The Snow Pile

Here is a puzzle for you. The below picture is of a massive pile of snow that is obviously machine-made. But can we answer the five W’s about it – Who, What, Where, When, Why? The “What” is pretty obvious, but how about the others. Here is the true story behind this huge white mound.

[Snow Pile]

 

Setting the Stage

It was a snowy evening sometime in the winter of 1957-58. I was nine years old. We were having a fairly heavy snowfall. And that meant bundling up the next day and having a good time outside. But what made this snowfall even more interesting was the wind from the north that was blowing the falling snow. The combination of the snow and the wind ended up creating some unique memories.

Our family home was at the corner of Witham and Seery Roads in Wolcott, CT. No one actually lived on Witham Road as it only served to connect Seery Road to Wolcott Road (now called Route 69). Witham Road was about 300’ long and ran between two deep house lots which fronted on Wolcott Road. Seery Road was perhaps 5’ lower in elevation than Wolcott Road so Witham Road ran slightly downhill its entire length. As it approached Seery Road, there were banks on both sides of the road – gradual ones at first, and about 4’ high just before turning the corner onto Seery Road. (In the below picture you can see these banks and our family’s garage just beyond the corner.)

[Witham Road Banks]

 

There were no bushes along the bank those days so there was nothing to stop the north wind from blowing across the road. By the next morning there was perhaps 18” of snow. But the wind had caused the snow to totally fill in the depression where the road passed between banks on either side. Thus, the snow depth on the road was more like 5.5”. The stage was now set! (In the below picture from the winter of 1960-61 you can get a feel from what it was like except that in this picture from another storm a few years later the drifts are not all the way across the road.)

[Winter of 1960-61]

 

The Arrival of the Plow

I don’t recall whether it was a weekday or a weekend. But it didn’t matter as school would have been closed until the roads could be cleared. It was sometime in the mid-morning when one of the town plows got to our part of the town. Route 69 was a state road and the larger state plows had sanded/salted that road to keep it open. But the smaller town trucks had to clear all the other roads in town.

We, my sister and I, had been outside and jumping from the bank area into the very deep snow. It was hard to get out as it was so deep and we had gotten tired quite quickly and so were back near the house when the plow came through. It was coming from the far end of Seery Road so its route would take it past our house and around the corner and up Witham Road. The below picture gives a little feel for its route.

[Witham Road overhead]

 

Plowing 18” of snow is hard enough, but upon turning the corner the snow depth was suddenly over three times that. In addition, even though the blade was angled so that as the plow passed our house it was sending it all off the road to the right, when the plow turned the corner the banks on either side would have prevented any snow from being pushed aside. The plow only made it perhaps a few truck lengths before he came to a complete stop (in the above picture he would have had his plow blade about even with the tree on the south side of the road). Rather than clearing the road by pushing the snow to the side, he had only succeeded in compacting it in front of him and making the snow pile even higher. Fortunately, he was able to back up, to use our driveway to turn around and then to plow back in the other direction on Seery Road.

Not too long later, he finished plowing all the side streets in our neighborhood. That meant that everyone could shovel their driveway and get out of our development at the far end of Seery Road. The truck was then back out on Route 69 heading north and at the intersection of Route 69 and Witham Road. Needing to clear at least as far as the two driveways that exited onto Witham Road, he entered the far end of the street and started plowing in from that end. The first half of the street was ok and he was able to have the plow push the snow off to the side. Then he reached the area between the two banks!

He was going a little faster than before since he had not been slowed down making a turn right before arriving at the deep area like when doing the previous end of Witham. So, he managed to push a little farther into the deep area (in the above picture the plow blade would be about where the three bushes are on the south side of the road) before it once again proved to be too deep to handle. But now, not only was he farther into the deep stuff, but with the road angled slightly downhill, he would need to reverse up that grade. He put the truck in reverse, pushed on the gas pedal, and didn’t move! The rear wheels only spun on the still snow-covered road. And now his blade was embedded in the compressed snow. He tried rocking forward and backward, he tried lifting the blade as much as he could – but nothing worked. He was well and truly stuck!

Now what!

 

The Tow Trucks

Fortunately, in the north end of town there was one gas station/garage, Martin’s. And Ed Martin owned two tow trucks. One was smaller and was generally used for towing cars, but the other was larger and had the power to tow trucks. This was in the days before things like cell phones, so I expect that the snow plow driver just walked down the road to Martin’s and asked Ed to come pull him out. At any rate, it was not too long before the larger tow truck appeared at the end of Witham Road.

Taking advantage of the clear pavement on Routh 69 that would give him traction, Ed released his tow cable and began pulling it off the spool and down the road to the rear of the stuck plow. Hooking it up, he then went back to his tow truck and began respooling the cable to winch the snow plow out. Unfortunately, the plow blade was too much embedded in the compressed snow bank. So, rather than the snow plow coming loose, the tow truck started lifting off its front wheels as the cable passing over the hook assembly on the back put downward pressure on the back of the truck. So much for plan A!

But Ed was pretty resourceful. Leaving his larger truck there, he walked back down Route 69 to his garage and brought up the smaller tow truck. He parked by the front bumper of the large tow truck and fastened the smaller truck to it. With an entire truck of additional weight on the front of the larger tow truck, when he once again began winching up the cable. After a few anxious minutes, the blade of the snow plow came free of the pile and could be pulled back up the road. Great thinking, Ed Martin!

Ed then took his two tow trucks back to his garage, one at a time, the town snow plow reversed out onto Route 69 and the driver continued his route to finished clearing the other roads in town. All the neighbors were now able to finish shoveling their driveways and get out onto a plowed road. But in the middle of Witham Road there was now a huge obstacle – a pile of compressed snow, perhaps 20’ thick and pushed up to over 8’ high through the combined actions of the plow pushing it in from both ends. For the rest of the day, it was a great snow mountain that we could climb on. But what was the town to do with it? Leave it until spring to melt?

 

A Snow Explosion

The next morning, we had our answer. Appearing up on Route 69 was the town’s front-end loader. After all, that was the biggest piece of equipment in the town and it was ideally suited for removing this obstacle. The only problem was that, for some reason, the loader operator thought that, “hey, this is only snow! It’s soft and I can move it easily!” So, he put the loader in gear and accelerated down Witham Road with his loader bucket angled so that it would hit the pile with the point first.

Watching this all from the safety of our driveway, we saw the loader coming down the road in our direction. Then as it hit the far side of the pile, there was a massive explosion of snow. Once the snow in the air cleared, we could see what had happened. The loader had managed to make a huge dent in the pile, but he had underestimated the amount of snow and how much it had been compressed by the two plows from the previous day. As a result, when the front-end loader hit the pile, it came to an abrupt complete stop as it dissipated its energy into the pile. Thinking back, it’s a wonder that the driver was not injured in his foolish attempt to obliterate the pile.

 

Creating the Pile

Being a little more methodical now, he slowly began taking scoops out of the pile. But where to put them? Off to the north side of our garage there is an undeveloped area – at the time it contained a small sand pit and beyond it was all unused. The driver asked my father if he could put the snow there and my father agreed. So, for the next 1-2 hours this large front-end loader took scoop after scoop of that compressed snow and created a huge pile right next to our driveway. The picture that began this article is the result.

While this area, being on the outside of the corner between Seery Road and Witham Road is often where the snow ends up being pushed by the plows going around the corner, this may be the only time that we had to have a front-end loader to clear the road. This pile was obviously the last of the snow to melt the following spring. And it provided hours of fun for all the neighborhood children until it melted away.

With our vantage point of being right there at the time and being able to observe both the attempts by the plow, being able to gasp as the tow truck began to have its front wheels lift off the ground, and then being shocked by the front-end loader as he exploded the pile before removing it one scoop at a time, it was an exciting few days for me.

 

Answering the Five W’s

Now we have our answers: Who – the town’s front-end loader driver; What – a large pile of snow; Where – corner of Witham Road and Seery Road; When – Winter of 1957-58; Why – too much drifting across the cut between the banks on the side of Witham Road.

Could it happen again? Likely not – for two reasons. First, there are now bushes and trees on top of the bank on the north side of Witham Road that prevent the kind of winds that could cause the snow to drift in flush with the banks. And second, now the town has much bigger trucks and plows and handling situations like this can be easy. But back then this was a unique opportunity where mother nature got the better of the available vehicles – at least for a while.