About midnight, I was loading gas in Dayton, Oh for the Bonded station, (Now Speedway), in Greenville, Oh. I advised the dispatcher it was not wise to make the trip, as there were blizzard warnings. Apparently he had never experienced one, I had.
The weather was warm and rainy. Greenville is about 40 miles away. By the time I got there, there was 3-4" of snow on the ground.
Before I had the fuel dump finished another 2" or so were on the ground, the wind was terrible! Blowing and drifting, along with an emptry taker had me stuck on flat ground, I couldn't move, even with the Mack wheels locked in!
A fellow in a 4x4 came by and yanked me up onto the roadway and I started home. I made it to Arcanum on Rt49 when I realized I was going to make it worse if I kept moving. I pulled to a wide spot I knew was there alongside a church, (I couldn't actually see it).
When I got stopped, I heard someone on the cb ask if, "Are we done?". He had been following me in another semi, I didn't even know he was back there. It was total whiteout conditions.
I sat there in an R model Mack, with the throttle reved up to 1800, I was nice and warm, but the snow was piling up on the drivers side floor, coming in around the door seals. This was a one stack Mack, with NO shack on the back. I did the best I could to get comfortable in the day cab and set it out.
Sometime after daybreak, with the storm continuing, there was traffic on the cb from some base stations in the area, I asked one of them to call my wife and tell her I was ok, but stranded. The driver behind me had them call his wife also.
Later in the day, it eased up a bit and we tried to get moving ...made it several miles and got stopped by a large drift .. there we sat, no where to go. A couple that lived a few houses down the road and said if we could make to them, we were welcome to stay until the road got opened.
I, making outside delivers in all kinds of weather, was prepared. I had on several layers of clothes, and topped off with Carhartt overalls. I was ready to walk in the storm. The fella behind me was not. He ****ed near froze to death
After we got inside and him thawed out we found our hostess wanting to cook us dinner. We declined opting for sandwiches instead, Her hubby, (they were an older couple), said, "Hey she don't cook often, I want a meal!" So we had dinner with them.
After sleeping on the couch and floor, the next day a snow plow came through escorting an ambulance, seeing a shot, we made it back to the trucks and followed along. At some point someone with another cb in a house made a comment, "Look at those truckers, to dumb to stay off the roads." And I politely responded, "Lady we have been stuck out here two days, if there's a shot to get to the main road, we're taking it."
As luck would have it, the snow plow, with a v-blade out front sheared off a pin and had to abandon the trip. The ambulance turned back with him, and we were stuck again!
One more night on the road and finally the third day they did indeed get the road open.
A sidenote: Since this was a union job, I was paid for every hour, and overtime for all time over 8 hours a day. I made a bunch from that 80 mile trip!
Arriving home I had 5' drifts in my driveway, took days to get it cleaned out with a shovel!
