Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 3, 1993 TAG: 9305030041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ELKTON LENGTH: Medium
"It's just been one thing after another, and we thought, come on, what's next?" park spokesman Sandy Rives said.
First, there was a day in late December when more than a foot of snow fell in the park while few other areas had more than a dusting.
Also during that month, the Department of Interior overturned Superintendent Bill Wade's decision to close a section of Skyline Drive to save money and ease the environmental stress from car traffic.
On March 3, Rives said, "When everybody else on the East Coast had rain," Shenandoah National Park was hit by a fierce ice storm. It toppled thousands of trees for 25 miles along Skyline Drive, blocked 85 miles of trails and 10 miles of roadway and caused an estimated $250,000 in damage.
"It looked like a bomb went off," Rives said. "Trees were coming down everywhere."
The next week, on the last weekend before spring, 2 feet of snow fell. Employees had to work overtime to clear the roads and to find a group of prep school campers from Connecticut caught in the storm. It turned out they were safe and could have made it out themselves.
A total of 70 inches of snow fell in the park during the winter.
Wade called March the worst operational period the park has experienced in decades. Rangers were able to keep Skyline Drive open, at its full 105-mile length, for only four days of the month.
The park brought in summer workers two months early to begin clearing debris and may have to lay them off two months early to keep the budget balanced, Rives said.
Wade said in December that the cutbacks might be necessary. But administrators had hoped Congress would pass President Clinton's job stimulus package, which allocated $2.8 million to Shenandoah National Park. The legislation failed the week of the park's last snowfall.
by CNB