Tuesday, January 2, 2007, 08:53 PM - Adventures
You probably heard about it on the news or read about it online or
something, but if you didn't know, this blizzard was a doosie! The
entire Front Range was paralyzed. Highways were shut down, governments,
all sorts of shops. Of course the hospitals and other care facilities
must stay open and I had the honor of being able to drive several
nurses and a social worker to their destinations.
I
got to see the storm first hand, out there on the snow-buried streets.
It started on Wednesday night. I prepped the truck in the days and
hours prior. Blankets, spare parts, tools. Snow pants, parka shell,
gaiters, boots, all that crazy stuff I have. Yeah, snow shoes too.
Pretty well knew FEAT would be called up.
FEAT activated me that evening right after they started up and I
fit in a couple runs. First was a lady at a child care facility needing
a ride out to Lakewood. It wasn't bad but I stayed off the highways
per advice from the dispatcher.
I
took a break, gassed up, helped some folks get the gas station attendant's
car unstuck. I drove a nurse to Children's. Roads near her house weren't
super deep and had been driven, but few 2wd vehicles would've made
it. Parker road was snowy, dark. Few cars coming or going. Took us
a good hour or more to get there. Snow was falling pretty fast. An
H2 chained on all four was parked when I got there, maybe another
FEAT member. I headed home.
Snow fell so fast that plows just couldn't keep up so even the main
roads were bad from Wednesday evening through Thursday. The side roads
were even worse, as no attempts were made to plow them. Snowfalls
reached bout knee-high (and that's on a 6' guy like me) in parts of
the Southeast suburban area.
You
know it is bad when 4x4 vehicles themselves get stuck in this stuff.
On top of countless cars abandoned by the roadside, I saw more than
a few trucks and Jeeps abandoned in hub-deep snow.
Fortunately I was able to plow through this stuff without much trouble,
except on a couple of occasions in cul-de-sacs on Thursday where only
a lot of shoveling got me back out. Huge thanks to the very kind people
in each case that helped my passengers and thus me get unstuck and
on our way!
I got lost more than a few times, no surprise there! Thanks to whoever
made the makeshift "Havana" street sign scrawled on poster
board and stuck into the snow -- you saved my butt. Had to buy a Denver
atlas the night before. That helped. My GPS and old computer &
navigation software didn't.
Thursday was the worst of it. Lots of snow coming down, really deep
in the side streets. Helped a couple others get unstuck over the next
couple days. Friday I was supposed to fly out but we decided not to
because of the giant fiasco at the airport. By Saturday things were
getting back to normal, side streets plowed and all.
Then we got hit with snow again.
Not a week later they were predicting anywhere from 1-3 feet, a two-wave
storm circling around us from New Mexico up to Kansas with upslope
conditions. FEAT proactively called out. I fit in a couple runs Thursday,
a patient and social worker. I had a 6am pickup in Castle Rock the
next morning.
The mysterious tailgate short reappeared. Weird behavior from the
electrical system with power cut outs, flickering lights. The circuit
breaker was really hot when I pulled it that night. I resolved to
get up early to fix what I thought was a short and a partially burned
fusible link.
Another "Scotty" moment (think Star Trek). Was able to
get the Jeep patched up by rerouting power through an auxiliary power
coupling (I wired a small gauge bypass on the fusible link).
I made the pickup and drop off. The second storm wasn't too bad.
About 8" total. Would've made it tough on the low slung cars,
but this was nothing like the prior one. Now we just shovel what we
can to unbury ourselves and wait for all this to melt...
