In the 1970 film thriller, "Airport," actor George Kennedy's bulky, cigar-chomping, tough-talking character, Snow Boss Joe Patroni, called his fleet of huge runway snowplows the "Conga Line."
Although there's nothing so romantic or dramatic at Hailey's Friedman Memorial Airport, with a smaller equipment fleet and a far smaller airport than the film's, Friedman operations manager Peter Kramer, himself bulky and with a grand bush of a mustache, still has the makings of a "Conga Line" snow boss.
Plus, unlike the film, Kramer and his crew face the reality of genuine snow, not downfall created artificially in a movie.
In last week's storm that blanketed the Wood River Valley, Kramer's fleet of five snow plows, including two with enormous 22-foot-wide plow blades, worked continuously, 24 hours a day Wednesday-through-Sunday to keep Friedman's 6,952-foot runway and adjoining parallel taxiways and aircraft parking ramps clear of snow and ice.
It was nip and tuck at times.
In fact, at one point Kramer telephoned airport manager Rick Baird during the battle to stay ahead of the snow and asked, "Who has the authority to close the airport?"
Baird recalled that moment Tuesday night during a report to the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority board as he drew a picture of men and machines barely staying ahead, and of the probability the field might have to close if snow bested men and machines.
The snowfall "wouldn't quit," Baird said, estimating total snowfall of 27 inches during that time.
If the field's snow plows had been unable to keep the only parking area for transient aircraft cleared (the airport's northeast corner ramp has been closed), Baird said that arriving aircraft would've been forced to turn around and leave.
He offered this example: picture a plow clearing one inch of snow for hundreds of feet. Accumulating one inch over a long distance becomes an enormous load for a large blower, which then must be banked before plowing resumes.
Without adequate ramp space, "Those Globals (Bombardier business jet) and G-5s (Gulfstream jet)," Baird said of the popular corporate jets that use Friedman, "take up space quick."
But, Baird said, the airport was "fully operational when people were having a hard time moving around Ketchum" in their vehicles.
Another measure of the intensity of the snowplowing effort for those four days, Kramer said, is the fuel consumption of the plows—some 1,200 gallons of diesel fuel in four days, compared to an average monthly consumption of 150 gallons without snow removal operations.
As if to prove the maxim there's no rest for the weary, Baird later said that another storm, perhaps with as much as 30 inches of snow, is headed for the valley this weekend.
However, around-the-clock plowing drew off-airport complaints.
A resident of the Broadford Highlands area near the airport's southwest corner identified as Shelley Bratz appeared before the authority to complain about the incessant beep-beep-beep of the backup alarms on the big airport plows during the night.
Could the alarms be disconnected or could plowing be suspended between midnight and 5 a.m., she asked.
Baird said it would be dangerous to disconnect the alarms, if not illegal, because of all the activity on the field during a storm and the need to prevent accidents.
Plus, suspending plowing would have allowed an accumulation so large that the airport probably would have been closed for as long as six hours while plows fought to remove a deeper amount of snow.
Baird and Kramer both told the board that they are "sensitive" to the noise issue and would try to reduce it whenever possible.
