By Kate Willson and Ramm Wong
Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico)
Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Journal
“Road needs plowed.”
“Running out of food.”
“Running out of wood. Lupus patient.”
The walls in the emergency operations room at the Santa Fe County Fire Department were papered with 911 messages like those Tuesday, as city and county workers continued to search out residents isolated by the weekend’s record snowstorm.
Firefighters spent a fourth day using a snowcat to deliver canned goods, medicine, dog food and gasoline to the snowbound.
Overnight Monday, firefighters also brought out a couple suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and another family stranded in their home.
By noon Tuesday, the joint city-county operation had already fielded 75 calls for the day. A mother called to report she was out of milk to feed her 2-month-old child. Another woman reported her husband was running out of albuterol and oxygen.
The snowcat, resembling an orange Hummer, rattled and rolled down rural roads with more than 2 feet of snow Tuesday afternoon in the Galisteo Dam area, southeast of La Bajada.
“I think people were kind of glad to see us,” said Santa Fe County fire captain Mike Neely, sitting shotgun beside James Valencia, district fire chief for La Cienega.
The area was desolate Tuesday, with red rocks piled with snow, cattle fences and little signs of life beside animal footprints and emergency helicopters passing overhead. The roads were still impassable, even after the snowcat rumbled through.
Many residents had been stranded since an initial snowstorm hit before Christmas.
One middle-aged woman living several miles up impassable roads greeted the firefighters with handshakes and a smile.
“I think she was a little shocked to see us,” said Neely after delivering provisions for the woman and her horses, chickens and dog. “We were the first faces she’d seen since Wednesday.”
Donnamarie Jones called the county emergency center to report she had no electricity or running water at her Galisteo Dam area home.
She lives in a straw bale house that holds in the heat and has a wood stove, she told a reporter later by phone. But she’s running out of wood and her solar energy system broke down overnight Thursday. The storm has been a big problem for solar users, with gasoline for backup generators in short supply.
Without water, Jones has been melting buckets of snow for herself and to water her horses, chickens, ducks, dogs and cats.
The roof above her duck pen collapsed beneath the weight of the snow, she said. The ducks were underneath. “It took me an hour to dig them out,” Jones said.
She has a dwindling supply of propane to heat the cooking stove, candles and a batteryoperated radio to keep her company.
“That’s how I know the world hasn’t come to an end,” she said.
She’s run out of tortillas, bread, milk and salt, but has a store of home-canned foods and still has coffee to brew.
She said it was fun at first, but now she wants to return to her nursing job at St. Vincent and go to the grocery store.
“Now it’s not funny,” she said. “I want cream in my coffee.”
Lori, who lives near Madrid but wouldn’t give a reporter her last name, called emergency personnel Tuesday morning to report that she and her husband were stuck and only had enough gasoline to keep their generator running for another two hours. They also live in a solar-powered home.
“As long as the sun’s shining we’ll have electricity,” Lori said. “We’re just rationing our food. It’s lots of traditional Hispanic meals: beans and rice, that kind of thing. We’re almost out of rice.”
“We have a four-wheel drive but it doesn’t matter with this kind of snow,” she said. Lori said she figures on hiking out if the county succeeds in plowing the county road near her house.
Rogerville Road, Gold Mine Road and Camino Cerro Chato, residential roads in the Cerrillos and Madrid areas off N.M. 14, also were trouble spots, said Martin Vigil, the county director of emergency management.
Volunteer firefighter Kevin Barrows was called out to Rogerville Road on Monday night to bring food to stranded residents. He drove a snowcat to seven houses, bringing canned goods, bread, tortillas and pasta. He also carried out a family of three stranded at the end of the road.
“They attempted to get their four-wheel drive out and made it about 100 yards,” Barrows said. “The road to their house, it’s probably hard to get through when it’s dry.”
Steve Moya, assistant county fire chief, was called out to the Galisteo area after a couple had called 911 Monday night and reported feeling dizzy and nauseated.
On Anaya Ranch Road, he reached the family’s driveway, which is about a mile long and buried in snow. Moya hiked in, carrying oxygen and his medical bag, reaching the couple about 30 minutes later. He told them to leave the house and the pair began feeling a bit better, he said.
The volunteer fire chief from La Cienega showed up with a snowcat to drive the couple out to Anaya Ranch Road, where an ambulance waited to pick them up. But the ambulance broke down, so another had to be called, along with a mechanic to fix the first ambulance.
The couple had suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty propane heater.
“It was a long night,” Moya said.