December 17, 2008 E-MAIL PRINT

Keep the car stocked for winter's wrath

Having emergency supplies can help make the best of an unpleasant driving situation and get you to or from the slopes safely. (photo: Sugarloaf)

Driving the back roads between Waterville and Sugarloaf (I rarely opt for the Augusta/Belgrade Lakes route, and never the Auburn exit), we got deeper and deeper into a paralyzing ice storm.

Limbs started to fall from the high pines over Route 8, and then a power line snapped down along the road. The freezing rain not only turned the roads into an ice rink, but also caked the car with ice that even the wipers and defroster could not keep up with.

We inched along and finally had to stop for a really large branch across the road. The car stopped. We were stuck — two adults and a 12-year old — as ice pelted down furiously.

As it turned out, we were there in North New Portland less than an hour before the ice let up and a highway truck salted the road and removed the tree limb, but it took another hour to reach Kingfield.

It may not happen often — given the quality of even back roads these days and the cars that drive them. But every so often you get in a situation that reminds you how cars do occasionally get stuck in blizzards and floods, or simply break down. And that motorists do have to wait long periods of time for help to arrive.

In those days there were no cell phones, but even today in back country you can find plenty of dead zones where the cell won’t work.

Here, in the span of about 40 minutes, what was going through my mind was a kind of wish list:

► I wish we had brought really warm clothes in the car and not packed them all in the trunk. We were wearing lighter stuff, and getting to the luggage meant getting out in the elements and wrestling through the trunk. Ski pants were also available, but packed in suitcases.

► I wish I knew whether the tailpipes were clear without having to get out of the car. In an ice storm, the ends of the pipes were probably clear, but when a car gets stuck in deep snow, pipes included, running the engine can send deadly carbon monoxide throughout the passenger compartment very quickly.

► I wish we’d brought some food along in the car. Aside from some Life Savers and assorted pieces of candy and a pack with two saltines, there was nothing. We had one water bottle among three of us.

► I wish I’d thought to put a flashlight in the car. I didn’t need it yet, but if we were there until after dark, I would have.

► Ditto an emergency triangle, and perhaps flare candles to put around the car for the snowplows to see.

► I wish I’d told someone the route we were taking and an estimated arrival time. This is standard procedure for boat trips, so why doesn’t it make sense in remote winter driving?

► I wish I’d had a portable radio in the car so I would not have had to run the car radio on the car battery to try to get some news on the storm.

► I wish the car had more tools — even a pointed spade that could chip away ice if the car became mired. And a bag of sand might also come in handy.

When our car was finally liberated, these things flew out of my head, of course, and if the same thing happened today I would be probably no better equipped, with the exception of a good shovel and light I now always carry around in winter.

Well, it’s a start.

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Keep the car stocked for winter's wrath

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