Stranded

Okay, now I don't feel so bad about missing Monday night's mission during the blizzard. I just finished 24 hours of SAR time in two days.

First, about that stranded family with the small kids: I heard from a couple of teammates that the subjectswere located at around 4:00 on Tuesday morning in good condition. Eight members of our team had driven five hours in extremely poor conditions and were close to the search area when the family was found by another agency with a snowcat. So, our team turned around, stopped for breakfast, and made it back to Flagstaff at 11 a.m. What a night!

On Tuesday, when I finished digging out my mom after digging out myself—digging out our driveways and my vehicle, I mean—I fished my cellphone out of my pocket three layers down and saw that I had a message. It was SAR. I contacted our coordinator to see if they'd left yet, and he said to come on down.

Seven hours later, we were back at the SAR building after rescuing two stranded elk hunters who were stuck several snow-covered miles down a Forest Service road. Their vehicles and those belonging to dozens of other hunters may very well have to wait till spring to be back on pavement again.

But the rescues weren't over on Tuesday night. In fact, they're still ongoing today, Thursday, and may continue into the weekend, with SAR crews, Forest Service and DPS personnel, and other agencies using snowcats, snowmobiles, vehicles with Mattrax, and helicopters to carry out the rescues.

What I'm wondering is, aside from all of those who've been able to call for help with their cellphones, how many others are stuck in forests around the county who've not been able to contact anyone? I know helicopters have been launched to search from above, and snowmobile and snowcat crews are searching as they make runs to extract known subjects. I hope folks have left detailed itineraries with family or friends at home, in case they aren't accounted for and we need to go looking for them.

Here's an article from the Arizona Daily Sun, detailing some of the rescues. They mention the number 30, but I was told there are many more than that: Stranded Hunters Holding Out 

Snowed In

I don't like not responding to a SAR call. It bothers me, and I feel like I should be out there helping instead of staying comfortable at home. Maybe that's silly—we all can't be available all the time. And this time, I was stuck on Observatory Mesa with almost two feet of snow on and around my car, on the roads, and on the big, twisty hill that leads down into town, which hadn't been plowed for hours (See Flagtaff neighborhoods snowed in).

It was somewhere around 11 p.m. and still snowing and blowing with a vengeance, with ice and pine boughs clattering against our bedroom window when the phone rang. I knew it was SAR before I even looked at the phone.

And I wanted to go, but I knew I couldn't get the car out and down the hill anytime soon. So, I called the SAR coordinator on duty and told him I could snowshoe into town if someone could pick me up. Heck, I could snowshoe all the way to the SAR building, but that would take a while. He told me he'd call me back in 20 minutes if he needed me.

So, I turned on the light and read for a while, waiting. I could be dressed and snowshoeing in about five minutes if he called. But the phone didn't ring a second time.

The call-out message said a family with three very young children was "stuck in a snowbank somewhere" on the Mogollon Rim. That would be about an hour-and-a-half drive in good weather. I'd heard on the scanner that part of Lake Mary Road was closed due to snow drifts, so a drive to the rim right now would also include a detour around Mormon Lake. In those conditions, towing the snowcat and snowmobiles could easily take hours.

I thought about my teammates—whoever was out there—throughout the night, wondering how it was going. I thought about the stranded family, too. Sometimes, the Mogollon Rim gets more snow than we do here in Flagstaff, and we were pushing past two feet by the middle of the night.

So I don't know what happened last night or if the team is even back yet. If I hear anything or read something in the paper, I'll let you know. In the meantime, it's back outside to continue digging out, so I can be ready for the next call.

Communication Is Key

Why does it often seem like family members don't communicate as well as strangers do?

I don't mean to sound cranky. Besides, I enjoy SAR missions and the company of my teammates. But looking for those who aren't lost and who don't even know they're missing can get to be a drag. Not that we have any way of knowing that until the person is found, of course.

And not that I blame the parents for worrying and calling 9-1-1 when they realized their grown daughter hadn't returned to their family campsite. She had left on Tuesday morning in her truck with the big horse trailer, two horses, and one dog. Early Wednesday morning, her parents discovered she hadn't returned. So of course they were concerned.

But apparently there had either been a miscommunication or, more likely, a lack of it, because the subject was found in good condition, oblivious to the fact that anyone was looking for her. That is, until the DPS helicopter landed nearby after spotting the truck and trailer from the air and soon made contact with her. Then those of us searching Forest Service roads heard the confirmation and "Code 4" over the radio and began making our way back to Incident Command. But I guess the never-lost lady decided to continue with what she'd been doing rather than return to the family's campsite to see her folks, who were very grateful for our efforts, we were told.

The team rendezvoused at our staging area, debriefed, and then drove the hour and a half back to Flagstaff, refueled the vehicles, put all of the equipment away, and went home following that seven-hour mission.

And that's about all there is to say about that one.