Drivers packed I-94 Wednesday in an effort to beat the storm.

"It's playing a factor in how fast we travel," says Thomas Weber from Milwaukee with a laugh.

"We need to get there before it hits," agrees his driver, Jim Graber. The two are headed to Minneapolis.

We ran into people from Madison, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and the Chicago area. But, no matter where they're heading or where they left, a rest stop off I-94 was hopping as people hurried to get out of Dodge.

"We had to borrow a car from a friend because we have summer tires. We're coming from Georgia," says Joanna Voll.

At the city shop in Eau Claire, crews put chains on the plows tires in preparation for what's predicted to be a Christmas mess.

"Our goal is to keep the main streets open throughout the storm," says Mike Barnhardt.

"We cross our fingers just like everybody else and hopefully we don't need to be out there pulling people out of the ditch," says Sgt. Steve Tape with the Wisconsin State Patrol.

Sgt. Tape says they're prepared to bring in more troopers if need be. For the time being, he chooses to hope for the best.

"Hopefully we'll see less than 50 cars in the ditch between here and Millston, but it's possibly going to be more like 100," Tape says.

With numbers like that in the future, you can't blame the happy, hurried, homeward-bound drivers fortunate enough to beat the storm.

"We just took off work early so we're lucky," says Terri Rodriguez from Pittsburgh.

"I'm excited for a white Christmas," agrees Colette Johnston on her way to the Twin Cities from Madison.

We’re "real happy. We're going to just make it,” says a very excited Jeffrey Knutson on his way to Crystal, Minnesota. “We're off to see our grandson so see ya later!”

The State Patrol says if a crash would shut down the interstate, they work closely with counties to keep alternate routes as clear as possible.