Sorry no pictures-

Well it has been an interesting week-plus around here. Things are beginning to return to normal, although the schools are still closed. Ft. Detrick was closed all of last week except for essential staff (mostly the Facilities Maintenance, Security and Animal Care staff), which allowed me to stay at the fire station for 3 days.

We received 59 inches between the two storms, which paralyzed the area for the better part of the week. They are still plowing some of the roadways in some of the more remote areas. Many were still stuck in their homes through the weekend.

Tuesday night through Wednesday night was the roughest with blizzard condition for most of the time. I cannot list the number of truly stupid individuals who thought it would be fun to ride around; most of who ended up stuck and had to be rescued. Dozens of individuals who for one reason or another had semi-legitimate reasons to be on the roads compounded by the idiots resulted in close to a hundred rescues of stranded motorists, many ended up spending the night and part of the next day in their vehicles. Even large equipment like plows and tow trucks were getting stuck. One of the fire crews in a 4-wheel drive utility who were trying to get to stranded motorists ended up stuck in the snow for 5 hours.

We had at least 1 barn and several buildings collapse, fortunately with no entrapment; our team did not need to provide any shoring or collapse rescues. We had one rescue (in Frederick) via helicopter, which was quite interesting.

MSP Helicopter Rescues

Pete