This week’s blizzard has yet to run its course, but we were impressed Wednesday with signs that lessons learned from past storms and keen cooperation between the public and private sectors might cushion its impact.
Even shopping malls closed by 3 p.m., sacrificing what would normally have been a brisk sales day in favor of getting their employees and customers home before roads became wholly impassable.
The timing of the storm inevitably provoked comparisons with the notorious Christmas blizzard of Dec. 24, 1982, which dumped 23.8 inches of snow on Denver. The city’s slow response in clearing neighborhood streets helped challenger Federico Peña defeat Mayor Bill McNichols in the following spring’s election.
Just a few months later, on Nov. 27, 1983, Peña had his own weather-related fiasco. When 21.5 inches of snow fell in Denver, Peña resorted to ordering trash trucks to pack down the snow on city streets. That only created huge frozen ruts that irritated motorists for weeks. The “trash mash” blunder haunted Peña for years.
The current mayor, John Hickenlooper, is enough of a student of political history to recognize that city hall’s response to the vagaries of weather can affect voter attitudes. On the theory that it’s better to be early than sorry, Denver actually went on accident alert Tuesday night, before a single snowflake had fallen in the city. Snowplows were dispatched with magnesium chloride, laying down so much of the de-icer that it left some streets slippery in advance of the snowfall.
Hickenlooper credited Manager of Public Works Bill Vidal for equipping a number of special-purpose four-wheel-drive vehicles with snow plows for emergency service. That gave the city 69 plows available, including a few that were undergoing repairs Wednesday, compared to just 48 plows five years ago. Hickenlooper pledged to plow around the clock in 12-hour shifts through Friday to clear major arterials as well as residential streets before holiday guests arrive.
At the state level, emergency teams were deployed in key locations before the storm hit. Local school districts cancelled classes well before dawn, anticipating that the overnight flurries would eventually give way to serious snow and blizzard-condition winds. The major airlines at DIA suspended service. No need to worry about crying wolf when there’s a wolf at the door.
Lame-duck Gov. Bill Owens wasn’t about to let the storm affect his legacy. By midday, he’d mobilized the National Guard to help with emergencies. Highway officials weren’t taking any chances, closing Interstate 70 from Denver to Kansas, Interstate 25 to New Mexico, Interstate 76 to Nebraska and Interstate 80 clear through from Cheyenne to Nebraska. Even before they were needed, shelters were opened in the Strasburg Community Church, the Byers fire station and the Bennett Community Center for stranded travelers.
Preparation paid off for the Regional Transportation District, too. Many bus riders were surprised to see their stallions on schedule during the Wednesday morning rush. That gave way to 45-minute delays as conditions deteriorated. The light-rail system experienced only minor delays, but getting to the station was an unhappy chore.
Utility execs were worried that the Denver area might face the kind of widespread power outages that bedeviled Seattle, where more than 1 million customers lost power as winds gusted to nearly 70 mph last Thursday and Friday. An Xcel spokesman said the fact that few leaves remain on trees minimized the risk of branches crashing into power lines, the usual source of electrical outages in such storms. Thursday loomed as a dangerous time, but as of late Wednesday, there were no major natural gas or electrical outages in the state.
Blizzards with the power of the one that struck here Wednesday will always paralyze Colorado. But close cooperation between state and local authorities and the private sector seems to have done a good job of minimizing the damage and inconvenience.
Of course, the key to managing the region’s grip on such a storm is simple enough: Coloradans should stay indoors and look for “It’s a Wonderful Life” on TV.
