The snow/ice following the unusual storm that hit here on two weeks ago (January 25) created challenges for owners, contractors, guests and emergency service providers at Wintergreen even a week later.
“Instead of shoveling, the white ground cover often had to be cut into blocks and tossed away.”
Instead of shoveling, the white ground cover often had to be cut into blocks and tossed away. Long driveways that usually were plowed clear of snow in five or ten minutes took almost an hour’s work.
Because homeowners who typically either waited a few days for a thaw or shoveled it off their driveways and walkways themselves could not move the sleet-snow that froze rock-hard in single-digit temperatures, traffic to the list of snowplow services on the Wintergreen Property Owners Association website shot up. The number of snow movers on WPOA’s list almost doubled.
The weather allowed the resort to get all of its slopes open.
“The snow surface that remains undisturbed is beautiful, but, it is not light and fluffy. Standard plastic snow shovels are not the right tool. Heavy duty steel shovels are a better choice,” WPOA’s newsletter on January 29 warned vacation property owners.
[put update, lessons learned, etc, from WPOA here]
A week after the snow-sleet hit, Wintergreen Fire & Rescue Chief Curtis Sheets reported that in the four-day shift rotation, which covered Friday through Monday (January 30 to February 2), Wintergreen Fire and Rescue handled over 50 calls,
“That's pretty busy during normal times, but when you factor in the bulletproof snow, the difficulty went up. I just can't say enough how extraordinary the past few days have been. And yet, every call for service was met,” Sheets said in an email to his volunteers and staff, pointing that that:
“We handled as many rope/technical incidents during the rotation as we have handled in entire years.
“Last Monday, Ryan Ferro and Jacob Flannery completed a 5-mile hike to retrieve a stranded hiker in one of the Appalachian Trail shelters. (Those guys are beasts!)
“There was a structure fire on Monday, which was particularly challenging due to a lack of manpower.
“Two of the technical rescue team incidents required more than 10 responders.”
“On January 31 our Technical Rescue Team was called to a scene where a patient slipped on the ice and slid down a steep embankment before coming to rest in the forest. A bystander attempted to assist, however became a second patient,” says Sheets
