For the week of December 12 - 18, 2001

Snow hammers 
Hailey airport

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"Our screen-savers are the National Weather Service."

Pete Kramer, Hailey airport chief of operations

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By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer

Crews worked around the clock from Saturday of last week until Friday keeping the Hailey airport’s 84 acres of tarmac and pavement clear of snow. Some flights were canceled due to bad weather, but by Friday afternoon, the worst appeared to be over with flights running regularly again. Airport manager Rick Baird said it would take his crews another week to get caught up with their snow removal responsibilities—if it doesn’t snow again.

Last week’s storms hammered the Wood River Valley’s air connection with the outside world.

Baird said he is a little worried that the airport’s snow-removal budget might not cover the added expenses if this winter continues to be particularly harsh. And, he’s a little worried that the airport might run out of places to store the snow.

By Dec. 4, airport crews had spent 416 hours removing snow, Baird said. Last year, crews spent only 83 hours by Dec. 9.

Baird and airport chief of operations Pete Kramer appeared frazzled during a break at their airport offices Friday afternoon.

They had hired an additional four workers this month to help with what they said have been some of the toughest snowplowing duties in a decade. But that didn’t stop anyone, Baird and Kramer included, from working 12-hour shifts for a week.

"It’s like having an 84-acre farm and keeping it snow-free from fence post to fence post," Baird said.

To further put the job into perspective, consider the 300 runway lights and 60 lit runway signs that had to be dug out by hand—twice.

Then there’s the heavy machinery—a gargantuan blower that can throw 6,000 tons an hour and plows with 24-foot blades. The machines begin work as soon as the first snowflakes fall. At 3 a.m., with the darkness, droning engine and lack of companionship, "we talk to people that aren’t there," Kramer said.

But the payoff is more than just keeping the valley open for tourists. Kramer said he felt proud when air ambulances were able to land and take off twice during some of the storm’s worst moments.

Kramer acknowledged that snow is the "bread and butter" of the valley’s tourist economy and that it’s needed to replenish the water supply. But "if all this snow fell just north of Hailey, we’d get the water, they’d get the snow, and everyone would be happy," he said.

But until that happens, he said, "our screen-savers are the National Weather Service."

 

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