Out in Force
I headed out early for my usual Saturday morning breakfast with my friends leaving the house a little earlier than usual since we had snow that night. It was one of those strange type mornings since no normal people were out yet, just me and the “Force”.
It was odd that on the 10 minute drive to Village Inn from my house I traveled the small streets in my neighborhood to the highway and through the back street neighborhoods near the hospital. On this whole drive of seven miles there was one thing happening that struck me like a vehicle blasting off into a snow bank on a cold windy morning.
The only people I had seen that morning were the snow plow drivers making the night twinkle with the flashing yellow and blue lights and the occasional back up horn blasting away to anyone close by. Not a soul else was seen on this drive to breakfast.
Coming down my street was a ‘formation’ of three snow plows coming at me like an army of heavy metal with blinding lights to show them the way and the color of the flashing lights glowing on the heavy laden tree limbs covered in fresh snow.
As I made my way to the entrance ramp to the highway it passes our new mall and there were lights flashing everywhere. I counted 14 plows cleaning up the parking lots of the new Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and the new theater (16 screens). The plows ranged from pickup trucks with a plow blade to heavier loaders and scrapper trucks many with sparks flying as the blades break through ice to the concrete below.
On the freeway there were three or four going north and two more heading south in my direction. Snow was flying off the blade to the right side of the road creating a mini blizzard as I passed the plows. I turned off the freeway by Merrill Field (small airport) with snow covered planes sitting there waiting for either their owner to come clean them off to take flight in the cold air or waiting for warmer temperatures in the spring.
The hospital parking lot had four more plows working the different levels of the lots going down the hill on 15th and as I made my way onto Lake Otis Parkway several side streets glowed from the yellow lights as the army of snow plows gathered up the new found snow moving some to the roadside while many other locations in the city has the snow hauled off in large dump trucks to one of about 50 lots or places where the snow is dropped off and then loaders pile the snow into huge mountains some of them over a 100 foot tall. These piles melt all summer only to get to a small one before the snow starts again growing it over and over. Thus the never ending cycle of snow piles in Anchorage.
There have been studies of all of the snow plowed in the city of Anchorage during a typical 4-6 inch snow event. The Sullivan arena which seats about 8,700 people (basketball) could be filled 110 times by volume during that event. On heavier snow days it takes several days to gather up all of the excess snow and move it to a storage lot. Things typically never shut down here unless it is due to mechanical problem (heat out).
Breakfast was nice with the gang and as I headed out around 10 am the sky was growing with first light of the day. People were out and about shopping or running other chores and the plow drivers were mostly hidden in the light of day only to be found if there was a continuation of snow during the daylight hours.
Hats off to the ‘Force’ as they make our travels so much easier during pretty rough conditions on our streets and highways.
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