A Storm Story.

[wtdoor67]

Yep, once again a good Wyoming story. It was in March. Big blizzard. I can't remember the lead of to it. I think part of the crew was gone or called in sick. It would have been about like em. I remember being called to the office by our panic stricken boss Ray. He said. Bear Creek Uranium is locked out. I knew they had a road grader. I said start some of their people towards Yellowcake sub in their road grader. I went in a 2 wheel drive pickup to Yellowcake and started up the 34.5 line towards Bear Creek Uranium.

Before I hardly got started Bear Creek called and said they had found the line down. I met a guy from Casper at the location. It was small wire, #4 ACSR I'm sure. I climbed the pole and the other guy grunted for me. I sleeved the wire back. Just a simple break and an automatic sleeve. By then they had called additional crews about 3 from Casper I believe. Snowing and blowning as they say. We realized we wouldn't be able to make it to our home dock. We were instructed to go on to Bear Creek headquarters and hole up there until the blizzard was over. We called in, they energized the line, it held, and we headed for Bear Creek Mine. When we got to Bear Creek 2 Casper crews were there plus me and the guy who had helped me. We prepared to make the night. They had blankets and playing cards. I never got so damn sick of playing hearts. It was near evening and got dark after we got there. Eventually they broke out the TV dinners. There were enough for each person to have one I believe. We played hearts, ate TV dinners and whiled away the time. The steward from Casper was there and we laid our strategy for reporting the time. More of that later.

Over the radio we heard 2 of our men asking for help for the road grader to come and extricate them from a drift. They reported the Bear Creek people said it was too bad for them to come out. I never forget. One of the largest hands I ever worked with called on the radio. 6'6" and about 300 lbs. He said. By God you just remind them we wouldn't be in this predicament if it wasn't for them. They went and got them. 2 guys from the Atomic Energy Commission had to be rescued. They were in a car. One was from Louisiana and he told me he was never coming back to Wyoming.

The four wheel drive pickup at our dock had been taken and used by a Casper foreman (unnamed) and when returned the next day had the rear differential torn out. The driver's door had been wrenched around so bad you couldn't close it. I cracked up upon seeing it. The foreman driver swore he didn't know what had happened. He was in a panic. It was evident it had been driven into a snowbank, the door opened into the snow and then backed up thereby wrenching the door around the wrong way.

The wind stopped about noon the next day and snow plows cleared the road. We drove back to our dock about 3 or 4 Pm. Those TV dinners? They were 10 years old exactly and had been stocked in the freezer for such an emergency. They were still tasty.

In our agreement it stated that after 3 hrs past a given meal time an additional hr of time would be added until we were released to eat. This gave us triple time from 6 PM the previous day until about quitting time the following day. If not released your time reverted back to 6 PM. Since all our overtime was double time we got triple time. As expected the supt. at first pitched a bitch and said he wasn't going to pay it. He tried to claim the TV dinners were counted as a regular meal. 10 year old TV dinners! The co. paid it.

I got to work during a fews blizzards but I remember that one best.

Saw beau coup sheep packed into fence corners and frozen to death. A few cattle. This just along the road we traveled. Statewide it got a bunch of them woolies. Saw those old cows laying down, freezing and still breathing. Kinda sad.

[wtdoor67]

The worst late spring blizzard ever to hit Wyoming battered the
northern part of the state for three days. The northeast section
was the hardest hit as snowfalls of 2 to 3 feet were whipped into
15 to 20 foot drifts by 65 mph winds. A rancher near Wright and
one near Sundance died of exposure as they were stranded
hauling hay to their livestock. All of northeast Wyoming was
effectively shut down for two days by the blizzard. The major
damage occurred to the livestock industry as more than 200,000
sheep and cattle perished in the storm. Some ranchers lost up to
95 percent of their sheep, and up to 50 percent of their cattle.
Contributing factors to the very high losses were: a large number
of the sheep had recently been shorn; the livestock were well into
the spring lambing and calving season; and finally, the storm
started as cold rain that changed to wet snow which stuck to
everything. In addition, the weight of the record-breaking snow
damaged many roofs, and high winds of 50 to 65 mph blew down
quite a few structures. In the Big Horn Basin, a drive-in theatre
was demolished by winds at Basin, and roofs and trees were
heavily damaged at Worland. In retrospect, the blizzard of 84 will
go down in the record books as the worst late spring blizzard ever
in Wyoming. Other storms have been worse in northeast
Wyoming, but they occurred in the months of January and March,
not at the end of April.