Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow – Bad for drivers, great for kids

If you live in Eastsound, the Rosario area, or anywhere in between, you got blasted by Sunday’s storm which left between two and eight inches of snow on the ground, and a sheet of ice on many local roads. Yet many other areas of San Juan County saw little or no snow whatsoever.

The road between Eastsound and Rosario proved to be the most treacherous, with one car flipping over and another two having to be pulled out of the ditches Sunday or Monday morning. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and the vehicles suffered little or no damage.

There probably would have been more cars needing a tow, but practically everybody in that area of Orcas stayed home Sunday and Monday too, except for those who had to travel to work or attend school.

The Orcas school opened two hours late Monday, at 10:20 a.m. Lopez and San Juan schools kept their regular schedules.

But while many adults wished for warmer and dryer weather, kids were thrilled to see the snow. Several were spotted behind the school, and in Buck Park, going down the hills on their sleds and snowboards. Mimi Anderson drove her daughter Aliza Diepenbrock up from the Orcas Village area so the little girl could be pulled around the baseball field on her sled.

The Orcas Power and Light Cooperative reported no storm-related outages, although one shut off power for about an hour and a half on a portion of San Juan Island Saturday morning.

The Orcas Island Fire Department was “all chained up” and able to respond to any emergencies, Fire Chief Gary Bennett said. Emergency Medical Services personnel responded to one call Sunday and had the patient successfully flown off island.

— Ted Grossman is editor of islandssounder.com and The Islands’ Sounder. He can be reached at (360) 376-4500 or email.

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