Posted on 03/18/2015 12:14:32 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A Newfoundland woman and her two children who spent 21 hours in their truck stranded in a fierce blizzard are thanking rescuers who reached them on snowmobiles north of Burgeo on Monday evening.
Drivers and passengers rescued on Burgeo Highway Donna Warren said they huddled inside the vehicle as wind gusts reached up to 100 kilometres an hour.
"We kept the truck going every 15 minutes because, although we had lots of clothes and a few blankets, we were still cold," she said Tuesday in an email.
Burgeo, on Newfoundland's south coast, is reachable by land through a single road. (Google Maps)
"We had some food and water but we were very worried so we couldn't eat much. We couldn't see anything except for whirling snow."
Cellular and long-distance phone service to the region was knocked out. An RCMP officer and two ground search and rescue volunteers used snowmobiles to rescue Warren, her 22-year-old son Zachary and 12-year-old daughter Zoe.
Cpl. Dave Cooper said the family had been travelling from Corner Brook to Burgeo when their vehicle got stuck in a snowdrift as the storm raged late Sunday through Monday, dumping more than 30 centimetres of snow in some places.
Warren's husband, who lives in Burgeo, called police to say he had last spoken with his family around 11 p.m. Sunday in a small area of cellphone coverage 31 kilometres north of Burgeo, Cooper said.
Otherwise, the 150-kilometre stretch of Route 480, known as the Burgeo highway, has little or no cellular service.
Treacherous conditions
Police and staff with the provincial Department of Transportation had tried late Sunday and early Monday to locate Warren and her children. They were driven back by treacherous conditions and impassable snowdrifts, Cooper said.
By late Monday afternoon the weather cleared enough for the search party to try again. Snowmobiles were needed to reach the stranded truck. The passengers were then taken by sled back to the rescue vehicles and on to Burgeo. There were no injuries reported.
"We are so grateful," Warren said.
Early Monday police also got a report that three men who had left Deer Lake at about 4 o'clock that morning for Burgeo had not reached the town, Cooper said.
RCMP officers along with transportation workers and Barachois ground search and rescue volunteers found their vehicle at about 7 p.m. Monday farther up Route 480 just north of Peter Strides, a popular summer cabin area.
Cooper said the men were in good condition and able to drive their vehicle to the Stephenville area.
'Rescue was hampered by communications'
Andrew Parsons, the provincial Liberal Opposition member for the district of Burgeo-La Poile, said the men work in Alberta and were trying to get home.
The incidents underscore the need for improved cellphone service, he said.
"The rescue was hampered by communications," he said.
Darin King, the provincial minister responsible for fire and emergency services, said telecommunications is federal jurisdiction.
The province has written to the Industry Canada minister about how best to encourage more cellular access in remote areas, he said in a statement.
In the meantime, Cooper is asking drivers to heed severe weather warnings. An advisory issued Sunday had told drivers to stay off the Burgeo highway overnight as plows would be removed by 8 p.m., he said.
More near-victims of global warming.
It’s 134 miles from Burgeo to Corner Brook.
And Google maps shows only one road. If you had any idea that kind of weather was coming, wouldn’t you just hole up someplace or stay home until it was over?
A similar thing happened to us, once. We pulled into the Caribbean town of Port-Au-Pahti. It was kind of a crappy place. All we could see were blue plastic walls. The only entertainment was a poem written on the door.
“Here I sit, broken-hearted.....”
It brought tears to my eyes.
For me it would have been a nice little adventure, that would have been better if it stretched into several days.
They obviously survived, but they clearly need to be better prepared for spending comfortable time in their vehicle, in a Newfoundland winter, and they need to be prepared to do it in a vehicle that won’t start.
It has been a nice winter I think.
When I lived in Fargo, ND, I travelled around the state with a fat down sleeping bag, extra layers of wool and polartec, and a full box (48) of granola bars.
People do get stuck for many days. If you can only heat yourself with body heat, how will you stay alive?
Be prepared.
Tell people where you are going, and when you are expected, and call. If you don’t call, have them send out the patrols.
Little old ladies and men get stranded every year, and die in a snow-bank. Don’t be those people.
Mother, son stranded in car for 16 hours during North Dakota blizzard
A long stretch of Interstate 90 was closed, and Rounds said most of the dozens of vehicles stranded along the stretch of highway had not been moved. Some have been stranded for more than 24 hours, he said, adding that search teams can’t get to them because of zero visibility.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/11/07/south-dakota-hit-with-4-feet-snow/
More than 800 motorists had to be rescued after a fast-moving blizzard stranded hundreds of vehicles on North Dakota roads, officials said on Saturday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-northdakota-storm-idUSTRE72B3GX20110312
Family Rescued After Being Lost in Snow for a Week : Storm: Soldier walks for help after leaving his wife and baby in a cave. All three are in good condition.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-01-07/news/mn-949_1_deep-snow
Sheriff: Stranded Oregon Man Kept Diary as He Starved, Froze to Death
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/14/sheriff-stranded-oregon-man-starved-froze-death/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim
Etc.
So let me see if I have this correct.
A mother, her 22 year old son and 12 year old daughter are driving at 11 p.m. at night on a remote one-lane road that has scarcely any cell reception, all during bad weather trending to a blizzard.
Gee, what could go wrong?
That is the right way to go, for days in sub zero temperatures I also think that outside heat is necessary, candles work, and something that is wonderful, is hand warmers.
An oversize sleeping bag with a couple of fleece blankets in it, while wearing one’s jacket, can handle extreme cold, but a hand warmer inside of the bag can help if the body is having trouble fighting off 30 below, or if one made the mistake of draining too much of his core temperature doing something outside of the vehicle.
It also pays to have some way of making sure that getting wet while working in the snow trying to dig the car out, or whatever, does not cross over with your life inside of the vehicle and inside of your bag.
Oh yeah! A big box of toe-warmers.
sad story from Buffalo NY this winter - Im in Roch BTW - They got pounded one week in late nov/dec - some guy got drifted in his car, had a cell phone and spent the next several hours speaking with his family as he slowly passed on from hypothermia.....terrible story, but this is nothing to fool with imo
Hours?
Man, that’s nuts.
Start your winter with the said big-box-o-granola-bars and a huge down sleeping bag.
You’ll last days, no problem.
Winter = Beginning of September through Mid-May. At least in the cold country.
In Minneapolis I saw people get off the couch in their cloth sneakers and bluejeans, throw on a stylish light jacket, and then jump into their car to drive 50 miles.
Well, driving in sub zero temperatures is similar to driving in a 120 degree desert heat, some people don’t realize where they are until the car engine dies, then it takes about 30 minutes for them to realize that they are in a deadly environment that can kill them in the next couple of hours.
At 10 below zero, slacks and street shoes will make even a 1 mile walk to a gas station, something of a nasty experience.
Always told my daughters that.
You don’t have to wear the stuff but you better have it in the car with you.
In these areas if you were to stop every time there was weather...you would go nowhere. Ever.
I remember in New Mexico, a woman who died in her car during winter, when she had run a morning errand in her night clothes, and gotten stuck in the snow.
And Doritos don’t forget doritos
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.