Post by icecold on Nov 7, 2008 15:26:45 GMT -5
Finding Refuge from the Blizzard
Kevin Woster, Journal staff
Just before she and her husband, Randy, hit the ditch early Thursday morning, Tracy Devine was wishing she’d just spent the night at the office.
“It was terrible out there. We couldn’t see a thing,” she said Thursday afternoon, warm and safe at the Flying J truck stop along Interstate 90. “I grew up here. And I’ve never seen it like that.”
Just as the blistering, 60-mph gale and blinding snow sent the Devines into the ditch early Thursday morning on the service road to their home in Box Elder, it also forced scores of long-haul truckers to pull into the Flying J and off the increasingly treacherous interstate.
The trucks sat Thursday afternoon in snow-encrusted rows with diesel engines rumbling, as the storm raged and the interstate remained closed. Inside their rigs, truckers and, in some cases, their wives passed the time watching DVDs, reading magazines and listening to the wind howl.
They also made travel wishes that they feared wouldn’t be answered until Friday.
“I want to go home to Florida,” Marshelle Nowand shouted out the half-open door of the truck driven by her husband, LeRoy. “This is my first experience with this. It was terrifying. I want to go home.”
A Michigan native with years of long-haul experience, her husband had seen it all before. And he wasn’t surprised to run smack into a blizzard on this leg of their long haul from New Jersey to Seattle.
Even so, LeRyo admitted that the last 100 miles of interstate travel from the east turned into a three-and-a-half-hour, white-knuckle ordeal that tested his nerve and driving skill.
“There was essentially no visibility. You’d just try to keep the truck in the track of the car in front of you,” he said. “It was tough.”
It was tough enough to keep the skeleton staff at the Flying J on for more than 24 hours straight, with no relief in sight Thursday afternoon.
“We take turns taking naps,” assistant manager Brian Williams said.
In another idling truck outside Nick Ladwig of Greeley, Colo., had just finished watching “Pirates of the Caribbean” on his in-cab TV and stepped out in the blizzard long enough for a quick-walk around of the rig.
“Pulled in last night about 7:30 or so,” he said. “High winds and blowing snow. Hope to get out of here tomorrow.”
Tracy and Randy Devine were hoping the same thing, as they watched TV, sipped soda and strolled back and forth with other stranded travelers in the Flying J. Tracy left her work shift at Mileage Plus Inc. in Rapid City shortly after 11 p.m., Wednesday but snow and wind forced her into the Flying J. Her husband came to pick her up in a four-wheel-drive Blazer, and they headed for home in Box Elder.
By 12:30 a.m. they were in the ditch, not far from another stranded vehicle. A Pennington County Search & Rescue team picked them all up at about 3 a.m., and dropped them off back at the truck stop.
“We had filled up with gas, so we stayed warm,” she said. “I was more scared of the drive than sitting there in the dark.”
But she also said there was a simple way to avoid the whole adventure.
“I should have just stayed at work.”
Back in Rapid City, the decision Thursday was whether to go to work, or even try. Native American Office Products manager Wendy Wright decided to go by 8 a.m., with some help from her husband, John.
“It was pretty nasty coming in,” John said Thursday afternoon, during a break from wrestling with a snowblower in the parking lot of the Main Street business. “It kind of locked everybody up.”
Tyler Seeley and Jessica Burley were feeling locked up in a downtown apartment, so they struck out on foot for a friend’s apartment in north Rapid City.
“We’re going to have hot cocoa and cookies,” Burley said.
Seeley was awed by the dramatic change in the weather, from highs in the 70s a few days earlier to the sudden power of a raging blizzard.
“It always amazes me how beautiful nature can be – and how changeable,” he said.
The storm changed Shelly Field’s plans for her day off from housekeeping duties at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn. When others couldn’t get to work, she walked in from her north Rapid City home to fill in.
“It’s pretty good. You just have to keep your balance,” she said as she worked her way carefully along Haines Avenue. “Usually I drive, but my car got snowed in.”
Around the corner on Monroe Street, 13-year-old Leihau Runs Against was shoveling out her aunt’s car.
“It’s hard,” she said. “It’s cold.”
Nearby, a classic-looking Cadillac sat unprotected in the blowing wind, where just the night before it was in the shelter of a carport.
“When we woke up this morning, it was gone,” Leihau’s grandmother, Marlene Runs Against, said of the port. “The wind just picked it up and threw it over there.”
The crumpled remains of the carport were in the next yard beyond another building. Yet Runs Against couldn’t bring herself to complain about the storm.
“I like snow. And I didn’t have to work today,” she said. “The only thing I don’t like is the shoveling.”
Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com
Kevin Woster, Journal staff
Just before she and her husband, Randy, hit the ditch early Thursday morning, Tracy Devine was wishing she’d just spent the night at the office.
“It was terrible out there. We couldn’t see a thing,” she said Thursday afternoon, warm and safe at the Flying J truck stop along Interstate 90. “I grew up here. And I’ve never seen it like that.”
Just as the blistering, 60-mph gale and blinding snow sent the Devines into the ditch early Thursday morning on the service road to their home in Box Elder, it also forced scores of long-haul truckers to pull into the Flying J and off the increasingly treacherous interstate.
The trucks sat Thursday afternoon in snow-encrusted rows with diesel engines rumbling, as the storm raged and the interstate remained closed. Inside their rigs, truckers and, in some cases, their wives passed the time watching DVDs, reading magazines and listening to the wind howl.
They also made travel wishes that they feared wouldn’t be answered until Friday.
“I want to go home to Florida,” Marshelle Nowand shouted out the half-open door of the truck driven by her husband, LeRoy. “This is my first experience with this. It was terrifying. I want to go home.”
A Michigan native with years of long-haul experience, her husband had seen it all before. And he wasn’t surprised to run smack into a blizzard on this leg of their long haul from New Jersey to Seattle.
Even so, LeRyo admitted that the last 100 miles of interstate travel from the east turned into a three-and-a-half-hour, white-knuckle ordeal that tested his nerve and driving skill.
“There was essentially no visibility. You’d just try to keep the truck in the track of the car in front of you,” he said. “It was tough.”
It was tough enough to keep the skeleton staff at the Flying J on for more than 24 hours straight, with no relief in sight Thursday afternoon.
“We take turns taking naps,” assistant manager Brian Williams said.
In another idling truck outside Nick Ladwig of Greeley, Colo., had just finished watching “Pirates of the Caribbean” on his in-cab TV and stepped out in the blizzard long enough for a quick-walk around of the rig.
“Pulled in last night about 7:30 or so,” he said. “High winds and blowing snow. Hope to get out of here tomorrow.”
Tracy and Randy Devine were hoping the same thing, as they watched TV, sipped soda and strolled back and forth with other stranded travelers in the Flying J. Tracy left her work shift at Mileage Plus Inc. in Rapid City shortly after 11 p.m., Wednesday but snow and wind forced her into the Flying J. Her husband came to pick her up in a four-wheel-drive Blazer, and they headed for home in Box Elder.
By 12:30 a.m. they were in the ditch, not far from another stranded vehicle. A Pennington County Search & Rescue team picked them all up at about 3 a.m., and dropped them off back at the truck stop.
“We had filled up with gas, so we stayed warm,” she said. “I was more scared of the drive than sitting there in the dark.”
But she also said there was a simple way to avoid the whole adventure.
“I should have just stayed at work.”
Back in Rapid City, the decision Thursday was whether to go to work, or even try. Native American Office Products manager Wendy Wright decided to go by 8 a.m., with some help from her husband, John.
“It was pretty nasty coming in,” John said Thursday afternoon, during a break from wrestling with a snowblower in the parking lot of the Main Street business. “It kind of locked everybody up.”
Tyler Seeley and Jessica Burley were feeling locked up in a downtown apartment, so they struck out on foot for a friend’s apartment in north Rapid City.
“We’re going to have hot cocoa and cookies,” Burley said.
Seeley was awed by the dramatic change in the weather, from highs in the 70s a few days earlier to the sudden power of a raging blizzard.
“It always amazes me how beautiful nature can be – and how changeable,” he said.
The storm changed Shelly Field’s plans for her day off from housekeeping duties at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn. When others couldn’t get to work, she walked in from her north Rapid City home to fill in.
“It’s pretty good. You just have to keep your balance,” she said as she worked her way carefully along Haines Avenue. “Usually I drive, but my car got snowed in.”
Around the corner on Monroe Street, 13-year-old Leihau Runs Against was shoveling out her aunt’s car.
“It’s hard,” she said. “It’s cold.”
Nearby, a classic-looking Cadillac sat unprotected in the blowing wind, where just the night before it was in the shelter of a carport.
“When we woke up this morning, it was gone,” Leihau’s grandmother, Marlene Runs Against, said of the port. “The wind just picked it up and threw it over there.”
The crumpled remains of the carport were in the next yard beyond another building. Yet Runs Against couldn’t bring herself to complain about the storm.
“I like snow. And I didn’t have to work today,” she said. “The only thing I don’t like is the shoveling.”
Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com