By JIM TROUTLos Alamos
The early morning of March 13, a mother of a storm (more like a cyclone bomb), hit the Jemez Mountains in the vicinity of the Valles Caldera, along S.R. 4 and into Los Alamos County.
Take a trip to Los Alamos and see the hundreds of trees felled as a result of this brief, violent storm.
Myself and 18 or 19 other vehicles were trapped on S.R. 4 in the Valles Caldera area in zero visibility, very high winds and drifting snow banks.
Traffic was completely stopped; some vehicles in the middle of the road and some off the road.
My Jeep was stuck in a snow drift, wipers disabled by ice, the defroster couldn’t keep up with ice accumulation. A solid block of ice formed across the radiator and the wind was in excess of 65mph causing zero visibility. Fortunately, cell phones worked and a 911 call from someone reached Sandoval county highway crews and Los Alamos county police department (LAPD).
The initial storm had hit about 6am and got worse rapidly. About 10:30am rescue came in the form of many officers from LAPD with 4-wheel drive trucks busting through snow drifts and by shoveling and pushing they got the stuck vehicles out of the middle of the road so that the snow removal vehicles from Sandoval County could clear the road.
One mother with her two young children had been stuck for over three hours and another vehicle was off the road at a 45-degree angle with doors frozen shut.
The driver had been trapped since 6:30 a.m.! This was without doubt a life-threatening storm.
The LAPD was the first on the scene by more than an hour. I later learned they had come prepared with chain saws to remove over 20 large trees that had closed S.R.4 before they could rescue those stranded. Sometime later, 4 to 5 large snow removal vehicles from Sandoval county arrived and cleared the road and all those stranded got safely home.
I want to point out that if the LAPD had not crossed from Los Alamos County into Sandoval County the situation would have become much more serious.
The Sandoval Sheriffs’ Dept. did not take part in the Valles Caldera area rescue, but they did quickly set up a road block at the intersection of S.R.4 and 126.
All of us thank the officers of LAPD for their rapid rescue response and for their courtesy, service and protection.
The last storm of this intensity that I remember, in the Los Alamos/Jemez Mtn. Area was the mega winter storm of 1947/48. Anyone living in the Jemez area back then will remember that storm and those of us stranded will remember the cyclone bomb of 3/13/2019.
