Christmas Blizzard 1982

[BPTactical]

Remember it very, very, very well. I was living off of 58th and Lowell at the time.
I was driving a tow truck at the time and was off that night. Our dispatcher calls me about midnight and says- Hey, you might want to come out, its starting to snow.
No thanks, Im off tonight.
About 2 am she calls back and says- Hey, its really snowing, you probably should get out here.
No! Im tired and Im off!
5 am the boss calls and yells- get your ass out here its snowing like hell. I look outside and couldnt see my truck.
It took me 2 hours to get dug out and to Lowell. I start up Lowell and have to try and get around a knucklehead who is stuck. Guess who the next knucklehead was that got stuck?
Finally got out after one of our large trucks came and drug me up the hill.
It was a motherfucker. Guys were trying to chain up trucks and the chains were getting wrapped up around axles and shit.
I ended up taking the outside wheels off and just rolling on the chained up inner wheels.
I did not get back home for 3 days and the shortest day I had for 2 weeks was about 14 hours.
The towing company I worked for did all of the towing for the City of Denver so abandoned cars etc were ours.
I spent 12 hours on I 25 from 225 to 53rd clearing cars off so the plows could get through. Didnt even bother trying to open them up and knock them out of gear, just drug the sleds off. Most of them we just hooked the sling to the bumper and off we went.
Damages? Fuck you. I watched a CDOT loader pack his bucket with snow and start shoving cars out so I could hook them.
I ended up doing the same thing clearing cars off of 14th from Broadway to Yosemite. 320 some odd cars I moved in one night. I pulled a light pole over winching myself out and the cop just laughed- told me not to worry about it, it was Public Services problem.
I remember dropping a car off in the parking lot of the King Soopers at Monaco and Hampden. A business type guy asked me if I could help him and I asked him what he needed figuring a jump start or such.
He needed a ride to Stapleton Airport.
Im not a taxi- he said he would make it well worth my while. Figured fuck it, I was headed that way to get to the mousetrap anyway. Turned out he was some muckety muck for some oil company and had to be in San Francisco to seal a big deal. Must have been some kind of deal because the $300.00 he gave me was large money in 1982.
Tore the exhaust off of the truck from the snow and ruts and ended up putting race car mufflers from a Lakeside Speedway modified on the truck at like 0200 with snow and ice dripping off of the truck.
On two separate occasions helped out 2 gals with stuck/broken down cars who were VERY, VERY appreciative
Tows constantly, we hardly ever stopped- if it wasnt a stuck car it was from damage from the 8 inch deep holes and ruts.
Phillips and Anderson Tire at Speer and Zuni said they had never seen so many broken tie rods.

It was quite the two weeks that I can see like it was yesterday, hard assed work but some damn good times too.
It ended up being the death knell for Mayor McNichols and my employer.
It ushered in Federico Pena and began the new Progressive Era that we are now sucking on in its full glory.

[Hummer]

It was quite the two weeks that I can see like it was yesterday, hard assed work but some damn good times too.
It ended up being the death knell for Mayor McNichols and my employer.
It ushered in Federico Pena and began the new Progressive Era that we are now sucking on in its full glory.

I remember it too. The whole Front Range shut down by mid morning. I had a place in Twin Lakes outside Boulder and was fixing a turkey for my folks and my sister's family who would arrive around noon. They stayed home. So did my GF and I, and we had lots of turkey leftovers.

I've since seen a couple bigger snowstorms on the Peak to Peak. Both 5-6 foot snow dumps that closed the highway for days. We could use a few of those this year.