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Title: Colorado blizzard strands thousands
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Published: Dec 21, 2006
Author: staff
Post Date: 2006-12-21 19:43:31 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 167
Comments: 13
Colorado blizzard strands thousands By KIM NGUYEN, Associated Press Writer 44 minutes ago DENVER - Nearly 5,000 travelers who mistakenly thought they were beating the Christmas rush struggled to find a hotel room or faced another night on the hard floor at Denver's snowbound airport Thursday after a blizzard paralyzed the city. ADVERTISEMENT The storm blanketed most of Colorado under 2 feet of snow, bringing businesses, government and holiday shopping to a standstill, shutting down the nation's fifth-busiest airport and creating a ripple effect that disrupted air travel around the country just days before Christmas. "We can't go home; the highway's closed. We can't get to the car; it's 10 miles away. And the hotels are not cheap," said Jodie Hartfield of Colorado Springs, who spent a sleepless night squeezed between a signboard and a phone booth with her husband and three young children. Denver International Airport — once touted as storm-proof — closed on Wednesday afternoon, and a spokesman said it would not reopen until noon Friday. By then, more than 2,000 flights in and out of Denver will have been canceled, officials said. On Wednesday night, airport authorities provided a few hundred cots for the estimated 4,700 stranded travelers and doled out scratchy Red Cross blankets, along with diapers and baby formula. But there wasn't nearly enough bedding to go around. Hundreds of travelers slept in lines at ticket counters. Others huddled on bench seats, or sought shelter against walls and counters, covering themselves with clothing, luggage and newspapers. The baggage pick-up area proved a popular spot — it was dark enough to sleep. Plows plied the runways, but falling and drifting snow covered them all over again within 30 minutes, airport spokesman Steve Snyder said. Airport managers tried to persuade travelers to leave. Public-address announcements emphasized there would be no flights for another day, and plows cleared parking lots and worked the 10-mile access road to Interstate 70. Officials organized convoys of 10 buses, led by a snowplow, to take travelers to hotels 25 miles away in downtown Denver, 800 at a time. One angry passenger, pharmacist Robert Helmer, waited for the first convoy of the day with bags under his eyes. Helmer managed to get on a United Airlines flight to St. Louis on Wednesday morning, sat for an hour waiting for a late-arriving flight attendant, then three more hours on the tarmac before the flight was finally canceled. He spent the night on the airport floor, covered by what he could find in his carry-on bag. "There's a lot of very bitter people here, and I'm one of them," Helmer said. "This was major mismanagement." It was the biggest snowstorm to hit Colorado since a March blizzard in 2003 that shut down the region and killed six. The storm brought life to a standstill for 3.8 million people along the Front Range — a 170-mile urban corridor along the eastern edge of the Rockies that includes Denver. Police and National Guardsmen rescued hundreds of people stuck in cars. Some mountain areas got more than 3 feet of snow, and up to 25 inches fell in the Denver metropolitan area. Despite the slick roads and deep drifts, there were no immediate reports of any deaths or serious injuries were reported. But Denver's normally bustling downtown was all but empty Thursday morning, with a few people trudging down the middle of unplowed streets. Other people got around by snowmobile. Mail delivery across the region was suspended, and many malls were closed on what should have been one of the busiest shopping days of the year. The storm — which lingered through midday Thursday — also shut down I-70 and I-25, major routes through the West. Hartfield's family, desperate to get to Seattle, managed to rebook a flight for Christmas Eve, but held out hope of getting onto an earlier standby flight. Hartfield and her husband, Andy, used luggage, Red Cross blankets, a cot and a flattened cardboard box scrounged from another family to wall off a spot for the night. While the parents tended 5-month-old Michael, their other children, Drew, 5, and Alexis, 3, made an adventure of the mess. "The kids had a blast. It was like a camping trip for them," Hartfield said. "But we were tossing and turning the whole night." ___
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
Don't know how deep it got here, but there is a drift at one end of my drive way that had me swimming for a moment. Went from waist deep to I don't know what. Kind of scary. I backed out. We had all the vehicles out by 11:00. Got a 4wd going and we were able ram it through the other end of the drive. Then dug for a couple of hours. Got the car out and discovered there was not place to go. Roads were all closed. The other end of the drive with big drift will probably be closed until spring. Stores started opening about 4:00 this afternoon. Someone has a horse in the back pasture without a cover. One of the people who boaard here. Will see how cold it gets. Call the humane society and have them bring a cover if it gets bad again. Would of done it last night if I could have seen it.
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Cows were all starving. Lining the fences and calling to anyone who went by. None got fed last night. A giant front loader came and drove in a big circle in all the pastures. This made a relatively dry road for the trucks to get in and throw out the hay. Don't know who arranged it or payed for it but it worked well. I saw it drive through a drift that was up to the axel. About four or five feet above ground level.
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Two feet sounds about right but with those vicious winds many four foot drifts around here. And that is a car stopper for most vehicles. There are tons of trucks sitting it out all along the major streets, tho I-25 to Denver just opened, doubt south of Pueblo is open. I got stuck three times trying to get to work. Thank goodness for friends. We seemed to be the only liquor store opened this early afternoon, and many banks were closed, so biz was brisk. Shut down at 6:00. Major ploouy for retailers in the front range. Cept for easy to get to liquor stores )
poor cows!
No kiddin!! (Not so much the cold - they have "winter coats", but there's NO WAY they're gonna find any grass or other "chow" under 4 feet of snow!) Makes ya appreciate TX doesn't it? We only got about 3 or 4 inches here - on top of ½" of ice from the freezing rain.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
you bet. we almost never get snow here in austin. i don't like the stuff.
I used to love playing in it when I was a kid, but now that I'm older and have to do chores in it it's NOT so much fun anymore!!
No matter how noble the objectives of a government; if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion - it is an EVIL government. Eric Hoffer
this blizzard is why the game between the Phoenix Suns & Denver Nuggets was cancelled.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].
They should have played in Phoenix then! ;P
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." It snowed a little bit here, then it rained. What a crapper. The roads are icy and people are retarded. Nobody can drive in this fucking town.
#2. To: tom007 (#0)
#3. To: ..., indrid cold, diana (#1)
Don't know how deep it got here, but there is a drift at one end of
#4. To: ... (#2)
#5. To: christine (#4)
poor cows!
#6. To: innieway (#5)
#7. To: christine (#6)
i don't like the stuff.
#8. To: robin (#0)
#9. To: Red Jones (#8)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#10. To: tom007 (#0)
 | This country's priorities are all fucked up. |
#11. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#10)
Echoed by thousands through out the nation. Merry Christmas, Tommy.
Nobody can drive in this fucking town.
#12. To: christine (#6)
Does being an anti-snowite get you any terrorist points?
we almost never get snow here in austin. i don't like the stuff.
#13. To: tom007 (#11)
Merry Christmas to you Tom007. Luckily I grew up in the rural country where a Snowplow might as well have been a flying saucer. If you saw one and told someone else, they'd never believe you. I live in Minneapolis, and I have to tell you, we have some pretty goddamned good snow removal. Seriously, compared to where I used to live, this place is phenomenal, and the irony here is that the second there's a snowflake in the air, people forget how to fricking drive. It's not like we don't have winters that last 5 months out of the fucking year here. It's not like Snow is new to Minnesota. It bothers me that we have an influx of people who have never even seen snow as they're from other countries, and let alone had paved roads to begin with. The reason why it bothers me, is because at the driver's license testing station they have interpreters GIVING THESE PEOPLE THE CORRECT ANSWERS. These people have no idea how to drive, and even worse, is that we don't test people on how to drive in crappy weather. It amazes me just how many people come here during the summer, never thinking that we actually get snow. At any rate, I hope you have a great holiday and a prosperous 2007. I know I'm going to.
| This country's priorities are all fucked up. |
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