Re: NNG But there's a lot of weather in NG country

TonyK375 Wrote:
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> I would love a Mini Micro snow drift about now.
> Just heading to tackle the 12' drift covering the
> entire front of the building at work.
>
> Ahh, spring in the Black Hills of South Dakota!

Do be careful: One man killed, another injured, while clearing the snow off of a roof in Crested Butte, Colorado, and another man injured by snow from the roof of a house there. Both incidents are being called "roof avalanches," caused by very unusual snow conditions there, four feet of heavy, wet snow. There was apparently a "Pineapple Express" weather situation in CB, not something I ever saw there. April, 1973, 110" in seven days, but all typical Rocky Mountain powder snow. The only avalanches were from ski area-owned buildings, that I warned them before they had the structures built would deposit snow off of their roofs directly on to the walkways to the ski lifts. They did not listen, they had to close the walkways and create temporary paths whenever there was enough snow for the roofs to 'avalanche' snow, not uncommon events.

One prolblem caused by that snow storm were roads becoming narrower and narrower as the week progressed. Gunnison County kept an older road maintainer in its road barn in CB, with a rotary snow blower which was designed not to throw the snow long distances but, rather to lift it over the berm at the side of a road and deposit the snow on the opposite side. After a few days, they could no longer use this, as the snow behind the berms was so high that the rotary could not lift the snow high enough.

Another problem was mine: As fire chief, I began to ponder if we could even get a fire engine through some of the town streets; the county plowed them, but they were so busy that not all streets got plowed very often. Our ambulance was a four-wheel-drive van conversion, so it was considerably narrower than the fire engine, so road conditions did not seem to be much of a problem for it. The road to the ski area (now the Town of Mount Crested Butte) is narrow, steep, and winding, as well as being paved; only one street in Crested Butte itself was paved, and plowing dirt roads is harder than on paved surfaces. At least this was after the ski area closed for the season, so there were few people at the ski area; in addition, if one of my volunteers was available, he wouuld plow the road ahead of us with the Gunnison County Michigan Payloader, which had a snow plow attached all winter.