Update From Dead Horse Alaska

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My sister works on the North Slope of Alaska and sent this update today.

My Sister on a two day layover in Anchorage awaiting a flight to Deadhorse, Alaska.

I am back in my office.


All the flights from Anchorage to the Slope on Monday were cancelled because of weather conditions on the slope, so I spent a second night in a hotel, returning to the airport early Tuesday.

Weather conditions became worse, but they flew us anyway. I DO NOT want that experience again. The flight was fine, but landing where you cannot see the ground is not a pleasant thing.

Our airport is very tiny, so we don't have jet-ways.........we climb down stairs from a 737 jet and walk across a tarmac that is icy and snowy. Imagine that with 50mph sustained winds and snow blowing so thickly that you can barely see 10 feet in front of you.

Then, the travel from the airport to our hotel.......much worse. I bashed my knee while getting into a van with no step side, stairs, etc....set so high, the bottom of the door was at my hip. Not fun at my age, I'll tell you. We were led by an enormous snow plow and all we could see was its flashing lights through the blowing snow. This was mid-day; so it was not dark outside and moving at less than five mph, we were never more than 15-20 ft from it and usually closer.

Seasoned Slopers with 20 years or more, did not want to get on that plane and when I got here, the first question I was asked by everyone was: "were you scared?". And yes, I was. They just shook their heads in disbelief that the plane flew. This is the worst weather most people have ever seen here. Definitely is the worst I have, and I hope I don't ever see anything worse.

There were 5 round-trip flights scheduled after mine and they cancelled all of them.

The weather has been pretty bad for about 6 days now. We are running out of water (trucks can't get in to fill our holding tanks and empty sewage - no laundry can be done and you only shower if you are going to offend others) and we are getting low on supplies. Fairbanks is probably full of Ice Road Truckers waiting for the signal that it is safe to head our way. (Don't believe everything you see on reality TV......it's mostly crap.)

Oh, boy......the heavy equipment is in our parking lot. They are going to have fun digging out those trucks............. Connie in Deadhorse, AK.