The weather in Washington State has been very, very warm and rainy. So much so that even at 3500 feet the rain has been pouring down in buckets; over five inches in 48 hours. Rain on top of 4 feet of snow makes..... a ton of slush and also causes avalanches.
You saw the "Art's toy" post and when you have a toy you must take it out and use it, so Art and his toy went down the road two days ago to clear the snow and slush. 2 of his other playmates took the snowplow, "Fluffy", down to the lake to clear the way for the bus to bring in guests. After Art was almost finished grading, the radio buzzed to tell him that the guys down at the lake had gotten "Fluffy" stuck and he needed to turn around and head back down to the lake to pull them out.
Down he went again. After he had pulled them out, they all headed back up the mountain only to find the road blocked by an avalanche. They had no place to go but back to the lake again where Holden has a small "A" frame cabin for emergencies. Art had to back the grader down the road to a place where he could leave it and the three of them, Art, Bob and Mark, then walked in the slush the last 2 miles down the road to hunker down for the night.
Back in the village, I was pretty worried about Art and the weather. We had no idea how many avalanches had come down and the rain kept pouring and pouring down. We could hear avalanches around the village and could only trust that the placement of the village was as safe as we had been told. Neither of us got much sleep that night.
The next morning, Art and Mark slogged back up to the road grader to start working on clearing the blocking avalanche from the lake side. From our end, Chuck and Daniel headed down the road in another snow plow to work on the snow from this end. All in all there were 3 avalanches to clear and the arriving guests did not get into the village until 3pm in the afternoon. Art, being the hard worker that he is, stayed and plowed then entire road again finally getting back to the village just after dinner Wednesday night.
Guess what his job is for tomorrow? This trip can't be as bad as the last, the rain has cut our snow pack in half and we return to snow which is much kinder to people.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm so thankful that Art and the others are okay. gosh... lots of rain in January? I'm praying for snow, snow now there.
Hi Joan - Glad Art ended up safely after his Big Adventure. I can't believe I didn't think of you having a blog. I just found it tonight as I was checking for open dates at Holden this summer. I sat down and read the WHOLE thing. What great adventures you've had! Makes me want to be there, too, instead of here in the Burg. Love the look of the new library...
Post a Comment