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Show persistent and especially strong Saturday night. Temperatures were not excessively cold, and the storm was a normal one for this area. ACCIDENT SUMMARY A bitter wind sliced around the snowbacks of the narrow " Million Dollar" highway. This road, in many places carved from solid rock walls in the narrow, rugged canyon, has 38 avalanche paths in the 23 miles from Silver-ton to Ouray, Colorado. One group of avalanches threatens the road for a continuous 3? miles. Control work is accomplished with a 75mm pack howitzer by the Colorado State Highway department. The shooting is normally conducted immediately after the storm clears, for the target areas cannot be seen until then. Control work has been very successful, as lack of accidents in this avalanche- prone area testifies. Around 0400 on 3 March, the " East Riverside" avalanche, about five miles south of Ouray, released and blocked the highway to a depth of six feet. Several other slides had run during this storm, and highway crews had worked throughout the night to keep the road open. The East Riverside avalanche has a catchment basin of 75 acres, is a mile long, and drops 3,200 vertical feet. As the avalanche path approaches the highway, it narrows and steepens The highway takes the full brunt of the sliding snow. There is no runout zone- the snow fills the Uncompahgre Gorge below the road. ( The West Riverside avalanche is directly across the canyon and is just slightly smaller in length and drop, but has a 150 acre catchment area. It is not uncommon for both the West and East Riverside slides to run simultaneously.) The small town of Silverton could not support a full- time minister, and Rev. M. H., 39, drove from Ouray to Silverton each Sunday to conduct services. Early in the morning, residents of Silverton had called M. H. and urged him not to come that Sunday because of the storm that was in progress and because several slides had already run across the highway. Members of his family tried to discourage him from going, and especially urged that he not take two of his daughters along. In 1961, H. had nearly been caught when a slide ran just in front of his car. He traded cars with a man blocked on the other side of the avalanche, and continued on to Silverton. State highway personnel stated H. had been in too much of a hurry on several occasions and had gone around barriers or tried to get through before the road was cleared. H. set out for Silverton on 3 March with two of his daughters, A., 17, and P., 12. Highway signs warning of the potential avalanche areas were in place. Three State Highway snowplows were working to clear the road, and had a one- way track through the debris from the earlier East Riverside run. The trucks had backed up to begin clearing a wider path when H. drove around them. He " spun out" about 40 feet before he reached the main chute of the East Riverside slide path. During an average run, the volume of sliding snow is so great it extends up and down the highway 30- 50 feet on both sides of the main chute. It is unknown why H. did not choose to back down the road- he was not stuck in loose snow but merely could not get 88 |
