Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Odessa's First Avenue is filled with snow as the white flakes continued to fall December 30.
Roads throughout town were covered in snow Dec. 30.
ODESSA – It was not a white Christmas exactly, but snow did arrive in a big way as the New Year approached. Odessa and surrounding areas received up to six inches of the white stuff on Dec. 29-30, as temperatures hovered right around freezing. Town and rural residents faced an arduous task as they dug their way out. Rising daytime temperatures provided a drizzle of rain that made the snow extremely heavy (by weight). Town crews worked feverishly all day on Dec. 30 to clear the main byways in town, while state and county crews hit the rural roads. By dusk on that Wednesday, travel was a bit easier though no less treacherous.
The snow gradually got even deeper, as it usually does, as the storm progressed from Odessa toward Davenport and Cheney. Cheney in fact had about 12 inches. So if you are wondering why your Odessa Record was late arriving last week, the storm and its aftermath are the culprits. We were all set to publish early and get the newspaper to our subscribers on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. The delivery driver set out from Cheney to get the papers to Odessa, Davenport and Spokane Valley. We waited at the office here in Odessa to make sure he arrived and that we had our papers. Darkness fell. Still no delivery. A call from publisher Roger Harnack solved the mystery. The delivery driver had slipped on ice or compacted snow and fallen somewhere along the route. In all likelihood, he had a broken leg. Other staff members were dispatched to retrieve him and his vehicle.
Harnack, on his way home to Sunnyside, dropped the papers off in Odessa at about 7 p.m. that Wednesday. Early the next day your intrepid editor was at the Odessa Post Office with the mail bags for delivery of The Record, fighting through snow and slush performing a task that had been someone else's responsibility since last February when the paper became part of Free Press Publishing.
With temperatures creeping up and bringing rain rather than snow, the snow on the ground did not last long. By this Monday it was gone except for a few greatly diminished snowmen in some yards and the snow piles created by street clearing. It was a wild week.
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