Browning digs out, prepares for another winter blast

BROWNING – First came the snow, 3 feet in this community and much more at some locations on the Blackfeet Reservation.

“Well, we have families who are stranded,” Robert DesRosier said Tuesday.

The Blackfeet Tribe declared a state of emergency Monday because of the epic storm. DesRosier is leading the response.

On Tuesday, residents began digging out from the deluge, but they can’t rest.

Wednesday and Thursday will bring high winds, which could bury them again.

“High winds and deep snow don’t mix well in this country,” DesRosier said.

Ranchers struggle to care for livestock as snow piles up

Wind, not the snow, was the main concern of DesRosier and other tribal officials who met Tuesday to discuss the emergency and the response to it.

Winds are expected to begin increasing Wednesday evening and continue at 25 to 50 mph into Thursday, said Paul Nutter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Great Falls.

“That’s going to create drifting and blowing snow problems for those areas with a couple of feet of new snow,” Nutter said.

The winds also will increase temperatures into the mid-40s.

Concern was raised at the briefing that residents who get dug out of the snow, eager to get to town for supplies, would end up stranded there by white-out conditions created by the winds.

“That’s all we can do is be prepared, be ready,” said Chris Trombly, a fire management officer.

A building has been identified where rural residents of the reservation, if need be, could stay should they get stranded due to the poor visibility on roads, DesRosier said.

Officially, 36 inches of snow fell in Browning.

St. Mary and Babb, other communities located on the reservation, were hardest hit. Some areas in the St. Mary Valley received as much as 60 inches, DesRosier said.

The last time this much snow fell here was June 2002, when 50 inches fell, according to DesRosier.

The Weather Service’s Nutter called snow totals in the 50- to 55-inch range documented in some locations along the Rocky Mountain Front in the weekend storm of 2017 “remarkable.”

“We certainly don’t see this type of snow every year,” Nutter said. “Perhaps every 10 years.”

Snow totals for a three-day period might end up in the top 5 snow events historically, he said.

“Maybe a top 3 event,” Nutter said.

At the tribal offices Tuesday, 306 calls were received from residents across the Blackfeet reservation, DesRosier said.

“There’s a lot of people who can’t get out,’ DesRosier said.

Many off the requests are for plows, but 50 were medical related, he said.

Highest priority is being given to those with medical issues and the elderly.

Dee Hutchison, CEO of the Blackfeet Community Hospital, said staffing was an issue at the hospital because the snow prevented some nurses from getting to work.

U.S. Highway 2 and U.S. Highway 89 between Browning and St. Mary were closed.

Three game wardens rescued people who were stranded 11 hours in a vehicle after it ran off a gravel road as it headed toward town, said Keith Lame Bear of Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife.

“We pulled them out and they got to town,” Lame Bear said.

On Tuesday afternoon, it was 15 below zero. One tiny dog with frozen whiskers hopped around on three feet a times to give his fourth paw a break from the icy snow-packed streets.

Snow-blowers whined.

“Bad weather is really, really good for business,” said Neal Bartleson, owner of Browning Lumber and Hardware.

The store, he said, had been “slammed” with customers purchasing shovels, tow ropes, heaters and snow blowers.

“I remarked to my wife I don’t even know why we are going to open tomorrow because we’ve got nothing left to sell,” Bartleson said.

Then he pulled on a stocking cap and headed out the door to go plow out the home of an elderly customer who needed help.

Residents, some with snowblowers and others with shovels, worked to uncover driveways and automobiles that were just curves in the shape of cars and trucks under 3 feet of snow.

“You’re out,” Keith Running Crane told his aunt, Darlene Wippert, after he and his brother, Alden, finished shoveling her driveway.

BNSF to trigger avalanches to reduce danger

“Oh good,” Wippert said. “Thank you boys.”

So much snow accumulated on her property that she had to dig tunnels in the back of the house so her teacup Chihuahua and Boston terrier could do their thing.

She started shoveling at around 2 p.m. It took more than two hours, even with the help of her nephews, but Wippert wasn’t overly impressed by the snowfall.

“This is something we’re used to dealing with all of our lives,” Wippert said.

Plows worked streets in town and the highway so people could get out and buy food and supplies in advance of the big wind, said Terry Whitcomb of the Blackfeet Department of Transportation.

Mountains of snow were piled in the hospital parking lot.

“Holy cow,” said Whitcomb, slowing his pickup when he spotted a car stuck in a snowdrift on the side of the road. A window was open and the lights were on, but nobody was around.

“Just the massive amount of snow,” said Cody White, a plow driver with the Montana Department of Transportation, stopped at the intersection of U.S. Highway 89 and U.S. Highway 2.

He was explaining why the big blower on his plow had become plugged up.

Plow drivers, he said, were pushing back the snow as far as possible from the roads in anticipation of the wind creating drifting snow on the roads that would need to be plowed again.

“We’re just trying to prepare for the wind right now,” White said, adding white-out conditions are possible.

Follow Karl Puckett on Twitter @GFTrib_KPuckett