Improvised plow clears hilly Henderson

By Mike Trask

Friday, Dec. 19, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Ed Owens dragged himself out of bed for work at 6 a.m. Wednesday, ready for another day on the Henderson street maintenance crew.

What followed was the most memorable 17-hour day of his 11-year career.

He was the pilot of the snowplow — actually a 40,000-pound road grader — that saved the southern — and highest — neighborhoods of Henderson from being snowbound.

He had been spending the day hauling trash to a landfill at Apex, way north of town, when about 2 p.m. he got the call to return to the Henderson city yard on Gibson Road. There was going to be a bigger job in the afternoon.

And right from the get-go, there was a significant challenge in clearing streets of heavy, wet snow.

The city doesn’t own a snow plow. Well, why would it?

The next best thing in the city’s bag of tricks was the road grader, a lumbering four-wheeler with a blade beneath its belly to move dirt.

A co-worker claimed it, so Owens dashed over the Cashman Equipment store on St. Rose Parkway to rent a second one.

It was about 5 p.m., in the thick of the snowfall, when Owens, with a police escort, headed for the heights of Anthem. To get there, he drove the main drag through the abutting Seven Hills neighborhoods — both to clear that road and to avoid the gridlock along lower Eastern Avenue. Finally, he reached upper Eastern, where it leads uphill in its final stretch to Anthem.

When he reached Eastern and looked up the hill, “all I could see were red lights,” he said. “It was crazy.”

Owens, 34, a Las Vegas native, had never seen the likes of this — desert residents who found their drive home made perilous because of a half-foot of snow.

Owens carefully steered his monstrous yellow machine around abandoned cars lining the roads. He did, admittedly, rip some lane-defining traffic buttons off the roadway. Better those than an abandoned Kia, he figured.

From the captain’s chair in his heated cab, 10 feet above the slushy pavement, Owens watched a Hummer blow past him. And then he watched it spin out of control and off the road.

Owens was a welcomed sight in a day otherwise filled with annoyance. Henderson police said there 16 minor accidents — and an uncounted number of vehicles abandoned by motorists who hoofed it home.

Police said they didn’t issue any tickets; they had better things to do during the worst storm to hit the region in nearly 30 years.

Motorists treated Owens as something of a hero as he passed by, flashing him thumbs up.

“It was cool,” said the burly worker with a silver tooth. “I liked it.”

At 11 p.m., Owens — along with nine others who put in a long day — called it quits. They were replaced by a group that had left at 4 p.m., the usual quitting time, only to return at 11 to work through the night.

Four two-man crews had used 22 tons of sand on the streets, an amount that usually lasts all winter.

Owens was back at 6 a.m. Thursday, ready for the possibility of more battling with the snow.

“I’m not scared,” he said.

Of course, he had four-foot-high tires to keep him on the road.