Over a week after a rare blizzard blew into Southern California, San Bernardino’s mountain communities are still feeling its harsh effects.
As residents wait for state and county services, help has come from volunteers – and one another.
Homes and businesses in the mountain communities are still buried by 10-foot high snowdrifts, and on Sunday afternoon, heavy fog was rolling in, limiting visibility.
Many main roads into Lake Arrowhead and elsewhere are now passable, but the plows have left imposing walls of snow along the roadsides, further burying some residents’ driveways and homes.
On Sunday, access to the San Bernardino Mountains via Highway 18 was still being limited by authorities.
Still, Twin Peaks resident Cesar Lopez and his son Orlando were able to return to Cesar’s car, which had been left in a turnout on the highway and damaged by a snow plow. Somehow, they planned to try and drive it home.
In a parking lot beside Arrowhead Lake, members of Cal Guard’s Joint Task Force Rattlesnake assembled and prepared to shut off leaking gas meters, which are believed to have caused multiple fires in recent days. Other crews were at work removing snow from roads and buildings.
In Blue Jay, a community south of the lake, resident Anthony Trefethen walked home after buying groceries at a Rite-Aid on Highway 189. He also bought food for his neighbor, Connie, who he said was snowed in and on a 48-hour waitlist to be evacuated.
“She said, ‘How about some milk?’ I said, ‘Ok,’ ” Jay recounted. “I just threw her some food over the (snow) berm,” he said. His own groceries included frozen pizza, ramen and cognac.
Just past the Rite Aid, residents lined up at the Lake Arrowhead Branch Library to receive donated food and supplies. The library was one of several locations distributing food on Sunday, said resident and organizer Meghan Hardin-Griffiths. The distribution efforts are volunteer-run, with some help from the fire department, she said.
Some volunteers are also using their off-road vehicles to deliver food to houses, Hardin-Griffiths added.
Lake Arrowhead resident Uriel Rosales and his family hadn’t run out of food yet, but when they received word about the library on Sunday, they decided to get some, “just in case.”
Angela Hill, 70, was waiting in line with a friend to get food for her four cats. She had run out, but she said the cat food she was given on Sunday might last for just two days.
Still, said Hill, who has lived near Lake Arrowhead for 30 years, “I love it.”
The road to her cabin in the Upper Little Bear Mountain Club, a neighborhood just west of Lake Arrowhead, is still buried.
“The first plow that came got stuck,” she said. So Hill, who said she is disabled with a back injury, climbed up the snowbanks to return home with the help of a ski pole and a walking stick, retracing packed footprints from previous journeys outside. Snow began falling before she got home.
Hill said it’s hard to understand how much snow there is because so much is buried, and cautioned people who may plan to come up the mountain.
“It’s not a recreation place right now,” she said.
As the days wear on and residents remain stranded, and some run out of essential medications, they have expressed frustration with the response from state and county agencies.
San Bernardino resident Rochelle Ikenberry has been trying for several days to get help for her mother, who is 80 years old and lives alone in Crestline. A neighbor has been bringing her groceries and cooking for her.
Her mother has a heart condition, and Ikenberry said she asked her to “count how many days’ pills she had left.” By her mother’s estimate, she had about a week’s supply left as of Friday, March 3.
Ikenberry’s mother was supposed to get heart surgery on Monday, March 6. Now it’s been postponed.
Rochelle’s sister, Becky Ikenberry, who lives in Lake Arrowhead and has helped get groceries to her mother and others, said some residents who went down the hill to get prescriptions filled weren’t allowed to go back up.
“I understand this is unprecedented snow,” Rochelle Ikenberry said, but she, like so many others, said she was disappointed by the lack of aid from officials.
“The community just needs help,” she said.