KEENESBURG, Colo. — Blizzard conditions on the Eastern Plains snowed in ranchers and forced Colorado Department of Transportation plow operators to rescue stranded truckers Tuesday.
South of Fort Morgan, Matt Kalous ventured out in the blowing snow and bitter cold to make sure his cattle had enough food and water.
“It’s pretty brutal out here,” he said. “I mean, visibility is less than 100 yards at this point. It’s rough.”
He described working in the conditions as “survival mode” and said he didn’t want to venture far from his house. The country roads that lead to his ranch were impassible and closed.
“You feel pretty isolated in a storm like this,” he said. "You try to take extra caution to make sure you don’t get hurt, because you might not be able to get to a hospital if you need to.”
He said he began preparing for the storm as soon as it was forecast and spent much of Monday and the days prior draining hoses, cleaning tank warmers and hauling feed and cattle closer to his ranch house.
At the end of the day Tuesday, he sent an update describing his calves as cold, but said they had an appetite, “so coming through the storm okay.”
An hour further west, CDOT plow operators faced the Sisyphean task of plowing snow off roads only to watch 60-mile-per-hour wind gusts blow the snow right back onto the blacktop.
On Highway 52 near Prospect Valley, a tractor-trailer truck driver became stuck in a snowdrift – perhaps while trying to avoid closures on nearby interstate highways. After about an hour of spinning his wheels, a CDOT plow operator arrived to help.
The plow driver, who said his name was Eduardo, shoveled sand from his truck into his helmet to pour on the 18-wheeler's tires. In the bitter cold, he said this was the first driver he had to rescue Tuesday, but “the day is still young.”
Once the truck was freed, he went back on the road to keep plowing. He said he was working a 12-hour shift that ended at midnight, by which time the brunt of the storm was expected to be over.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Colorado Climate