The Blizzard of 2000

Buried Airplane The Blizzard of 2000
January 2000

We flew to Colorado January 19 for dental work as well as real work (Susan spoke to several homeschool groups). We returned to a mess! In our absence, nearly 10 feet of snow fell in places, causing avalanches that closed many roads and cut off electricity to large areas of the state. Hurricane-force winds broke a large spruce tree just upwind of our house. The branches punched holes in our brand new roof but did surprisingly little damage, considering how bad it could have been.

Dennis' airplane was at Girdwood at the time, about 30 miles south of Anchorage in a high snow area. A friend had volunteered to keep the wings shoveled if it snowed, but he couldn't get there. The road was closed for several days because of avalanches. One worker attempting to clear an avalanche with heavy equipment was swept into Turnagain Arm by a new avalanche and drowned, so further work was called off.

We were afraid the airplane wings would collapse under the weight. When we finally got to the plane, we were greatly relieved that some friendly local folks had kept the wings clear of snow (see photo). But there was so much snow that we had to look down at the plane from atop the snowbank!