The girls, who were having a sleep over, went to a restaurant in Fond du Lac and then stopped to toilet paper a friend’s residence near Eden. Fink says there’s no evidence anyone was chasing the girls when the crash occurred. He says “these kids were out basically having, for lack of a better word, a good time” and it turned tragic on them.

AUDIO: Sheriff Mick Fink (:13)

Sheriff’s Lieutenant Rick Olig says the SUV traveled about 700 feet as it was flipping and rolling. Several of the passengers were ejected from the vehicle. Police say two of the three girls killed in the crash were not wearing seat belts. All but one of the girls who survived the crash remain hospitalized.

Results of an investigation will be sent to the district attorney’s office. Alcohol does not appear to have been a factor in the crash.

Fink says an accident like this is something first responders are never truly ready for and it has “shocked the consciousness of us all.”

Bob Nelson, KFIZ

Visibility quickly diminishes as Gov. Walker delivers his first State of the State address February 1, 2011. (PHOTO: Jackie Johnson)

Puddles of melted snow, sunshine, warm temps (depending on location) — it’s a far cry from one year ago in the Badger State. It’s being remembered as one of the biggest snow events in Wisconsin history, wreaking havoc in much of southern Wisconsin.

It was dubbed snowmaggedon, snowpocalypse, and a blizzaster. “Unfortunately we lost four lives in that blizzard.” Tod Pritchard with Wisconsin Emergency Management says it could have been worse, but emergency personnel acted early.

Governor Scott Walker declared a State of Emergency before the storm arrived, allowing the National Guard to get involved. Pritchard recalls cancelled flights, giant snowdrifts, impassable roads, wicked wind, and abandoned vehicles. “I think in Kenosha County alone there were like over 100 abandoned vehicles.”

Residents were strongly urged to stay put; snow plows couldn’t keep up with the piling precipitation, so they were pulled off the roads for a while; the DOT called some roads “totally impassable;” and Pritchard says even the troops in their large Humvees had difficulties reaching stranded motorists. “We were just … we were so fearful for the entire night when the major blizzard was hitting. We were so scared to death that we were not gonna be able to get to all the people that needed help.”

Some Sheriff’s deputies rode “shotgun” with snowplow drivers during the Ground hog Day blizzard, in order to respond to stranded motorists. Pritchard recalls tweeting alerts and posting information on facebook, likewise, his team learned a lot from people on the scene. He says “social media was just on fire” that night.

Cleanup on February 2nd after Madison got 18 1/2 inches of snow. (PHOTO: Jackie Johnson)

The storm dumped almost three feet of snow near Milwaukee, 22 inches in Racine, and 18 inches in Madison. Contrast that with unseasonably warm temperatures this week in the state. The National Weather Service says January 2012 will be ranked in the top 20 warmest for both Milwaukee and Madison. Forecasters blame La Nina.

NOTE: The snow event went on for several days. Light snow began on the last day of January. The snow really starting coming down on Wisconsin on the evening of February 1st during Governor Walker’s first State of the State address. The snow fell heavily overnight into February 2nd.

AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report

A staffer received non-life threatening injuries after a lab experiment ignited and broke a glass container holding the chemicals. The injury was a cut from the glass.

No fire broke out and no evacuations were needed. In fact, the building remained open except for the lab where the explosion occurred.

Robin Colbert, WIBA

Tod Pritchard with Wisconsin Emergency Management explains how participating students will gain important and potentially life-saving knowledge. “STEP is a turn-key classroom curriculum that teachers can give to their 5th grade students — it’s aimed at 5th graders — and it teaches them how to deal with emergencies, how to get ready for a tornado or floods or manmade disasters that happen in their communities.”

Kids are like a sponge; Pritchard says they’ll soak up the information and form good habits early in their lives. “The kids are the agents of change. They’re the ones who are gonna change our society, not the rest of us.”

The STEP program is flexible and customizable to the schools’ and students’ needs. Pritchard says each student will get a starter emergency kit to take home with them. More than 5500 students in 250 classrooms in the Badger State are participating in the program. Wisconsin was the first state in the Midwest to try the program, which is funded through a federal grant.

AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report 1:29

Deputy Ryan Greening, a crash reconstructionist, says the car was going 80 to 90 miles an hour when it crested a hill, with the goal of getting the vehicle off the ground.

Greening says the vehicle became airborne, traveling through the air for nearly 180 feet before landing again. It swerved off the road, rolled two or three times, and then hit a tree.

Behind the wheel of the vehicle was 14-year-old Austin Gable. The owner of the car, 16-year-old passenger Felicia Bertrang, was in the passenger’s seat. Gable and two other teens died as a result of the crash. Bertrang and another passenger were seriously injured.

Jerry Carpenter, the grandfather of Austin Gable, says the accident continues to haunt the family. He says it’s a “minute to minute survival.”

Eau Claire County Sheriff Ron Cramer says the investigation revealed that “hill jumping” is common, and they hope to raise awareness of the dangerous practice.

AUDIO: Dan Lea reports (:48)

The last three cars of a Canadian National freight train jumped the tracks and one of them crashed into an office building in the rail yard. A cleaning worker inside was not hurt, but the crash damaged the walls and heating system.

Rail spokesman Patrick Waldron says the cause and circumstances of the crash remain under investigation.

Crews spent the morning Friday working to get the cars back on track and remove them.

Matt Lehman, WSAU

Oshkosh police Chief Scott Gruele (Photo: Mike Kemmeter)

Police says the body of a man found in the Fox River Monday was the son of an assistant coach for the Green Bay Packers. Oshkosh Police Chief Scott Greuel says they have identified the man as 21-year-old Michael Philbin, son of Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin.

Police are working to retrace the young man’s footsteps before he disappeared Sunday morning. Philbin, a student at Ripon College, was meeting friends at the UW-Oshkosh on Saturday night. Greuel says he became separated from them at some point in the evening, with a “non-distress” call made from his cell phone at around 2:10 Sunday morning.

AUDIO: Andrew Beckett reports (1:00)

Police then received a 911 call at around 2:30 am Sunday from a security guard at a business along the Fox River. The caller reported hearing someone crying for help and then seeing a person’s head above the surface of the river.

Philbin was reported missing later in the day on Sunday.

Greuel says foul play is not suspected. Police are still trying to determine if alcohol was a factor and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.

WHBY’s Mike Kemmeter contributed to this report.

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Investigators say 14-year-old Austin Gable was at the wheel. He and a 13-year-old McKenna Johnson died at the scene. A 15-year-old, Marco Perz, died later at a hospital. A 13-year-old boy, Ulises Ponce, and 16-year-old Felicia Bertrang, whose parents own the car, were both injured. All five were students at Eleva-Strum schools. Alcohol was not believed to be involved, but investigators are looking into other possible contributing factors.

Dan Lea, WAYY

UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling briefed the Board of Regents about the system’s security and safety measures. “Years ago we used to set parameters and we used to kind of wait the bad guys out. Today the bad guys come with such an arsenal that you can’t wait.”

Immediately following the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech which resulted in 32 deaths and 25 injuries, Riseling chaired a taskforce to work on preventive efforts at the UW System. She said there was a tremendous amount of training in rapid deployment for all police officers at the state’s 26 universities and colleges. Also, she stressed, communication is vital, so it had to be streamlined.

Riseling said students and their ability to instantly tweet can be helpful. She called them “quicker than quick,” saying, “I learned working at the Capitol how quickly a crowd of 80,000 can tweet each other and let everybody know what’s going on. So the students will help you here. The downside is they also tweet false information. So that’s still a struggle for us.”

Riseling said most campuses now have the capability to quickly send out electronic messages via various types of social networking. But, the real test is whether they can do it under stress. In 2005 it took two hours to send out mass emails; that’s been trimmed to less than ten minutes. Text messages are even faster — under six minutes.

The emergency text message system resides not in the dispatch center which would be overwhelmed with 911 calls, but at a special command center where seconds count.

AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report 1:48