Snow dumped hard in Wrangell on Tuesday and Wednesday, more than 18 inches, prompting Wrangellites to help each other shovel. Some said the winter storm was unprecedented.
People on a Facebook community page were also offering snow removal services, and four wheelers with plows were going at it on the streets and sidewalks. But the snow kept falling until Wednesday morning.
Both the state Department of Transportation and the Public Works Department plowed Wrangell’s roads throughout the day. Public Works Director Tom Wetor said they started plowing the roads at 2 a.m. Wednesday, leaving about three-foot berms separating the lanes. On Wednesday he said drivers still have to be cautious.
“If you got four-wheel drive, you can drive on any road,” he said. “If you got two-wheel drive, none of the roads are really good for you right now.”
He said the department will probably get back to the roads on Thursday.
Snow fun
Though many were stressed by the amount of snow, not everyone was, like ninth grader Marcus Ostrander. While walking towards him at the middle school, the snow crunched below my footsteps. He’s digging through the snow to build a castle without a shovel.
“It’s stop sign shaped with a large hole in the front,” he said. “I’m hollowing out the inside to try to crawl inside of it.”
He said all this snow is fun and it doesn’t happen all the time.
“We’ve got some very cold air that has made its presence known”
Ostrander might continue his fun when another round of significant snow is expected in the Southeast Panhandle this weekend. That’s according to Juneau-based Meteorologist Grant Smith, with the National Weather Service, said we’re also approaching a cold front over the next few days.
“We got some very cold air that has made its presence known in the area,” he said. “That’s what we’re dealing with.”
He said cold can be a very sneaky weather threat because it doesn’t look dangerous, but if you’re stuck out in it for a while then real problems can arise. He said that’s why it’s important to look out for each other.
“Check in on your neighbors,” Smith said. “Extreme cold and extreme heat are two of those big things that can come in and cause a lot of problems if you don’t prepare.”
One way to prepare is by running a small trickle of water overnight if the pipes aren’t insulated. That should prevent them from freezing and bursting.
Wrangell doesn’t have a consistent snow record
Another Juneau-based Meteorologist Jeff Garmon said the National Weather Service doesn’t have a consistent record of snowfall data in Wrangell, but he estimates we broke a record.
“We did break some daily records at Juneau and at Petersburg when the arctic front came through those locations, we had heavier snowfall there,” he said. “I suspect, based on the fact that we had fair amount of snow reported around Wrangell, that historically, if we’d had records at Wrangell, we probably would have broken them.”
He said it wasn’t as big as the February 1946 storm when neighboring Petersburg got 26 inches.
