. “We’re trying to get the people to and from work. We’re trying to get farmers that need to take care of livestock, being able to get the resources to them. Now we’re trying to get things pushed back because it looks like tomorrow night we’ve got another inch or two and some wind, and we’re just gonna keep pushing it back as long as we can and get ready for the next one.”

He added that they still plan to move rock next week and warned of the possibility of things getting “sloppy.” Supervisor Steve Salasek commented that he had watched county operators work on the aforementioned drift on old 30 just east of State Center a few days ago, and Geilenfeldt noted that the drift itself was 12 feet high.

“It’s a bad one,” he said.

After the news was widely circulated about Marshall County deputies helping a pregnant woman deliver her child at a rural residence near St. Anthony on Saturday night, Supervisor Carol Hibbs asked Sheriff Joel Phillips how the baby was doing. He was happy to provide an update on the so-called “Binford baby.”

Phillips said that he’s received a flood of media requests in the days since the incident, but the family has asked for their privacy to be respected at the present time.

“The baby’s doing well, so I can relay that,” he said. “We can’t thank enough our secondary roads, ambulance crew and first responders that helped us. It’s one of those situations that you don’t wanna be out in the middle of nowhere with no help coming, so we knew the sense of urgency and I think the deputy that did arrive was a very well trained one. He has several children of his own.”

He went on to credit the 911 dispatch center for staying on the line with the mother for 40 minutes and having an OB nurse on the line. The deputy arrived about six minutes before he had to assist with the delivery.

“Everybody’s doing well,” Phillips said.

Before adjournment, Elder came back to the podium and noted that there was also a house fire during the storm, again crediting all of the local agencies for their response and preparedness in a difficult situation.

“There was a lot going on, and of course they’re the houses with the babies and the fires that are in the middle of nowhere when something like that happens,” she said. “But the teamwork is just absolutely amazing. That’s why I love working with the team I do, so I just wanted to make sure that they had all the kudos.”

In other business, the board:

• Approved the consent agenda as listed.

• Accepted the resignation of Laurel Degelau as a Veterans Affairs Commissioner.

• Approved the appointment of Dave Streets as a Veterans Affairs Commissioner to serve the remainder of Degelau’s three-year term ending Dec. 31, 2025, contingent on the Veterans Affairs Board approving it at their next meeting after the board’s previous meeting was postponed due to the weather.

• Approved a Breiholz change order request for $11,560.55 on an attic circulation fan for the courthouse, with half of the amount to be reimbursed by Bluestone Engineering.

• Approved closing the downtown county offices on Feb. 23 from 1 to 4:30 p.m. for an ALICE Part II violent intruder training.

• Approved the quarterly transfer of $700,000 from the rural services fund to the secondary roads fund.