Plowguy #2
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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is the Weather Notebook. You may recall from yesterday's report that residents of small communities in the Sierra Nevada rely on snow plow drivers to keep them connected to the outside world. As correspondent Robin White reports today, those drivers take enormous risks to keep the roads cleared.

RW: If you live in the mountains it's easy to take it for granted that the winter roads will be cleared of snow. A big yellow snowplough coming into view in a winter storm is a heart warming sight and it seems to be the epitome of safety on a mountain road. But Jim Buckbee, who ploughs roads into Alleghany, California, says even snowploughs can get out of control in icy conditions.

JB: I've been over the bank twice - once in the grader coming out of the little town of Forest I had chains on all four wheels. It had snowed hard and it was real cold and the road was solid ice and the grader started going backwards but the wheels were going forwards and it kind of slipped off to the side of the road and I jumped out and I was like a cat going down the road trying to stick my fingers in the ice to stop and I bounced off the berms on both sides of the road and finally got slowed down enough so that I could stop

RW: The plough went into a ditch that time and the next time a colleague arrived with a chain to catch the plough just before it disappeared into the canyon below. Once someone else on his crew drove a snowplough into a mineshaft which opened up in the road.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Our program is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and Subaru of America