*** Colorado Snow Emergency Tests El Paso County SAR *** Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 10:29:32 -0700 From: Ron Lee To: "sar-l@islandnet.com" Subject: COLORADO SNOW EMERGENCY PUTS EL PASO COUNTY SAR TO THE TEST Beginning late Friday night 24 October El Paso County Search and Rescue in Colorado Springs was fully engaged in a snow emergency. A powerful storm system stalled along the Front Range and prairie areas of eastern Colorado and stalled. Most air was being pumped northward by low pressure established over the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and picked up by a bitter cold air mass moving south out of Canada. This produced high winds and snow in the area east of the Front Range of Colorado. Colorado Governor Romer declared a 'state of emergency' and all major roads were declared closed throughout the region. This meant that anyone other than established emergency services caught on the roads would be subject to arrest. Presumably no police would be out on the roads anyway. This weather system stalled and continued to circulate producing white-out conditions over the region. Many automobiles were rendered immobile in snow drifts and emergency vehicles were unable to respond due both to the drifts and poor visibility. In El Paso county white out conditions forced snow plows to remain in the barn despite the many calls for stranded motorists. One snowplow braved the storm in the area of Falcon, CO to lead a search and rescue vehicle to a medical incident. That snowplow suddenly tipped over in the roadway. The driver was uninjured and picked up by El Paso County Search and Rescue. Several motorists had been picked up by the SAR vehicle and all were transported to the Falcon Fire Department where they remained throughout the night and early morning. All rural fire departments in the area reported they were unable to respond to calls. By midnight on 25 October some 170 plus incidents were being handled by El Paso County Search and Rescue. A fair number of the calls received indicated cars with several small children, people with medical conditions and other factors indicating a reduced ability to cope with being trapped in the bitter cold. In some cases vehicles were reporting they were literally within yards of shelter but due to the blinding snow, extremely low wind-chill temperatures and drifted snow had to remain in their vehicles. Due to the way the storm immobilized nearly everybody, we (EPCSAR) were unable get help to the vast majority of these calls until the weather broke during the night. So we had an enormous queue to deal with. Although there will always be things we can do better, I was very happy to see how well we were able to deal with this emergency. I think we got off to a good start organizing the operation and when adaptations in the the way we did things became desirable we were able to make those changes smoothly. As of this time, (and the emergency is still underway), there have been no deaths despite many, many people spending upwards of 36 hours trapped in cars, trailers, etc. There have been some hypothermia reported including one dramatic incident of a lady being picked up by a citizen this morning in a rural area. Based on the cell phone call she was obviously suffering from the last stages of hypothermia having been picked up walking barefoot with very light clothing. From all the cell calls it really looked like we would lose some. That may still happen, but it sure looks a lot better this morning. Well, I am trashed having been awake 42 hours before getting a night's sleep last night at rescue base. Came home this morning, most boulevards are just now getting opened up so was able to drive up to within about a block of my home. Going to take a nice warm bath while others on our team carry on and try to get some more rest. It's going to be darn hard to turn my scanner off. Probably pop up in a few hours and check in again. Check our web page in a few days. I'll try to get the mission stories updated as soon as this is all over. Ron Lee Information Systems and Resources Committee Chair El Paso County Search and Rescue, Inc. Colorado Springs, Colorado USA team email: epcsar@frii.com personal email: ronlee@frii.com World Wide Web: http://www.frii.com/~epcsar/ -------------------------