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Skykomish crews attack a roadside snow pile.
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Lending a helping snowplow
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<<Sounds of loader pushing snow>>
Skykomish Assistant Supervisor Bob Pugh Says:
I think this year by December, I think we pretty much had what we,
what we would have had for a, I'm not going to say a normal winter, but
what we've had for a winter in the past. This is probably more snow than
I've seen in 20 some years since I've been a part of up here.
Narrator Says:
For Bob Pugh and his crew, since the snow started, the work hasn’t
stopped.
Bob is the Assistant Supervisor at the King County Road Services
Division’s Skykomish maintenance yard.
A late-January snow storm brought the Skykomish crew problems in fours.
About four feet of snow in four days . . . and.
Skykomish Assistant Supervisor Bob Pugh Says:
It's just that we have a four-person crew, we're just plowing, plowing,
plowing trying to push it back in every nook and cranny, anywhere the
people let us push it. Trying to keep the road open so people can still
carry on with what they need to carry on with.
Narrator Says:
The snow has left the city of Skykomish and surrounding unincorporated
areas essentially buried.
The road-clearing efforts by city and county crews left piles of snow on
the side of the roads so high, crews eventually had to pile the snow in
trucks and dump it at the Skykomish maintenance yard.
King County Executive Ron Sims issued an emergency proclamation to
authorize help from within the Road Services Division.
To assist the county’s regular four-man crew, additional county staff
and equipment were sent.
Skykomish Assistant Supervisor Bob Pugh Says:
We're doing pretty good, we got a really good support staff from Renton.
They're up here giving us a hand because it just doesn't want to quit.
I’d say since Sunday we've had an additional four feet of snow, and the
roads have a tendency to want to get narrow. I think we've got 8 trucks,
2 loaders, a grater, a dozer, and we're just trying to move snow from
the clogged up areas to a big place where we can store it and it can
melt naturally. I mean we're in town, we got 2 trucks and a backhoe in
Skykomish to give them a hand because of the narrowing streets and the
piles of snow they have too.
Narrator Says:
Two people who were doing their best to keep from getting buried were
Mark Stoelinga and John Locatelli.
Mark is a professor and John is a scientist at the University of
Washington.
This is the first winter they’ve rented a house in Skykomish to study
snow at Steven's Pass.
They say even shoveling the snow in front of the house involves some
scientific knowledge.
UW Research Scientist John Locatelli Says:
(How does the shoveling involve calculus in laymen’s terms?) Well,
because the rate of decrease of the snow pile can be calculated using
calculus. Cause calculus is useful for calculating rates. So that’s what
we’re doing in our heads we’re calculating how fast this is going down
and how quickly we can get inside.
Narrator Says:
Skykomish crew members say they’d seen more snow by this last December
than they see for some whole winters.
They also say some of the biggest snow storms can happen in the middle
or end of march.
Skykomish Assistant Supervisor Bob Pugh Says:
(So it might get worse before it gets better?) Well I hate to be a
prediction, a predictor, they say the only people up here that predict
the weather is a tourist and a fool [laughter].
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