SPOKANE, Wash – The heavy Monday morning snowfall caught a lot of
people off guard – and caused a lot of problems.
One of the many
slippery hills was at Lincoln & 5th in Spokane, where car after
car slid down the hill, hoping to be able to stop at the bottom. For those not behind the wheel, it was all
about shoveling or snow blowing.
"I was actually going
through my car last night just fine, and then I woke up and we get pummeled with
snow," said Chris Souza, who had to shovel out his car near Cedar &
18th to get to the grocery store for his kids.
But while the KHQ
cameras were rolling, another car got stuck, nearly hitting
his.
And
just across the street, his neighbor Ryan Stoker was also digging out, after the
plows piled up a problem.
"So any time the snow
plows come by, which is 3 or 4 times a day I have to come right out and shovel
or it turns to concrete, and look at this car, it's stuck," he said. "I mean, if I had a medical emergency and had
to get out of the house in no time flat, I'm stuck, I'm not getting
out."
But he concedes, there
really isn't a better solution. It is
the responsibility of homeowners to shovel their own driveways and sidewalks –
even after the plows come by.
Stoker had already
spent three hours shoveling out his car, but as for his wife's? He needed to call a tow truck to get it out
of their steep driveway.
"Four wheel drive doesn't
even get us out of the driveway here," he said.
"I dinged up the front corner and the other side, bounced it off the
house twice and figured, before I do any more damage I'll just call a tow
truck."
After a few minutes of
pulling, it worked. But then the tow
truck got stuck on Cedar, and could have used a tow itself, as the calls for
service began to stack up on this winters day in
"Snowkane."