IT's A SNOWY Christmas
Eve in Denver and a mother is frantic. Under other circumstances she
would be delighted at the prospect of a white Christmas. But on this
particular day her school-aged son needs dialysis and the heavy snow
has marooned her two-wheel-drive car in her driveway. She has called
everyone she can think of; the dialysis center, taxis, the fire department,
the police department, various agencies of the city of Denver, but
no one can help. The city appears to be at a standstill.
As the mother watches her son’s condition
deteriorate, her own feelings are nearing outright panic. At that
moment a number is flashed across her television screen, the number
to Denver’s Office of Emergency preparedness She calls the number
and is connected with a dispatcher for the Four-wheel Emergency Assistance
team (F.E.A.T.). The dispatcher
immediately calls a FEAT driver and gives him her address.
The FEAT driver fires up his 4x4
vehicle and within minutes of the woman’s phone call, is on his way.
The streets are deserted. The usual city sounds arc muffled. Abandoned
two- wheel-drive vehicles litter the thoroughfares—a police cruiser,
busses, even an armored truck. At least for a few hours anyway, the
city belongs to the four-wheelers. Blasting through snowdrifts, he
dodges the abandoned vehicles, sometimes having to pull cars out of
the way so he can get through. As the FEAT driver turns off the main
Street and onto the side street, he is actually cutting a path through
unmarked snow to the mother’s address.
Once the
mother and son are carefully loaded in the vehicle, he again
assaults the snow. He manages to run the obstacle course of deserted
vehicles, and gets them to the dialysis center just in time. Medical
personnel estimated the boy’s condition would have been life-threatening
within a couple of hours.
Today there
is a happy ending to this story. But it wasn’t always so. if this
incident had occurred seventeen years ago, that little boy might not
have made it to the clinic in time.
FEAT was
organized in 1984 to establish a pool of four-wheel-drive vehicles
and experienced drivers to aid Denver’s Office of Emergency Preparedness
during snow emergencies. The drivers are volunteers, using their own
vehicles on their own time. Usually, though not always, the volunteers
are members of one of the many four-wheel-drive clubs associated with
the Colorado Association of 4-Wheel Drive Clubs, Inc.
FEAT’S
story actually began during one of the worst storms in recent memory,
Christmas Eve, 1982. During this storm the city called for volunteer
4x4 drivers and their vehicles to help people who found themselves
in trouble. The storm hit so hard, so fast, and the snow was so deep
that people were stranded at work, or unable to get to a doctor. Essential
personnel (doctors, nurses, firemen, policemen) found themselves unable
to report to work.
The Office
of Emergency Preparedness hurriedly set up a system where volunteer
four-wheelers could call in and leave their number, and the people
in need would call in and leave their number. Operators would then
attempt to link up the two. It was a massive undertaking. Considering
the haste in which it was implemented, the system worked surprisingly
well. But the system was also awkward, slow to initiate, and generated
a lot of chaos.
After the
storm, the Office of Emergency Preparedness knew it had to come up
with some sort of plan for future snow emergencies. The new plan would
need to have almost immediate access to hundreds of willing and experienced
four-wheelers. How on earth could that be arranged? Especially without
a substantial budget appropriation.
The very
next year another killer snowstorm hit, this time at Thanksgiving.
Pat Turner was an extremely experienced four-wheeler, active in the
Colorado Association of Four-wheel Drive Clubs, Inc., and had in fact
been
a founding member of a four-wheel drive club. He was also experienced
in snow survival. He worked for an oil company, and a few hours before
the Thanksgiving blizzard hit, went to an oil rig on the plains east
of Denver to take oil samples.
The
blizzard hit shortly after he arrived at the oil rig. It was 9 a.m.
when Pat left the oil rig on a seldom used stretch of dirt road that
led eventually to the highway. When he failed to show up at home,
his wife and daughters became concerned. Pat’s wife, Linda, called
every agency and organization she could think of. When no one could
help search for the missing four-wheeler, she called an old four-wheeling
buddy of theirs, Jim Thurman. Jim was also active in local four-wheel
drive clubs as well as the Colorado Association of 4-Wheel Drive Clubs.
Jim and Linda put together an impromptu group of four-wheelers and
their vehicles to search for Pat. By now, most of the major roads
had been plowed enough for four-wheelers to get through. They traced
the steps from Pat’s house almost to the oil rig, but were stopped at the head
of a two-mile stretch of dirt road that remained unplowed. They were
convinced that this was where Pat would be found, along a stretch
that as virtually impassable. Even on
foot, they sank up to their armpits in the snow, and could only flounder
there until they grew exhausted and were forced to give up. Jim, a
pilot, decided to get his plane and check the road from the air. When
he finally spotted the white top of Pat’s Toyota Tercel 4x4, the snow
was almost up to its roof. At last they had found Pat. It had taken
two days.
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Copyright 1990 Off-Road Magazine
Used By Permission
