Chapter 332

Monday Patti and I made the trip to KCC as normal; in separate cars. Then I had to sit in on an emergency storm preparation meeting to listen to the maintenance department tell everyone how prepared they were.

Before the meeting was over there was another weather service broadcast for governments. It was worse than the earlier broadcast.

The administration promptly canceled all classes from noon Monday until Thursday morning.

Back at my office I went over the roster for the next few days and started making calls to the full time employees to see who could bring an overnight bag and stay in the spare dorm rooms for a couple days. Before I finished I had enough staff, along with the part time employees, to keep the staffing at safe minimum levels.

Patti was going to stay in one of the dorm rooms as well. There had been a flurry of calls between Patti and her boyfriend. I was pretty sure they were going to share a dorm room since he was on the mandatory staffing list.

I left at my normal time and stopped by Morton Field just in time to be in on the great debate; it had just started spitting snow. The FAA and the design engineers were having a great debate on when to activate the snow system.

One group argued that it should be turned on now to pre-heat the concrete runways. Their thinking was it would help in the long run with all the pipes and large amount of water the system used.

The other group wanted to wait until there was an inch or more of snow on the ground, saying that the snow would add extra runoff to the water, clearing the runway faster.

Lorrie, Robbie and I sided with the first group. While you were waiting for the accumulation, any aircraft would be at risk of possibly sliding off the runway or failing to stop at the end. There was also the risk of slush from the gear and tires ending up in an engine, shutting it down. That would be critical if the landing had to be aborted at the last instant.

Safety ruled and Lorrie gave the order to start the system. It was a good thing because the flakes were getting bigger and in increasing amounts. All of our planes and helicopters were in hangars and all of the hangar heating systems were on. The tarmac was clear and no planes were scheduled in tonight.

Tuesday morning we woke up to a white-out. It had snowed 2 inches an hour since before midnight, but luckily there was no wind. There was 16 inches of snow and it was growing fast. The forecast predicted it would be snowing at least the rest of the day. The state had technically closed all roads except to emergency personnel.

Lorrie was looking at the airport cameras, "BJ, come look at this, the system is running but it looks like there is a foot of slush on the runway."

"We can't have that - if it freezes it would take a month to get it off the runway. See if you can get Robbie and find out what is going on," I said.

Lorrie put Robbie on the speaker when he answered. "It looks like the system is not working. Why are you not plowing the runway?" Lorrie asked.

"Its working, the engineers are slowly increasing the heaters and pumps to check out the settings and how effective they are," was his reply.

"Have they got all the heaters on and the pumps at full pressure?" Lorrie asked.

"No, only half of the heaters are on at 50% and the pumps at 40%," Robbie replied.

"Robbie, can a plane safely land in that mess?" I asked.

"Hell no, and I told them that," he replied.

"Robbie, Morton is an emergency relief airport, light all the heaters and turn them on high. Turn on all the pumps necessary to run the pressures and flows to 95%. If the mess is not gone in 45 minutes, start plowing," Lorrie instructed.

"They are not going to like it," he replied.

"I don't care if they like or not. Heat it up," Lorrie replied.

"Are the contractors keeping up with the snow on the rest of the airport?" I asked.

"They are busy but keeping up, when the snow stops we will fire up the melting machines to finish the job," Robbie replied.

The state has one lane opened here. As soon as we get the yard opened, we will try to get there to give you some assistance," I replied.

After layering up with several layers of clothing and after telling Jenny and Lorrie to monitor the airport cameras, I went out to start the truck with the plow that was backed up to the garage to let it warm up.

It was Dad's old four wheel drive one ton Chevrolet truck that he had for years. He bought the one ton to haul firewood and to pull the trailer with all his goose decoys. When he retired he had Marcy order him a new one but kept the old one. He and Jake had brought it last night with the body filled with firewood to give it traction. He also had chains on all four wheels.

While it was warming up Vicky, Ching Lee and I shoveled snow away from the garage as best as we could. When I thought it was warm enough all of us piled in the heat and away we went. Jake had give me the one minute crash course on how to use the thing, including locking the hubs before you got stuck - not after - just in case I needed it.

Ching Lee was operating the blade controls at my commands so I could have both hands to drive and shift the manual transmission. With the load of firewood and the chains, the thing was a beast pushing snow. Dad had even left chains and a tow rope on the floor.