RUNNING SPRINGS, Calif. — Jennifer Cobb and her husband planned on staying four days in their vacation rental in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. But that stretched into a week as they were trapped by a relentless series of storms that has piled snow so high they can barely see out the windows.
When they try to shovel themselves out, it just snows again. They’re thinking of walking to a main road to see if they can hitch a ride down the mountain so they can get home to their teenage daughter and Cobb’s elderly father in San Diego County.
“We hear the phantom sounds of plows, but they never come,” said Cobb, 49. “Being stuck up here in this beautiful place shouldn’t be awful, but it is.”
Cobb and other beleaguered Californians weathered yet another storm Tuesday, as blizzard warnings blanketed the Sierra Nevada range in the northern half of the state, more snow was on its way to the southern mountains like the San Bernardino range, and forecasters warned that any travel was dangerous.
On the eastern flank of the Sierra, the Mono County Sheriff’s Office bluntly tweeted: “The roads are closed. All of them. There is no alternate route, back way, or secret route. It’s a blizzard, people.”
San Bernardino County has declared a state of emergency, with mountain residents trapped in their homes and motorists stranded. More snow was expected in many communities where residents, unable to drive through deep snow on roads that were closed anyway, largely got around on foot.
The weather was expected to last into today, with winter storm warnings stretching from the Oregon coast to many of Southern California’s already-snow-laden mountains.
In the San Bernardino mountain community of Running Springs, the town is covered in snow with some mounds piling more than six feet high. Some residents walked to a grocery store to stock up on food and carried back the bags atop a plastic sled.
For California’s skiiers and snowboarders, the parade of storms was too much of a good thing. Most resorts around Lake Tahoe suspended operations Tuesday. Big Bear Mountain Resort opened, but all roads leading there were closed.
(1) comment
I enjoy watching Lake Mead water level at this site (remember Hoover Dam is drawing water for power)... https://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp
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