Snow Duty – January 13, 1982

The snow was falling heavily all around me as I operated a walk-behind Gravely tractor outfitted with a three-foot snow plow blade on the sidewalks adjacent to Jefferson Avenue in Washington, DC.?Our shop had two other trucks out plowing the parking lots and sidewalks at the Smithsonian Institution.?One man was heavily dressed operating an open-cab backhoe/front-end loader to pile the snow in the corners of the parking lots.?Others were driving the deuce and a half crew cab truck to all the outposts throughout the city.?We had been working on snow removal for several hours and it look like it would not stop snowing for quite some time.?During this time, someone heard on the radio that there had been a plane crash nearby and there were few details about what was happening.?In the meantime, we continued pushing the snow.?Shortly afterwards, my foreman whom we called Hawk met with us and gave us mandatory orders for us to continue with the plowing throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening hours.?

?I called my wife to let her know that I had to stay.?Her voice trembled as she explained that friends and family were calling her asking if I was all right.?She continued to explain that the Air Florida jet had crashed into the Potomac River and the plane’s tail had hit one of the Three Sisters bridges hitting several cars killing some of the people inside.?It was the bridge I normally would cross to go home.?I reassured her I was all right and that I would be careful.??

?I continued plowing snow up and down Jefferson Avenue.?It seemed so quiet and peaceful as the snow kept coming down at such a heavy rate.?I looked behind me where I had just plowed and there was already one to two inches of snow in the plow track.?There was a lot of commotion over at the Smithsonian Metro subway station.?Several emergency vehicles surrounded the underground entrance to the subway.?I didn’t know what was going on and I continued on my plowing route.?

?We continued plowing throughout the night.?Around two in the morning, Hawk told us all to come in and get a couple of hours of shut-eye.?I found a pile of carpet remnants in the museum hallway and sacked out on top of them.?Not the best bed, but it would do for what I needed. ?A couple of hours later, Hawk woke us up.?The only food we had were the half-empty vending machines and we were glad to have them. We continued the plowing until late the following day.?We were done with plowing the snow.?It was a weary bunch of men that went home that night.

?When I walked through the front door, my wife and children warmly welcomed me home.?As I ate my supper, I watched the news to see what had happened over the past two days and I cried.?The extreme heroism of many to help save the lives of those in the river, on the bridge and in the subway station was extraordinary.?

?Those are my memories of that day.

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