Snowbound

Snow started falling.  It was St. Patrick’s Day, but this was not anything unusual for KI Sawyer, Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  You are surrounded by the biggest freshwater lake in the world and average snowfall is measured in feet not inches. There was already about a foot covering the landscape when the snow started falling at 4 pm or 1600 hours. I flicked on the television set and settled on my couch to watch Jeopardy.  The phone rang.  Little did I know when I picked it up to answer it a new chapter would be added to my life, a chapter, I might add, that I would be just fine excluding from the book altogether.

It was my supervisor who informed me that the guy who was supposed to report for the swing shift (since our office was 24/7) had been arrested and would I be able to make in and cover for him.  I was a team player and I had just bought a used Dodge Ram with four-wheel drive.  So far the snow had only left a dusting on the snow that was already there.  I could be there in half an hour, I told him before handing up the phone.  It took me fifteen minutes to shower, shave, and get my uniform on.  When I got to my pickup, I noticed the snow was now a bit heavier reducing visibility a great deal.  Still I zipped through the new snow without much trouble.  

The trailer lot on base was about five miles from the Supply Squadron where I served as a Demand Processing Specialist. Now as cool as this sound, the duty was taking parts requests for maintenance units for the B-52 bombers stationed there that included an alert station that was part of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW).  Even as the snow went from hard to see to blinding as my truck made it to the parking lot in ten minutes.  Stepping out, the snow was now whipping in the wind that had suddenly risen up from Lake Superior (where the lake never gives up the dead according to Gordon Lightfoot).  The wind chill had dropped from around thirty degrees to negative twenty five degrees and the sun which struggled to keep the sky light was now gone to blackness. Street and building lights were on, artificial light was being obliterated by the wind and snow.  

Walking inside the warm building, my supervisor met me, “I’m glad you made it in.  That jerk is going to get an Article Fifteen (non-judicial punishment given for dereliction of duty)”

While he meant this to make me feel better about covering the extra shift, I did not feel better about having to come out to cover this shift.  

“You’ll get a three day weekend.” He said as he walked out the door.  Now I was feeling a little better about things.

This feel of elation did not last however.

The section officer had a shovel in his hands.  He had worked late.  He was a short little guy with a bald head and a squeaky little voice to go along with the rest of the package. 

“Could you help me get my car out of the parking lot?” He asked.

“Yes sir, I will get the snow blower.” I promised.

“I’m late for dinner.” He wandered out after me as I already had the snow blower engaged.  In the parking lot out front of the building were only three  vehicles, the lieutenant’s, mine and the guy working the warehouse.  I had the lieutenant stand at a safe distance to where I tried to get the snow cleared enough so he could get out of the parking lot.

After nearly twenty minutes of snow blowing, I saw that my efforts were in vain as when I cleared a path in the snow, the wind would blow the snow right back in where I had cleared as if I had not even cleared the path.

“Sir, I have some bad news…” I walked over to him where he was shivering in the brutal wind.

Just then his wife pulled up and they zipped off.  I wondered if they would become snowbound in this attempt.  Right now I saw that my truck had become a snowbank as not a single part of my truck was visible. A blast of wind told me it was time to get back inside since it was just me and the guy in the warehouse left on duty.

To give you some idea of the desperation we were facing.  First of all this was 1983 and personal electronic devices did not exist, so no cell phone, no IPads, no personal computers, no flat screen or any other television for that matter, no Netflix, no for View, we did not even have Walkmans yet.  

And the snow kept on falling.

The Dining Hall was open just like us, but it was a mile hike in waist high snow. I walked to the front door where I had entered the building an hour ago. Until you see a glass door completely covered in snow top to bottom, there are no words to describe it.  If only I had my cell phone to take a picture…

I walked back to the warehouse, but there was no one there or at least I thought.  There was a hidey-ho where the guy had been able to fall asleep. He looked so comfortable, I decided not to wake him since there would not be much maintenance being done on this night.

In my office there were two rows of telephones where part requests would be called in by the dozen maintenance units around the base.  During the day there would be people answering the phones and writing down the information to process their requests.  It was kind of like Amazon only with aircraft parts from wheels to antennas, anything needed to keep the B-52 bombers aloft.  We also supported other systems like vehicles, radar, control tower, and other systems that deal with support.  We had a research unit where parts that were part of the Illustrated Parts Breakdown (IPB) that were not part of the inventory  could be made available to maintenance crews, but this would take another book to fully explain and since not a single phone was ringing, this would not be the part of the story I want to tell.

We also had a radio since maintenance units working directly on the aircraft could use their hand-held radios to call in parts. The radio was always on as it was connected to the Alert Unit.  We had ten minutes to deliver the parts to the Alert Unit once they had been called in.  The radio had some chatter, but no one was trying to order any parts.  By midnight most of the doors to the building now had a mound of snow blocking them from being open.  

Lake Superior was wreaking havoc on our base even though the lake was thirty miles from the front gate/  Marquette, Michigan on the other hand had a shoreline where you could see the flat horizon of the immense lake.  Northern Michigan University, where I would attend a couple of classes, was very scenic and offered a nice landscaped walkway.  Didn’t matter by two in the morning we were under a blizzard warning.

Warning?  No, the blizzard was here.  

Radio buzzed and I heard a crew member say, “What the hell was that?”

“Was that a bomber that just landed?” Another verified.

“How the heck did he get that thing down?” Another voice chimed in.

All was well as somehow an aircrew had landed the biggest bomber in the Air Force inventory in the middle of a blizzard without having any idea what was waiting for them on the ground.  

“I’ve got a way out.” The warehouse guy yawned.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Dock One is still clear.  It’s on the leeward side and the wind blew it clear.  We can get to the chow hall.” He shrugged.

“Great.  But I have to man the phones.” 

“It’s okay.  I’ll pick you up a lunch box. It’s all they have.” He got his parka on and walked out the door into the waist deep snow.  Returning in twenty minutes, he gave me a box with a ham and cheese sandwich with a milk, apple and bag of chips. It was a feast.  

There was a story that Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota got snowed in last month and the commander told those trapped on the job to open the vending machines so they could get something to eat.  About two in the afternoon, my commander called and asked how we were doing.

“If you need to open a vending machine, you have my permission.” I thanked him for the phone call, but I had no intentions of breaking into the machines which had so little to offer since the chow hall was feeding us.

After my first twenty four hours, I was getting a little stir crazy. First of all the building had once served as a bomb shelter which meant that everything was hard cement including the floor covered by indoor/outdoor carpeting which hardly offered any real comfort for sleeping.  The plastic chairs were even worse.  This office was not made for sleeping and since I was supposed to be there in case there was a flight emergency meant I could not find a cozy corner in the warehouse like the guy who was on duty back there. I envied him as I tried to get some shut eye.  

The morning came and it had stopped snowing leaving behind a four foot blanket of snow that had paralyzed the base transportation.  Snow plows were getting stuck in some of the snow drifts that were taller than the three story barracks where some of the brave souls were using third story windows to get out of the building.  It was the complete silence that made everything seem so surreal. The radio on the table was quiet.  Something I had never experienced working in the Demand Processing Section where there was usually a whirlwind of activity.

Yawning and stretching, the warehouse guy came up to see what was going on, but once he saw the snow jammed against the front door he began to walk back to the warehouse.

“Wait!” I called after him. 

“What?” He turned around.

“Are you going to go to the chow hall?” I asked.

“In about an hour.  I was going to get you a box.” He shrugged.

“Hey, you got any cards?” I did not really care for playing cards, but the boredom was deafening.

“Nope.  Sarge made us clean out the storage area.” He shook his head.

“Well, thought I’d ask anyway.” I sighed.

“Hey your sarge keeps a drawer of stuff.” His face lit up.

“Alright.” I went to his desk, but it was locked.

“Dang.” He was deflated. “I can hear the snow melt.”

“Me too.” 

It was at that point that minutes became hours and silence was no longer calming.  

When my lunch came I ate it without as much enthusiasm as it had the day before and even when the commander called, there was not the same zest in his voice.

“Are you at home, sir?” I asked.

“Yes, me and my wife are snowed into our house.” His voice was heavy with boredom. “It may be another day before they get the roads clear, it was quite a storm.”

It did not help knowing that me and the warehouse guy were the only ones trapped by this St. Patrick’s day snow.  I had heard a lot of the old timers talk about how there was a big snow storm on St. Patrick’s day, but I thought it was just talk at the time.  I had been here for a whole year and it had snowed in eleven of the months that I had been here.  

“If you stay here long enough, you will have snow in all twelve months.” My supervisor who had been stationed here for five years told me.  Up in Houghton, there was a stick that measured the annual snowfall.  I drove by it once and it was well over twelve feet high, but then this small town was surrounded on three sides by Lake Superior.  None of this made my sentence any better.  I was tired of wandering the empty dark hallways as the second day of my captivity came to a close.  I took quite a while eating my boxed meal since it was the one activity that broke up the routine.  

I did learn to get comfortable on the floor and get a few hours of quality sleep, but when I awoke, I felt as though I was in some sort of cocoon as I had become a member of the walking dead.  I went out on the warehouse dock where I could hear diesel engines sputtering trying to remove the snow from the roads. So far I saw no evidence of the roads around Base Supply as the roads were still piled high with snow.  I could no longer see my truck.  It had become just another bump in the snow.

It was mid March, so spring was trying to break through, but so far without any signs of success.  The air seemed warmer and there were some snow banks that seemed to be melting.  Still with as much snow that had fallen, it seemed as if we were going to be trapped until late April.  Evening began to fall on my third day of captivity and it seemed that my mind had decided to go on little jaunt.  I fell asleep sitting in one of the chairs, drooling on the counter where all the phones had sat there idle for the past three days.  

“Hey dude, you want to go home?” He was standing there wearing a parka and there was a woman standing next to him also wearing a parka.

“Heck yes.” I answered.

“How long have you been here?” The woman asked.

“Three days.” I coughed as my throat was dry.

“Is there anyone else here?” The man in the parka asked. 

“Yes, there’s a guy in the warehouse.” I jerked my thumb in the general direction just as the guy appeared in the doorway.

“Alright, rescue.” He smiled.

“We have a tread vehicle to take you both home.” The woman confirmed.

“I live in the barracks.” The guy from the warehouse nodded.

“I live in the trailer park.” I confirmed.

“Barracks first and then trailer park.” The guy in the parka nodded.

“Roads are still pretty blocked, but the snow is melting.” The woman explained, “The temperature is rising to fifty degrees.”

The snow that had blocked the front door had been reduced quite a bit and the door opened no problem.  There was a small vehicle with a treat sitting out front.  It was barely big enough to transport the four of us, but once it started to move, it had no problem moving on the snow even though it was quite a bumpy ride.

“Three days, huh?” The woman turned back to confirm our captivity.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Quite an adventure.” She laughed.

“Didn’t seem like it at the time.” I shook my head as the vehicle stopped in front of the barracks and the warehouse guy got out waving as we pulled away.  It was almost two more miles until we got to the trailer park which took another fifteen minutes traveling at ten miles an hour. 

In two weeks all of the snow had melted as the spring temperatures finally kicked in as April came singing its way in.  There were a couple of flurries, but nothing like the snow storm on St. Patrick’s Day. I also remember the opening day of the Little League season got snowed out on June 1, but the season started out in full on June 2 since the snow did not stick around. 

I told my story about being snowbound, but I always was suspicious that no one really believed me and if they did they were quick to change the subject. Every now and then I hear a snippet on the news about when the “witch of November comes early,” and I always shudder a bit in memory of being snowbound back on St. Patrick’s Day in 1983.