If you had told me last year that our mountains would have this much snow this close to spring, I would have been happy. Southern California’s forests have suffered badly from years of drought and record temperatures, and watering well in winter offers the best protection against dry-season fires.
It wasn’t until September when residents of Big Bear, the mountain community of San Bernardino where my wife’s grandfather built her family’s cabin more than 70 years ago, watched the Radford Fire come dangerously close to homes and a ski resort. Two years earlier, a Big Bear firefighter died in the nearby El Dorado fire. The national forest that surrounds the community has been closed to visitors twice in the past three years due to fire hazards.
Snow should be a boon to mountain towns ravaged by wildfires, especially those like Big Bear, where the lake hasn’t been full since 2011. But not that kind of snow.
Since the first of two major blizzards on Feb. 23, welfare inspectors have found at least three mountain residents dead in their homes. At a Bike Bear Lake City Council meeting this week, a woman said a friend who couldn’t get dialysis died — a sign that more tragedies may be found as residents continue to dig.
And there will be a lot of digging (that is, if this weekend’s warm rains don’t suddenly melt a lot of snow and cause dangerous flooding). A typical winter in Big Bear sees 58 inches of snow; So far this season it has been at least 110 inches. The kind of van-mounted front plows that work well enough for most Big Bear storms become useless when enough snow falls in a few days to completely bury a car.
Life in the mountains brings challenges that you only appreciate if you face them, even as a part-time resident of Big Bear. Being at 7,000 feet above sea level brings a lot – think frozen pipes and unpredictable road conditions.
Others are bizarre but not dangerous. Have you ever heard of months of moth infestations that terrify children and leave every conceivable surface covered in a layer of brown moth stuff? Spend enough time in Big Bear and you could do it.
Some are outright outraged, adding to their distaste for the “flats” whose tourist dollars keep Big Bear afloat. The discarded plastic sleds and rubbish left on the streets by ready-made weekend visitors are constant stains.
These challenges forge strong bonds between people in mountain communities that can save lives in an emergency. On one of Big Bear’s largest Facebook groups, messages welcoming the snow at the onset of the first storm quickly gave way to pleas for help from residents trapped in frigid homes with no electricity or heating. Residents jumped at the chance to help, sometimes at the risk of themselves. Sadly, one such Good Samaritan, a beloved employee at Big Bear’s largest hardware store, died after reportedly being hit by a car while helping someone trapped in the snow lived.
All this snow will help fill the lake, replenish soil moisture and revive plant life in the area. It will eventually pay those dividends, but not before the mountaineers dig in and find out how much they’ve lost.
As the roads to Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead and Crestline slowly reopen, the glittering snowcapped peaks that have captured Los Angeles’ collective gaze will entice visitors to the mountains. For the millions of us in the lowlands, these mountains have served as a beautiful winter backdrop since the late February storms; but for the few thousand people who live there and usually welcome visitors, life has been disrupted or tragically ended.
The people who run the restaurants, clean the hotel rooms and patrol the ski slopes are suffering. They deserve our respect and our help, even if that means staying away for now.
Source: LA Times