No one else trapped; eight taken to hospital

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 7, 2007 at midnight

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Eight people in two cars survived being swept off U.S. 40 eight miles west of Empire Saturday by a massive avalanche that shut the highway down for the rest of the day, the Colorado State Patrol reported.

The two vehicles tumbled nearly 300 feet down a 7 to 8 percent grade, said Patrol spokesman Eric Wynn.

Ambulances took the eight survivors, including seven adults and one juvenile, to Saint Anthony Central Hospital, where spokeswoman Bev Lilly said seven were treated and released. One adult male was admitted to the hospital. He was listed in fair condition.

As of 3:30 p.m., Wynn said authorities are confident no one else was trapped beneath the snow, which covered the highway in three paths 100 feet wide and 15 feet deep.

"It's pretty huge." Wynn said.

Rescue crews probed the area with poles to make sure no other vehicles were buried in the snow. Wynn said the highway will remained closed for the rest of the day. Highway crews hope to have it reopened by Sunday morning, he said.

While crews worked to remove the debris, other officials conducted an aerial inspection to see if there were any other areas with a potential for avalanche, Wynn said. If they find any, they plan to trigger more slides with a controlled blast.

Centennial resident Angela Sackett and her fiancee were driving toward Winter Park for a day of skiing when the avalanche hit.

"It was really windy," she recalled. "We we're glad we were in our SUV, but I'm from Colorado. I didn't think it was anything unusual."

Music was playing on the car stereo, so they didn't hear anything until the avalanche went roaring across the highway.

"All of a sudden all the cars stopped," Sackett said. "It was kind of scary. Lots of cars were turning around to get out of there. I saw people pointing down over the bridge."

One man told motorists to leave unless they had a shovel to make way for emergency personnel. Having no shovel, Sackett said she decided to turn around, worried about being caught in another slide. In some spots, she said the slide looked as tall as three SUVs deep.

Several motorists climbed out of their vehicles and started digging. Others climbed down the embankment to check on the survivors.

"One car was just mangled. I couldn't believe they had gotten out of there," said Mike Herrem of Fort Collins, who reached one of the damaged cars and a father and son were emerging.

Herrem's friend Peter Ferigan said people helped bring the survivors back up the slope.

"Five minutes earlier and that could've been us," he said. "We stopped to see what we could do... It was really a Good Samaritan situation everywhere."

Stacey Stegman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said the slide was a deep as any the highway crews had ever seen.

The area usually has slides 2 to 3 feet deep, Stegman told CNN. "This is a tremendous amount of snow to come down the mountain for us," she said.

Three snow storms in as many weeks have dumped more than 4 feet of snow on parts of Colorado, according to the National Weather Service. 18 to 20 inches fell in the first storm on Dec. 20-21. Another 9 to 16 inches fell between Dec. 28-30. The most recent storm added up to 12 inches when it ended Friday morning.

While the snowfall has been a boon for ski areas, it also has increased avalanche danger in the back country, said Spencer Logan of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder.

"The danger to the backcountry is considerable," Logan said. "Natural avalanches are possible and human triggered avalanches are likely," he said. Logan recommended that backcountry skiers need to be careful to recognize the potential danger and take equipment such as avalanche beacons, shovels and probes along with them.

Berthoud Pass is the main route from metro Denver to Winter Park, one of Colorado's largest ski areas. Closure of the highway will add an extra 96 miles to the route of travelers who chose to take an alternate route of Winter Park to Granby to Kremmling to Interstate 70 and then on to Denver.

Stegman said the late-morning timing meant most traffic headed to the ski area had already passed. "If it would've happened just a couple of hours earlier, this would've been a very different situation," she told CNN.

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