On Road Again: Snow-Closed I-5 Reopens

Interstate 5--closed since Tuesday by snowdrifts up to 5 feet deep--reopened Friday, clearing a path to most of the 4,500 motorists and residents stranded in the mountains north of Los Angeles.

Caltrans crews managed to scrape away enough snow to open four of the freeway’s eight lanes at about 6 a.m., permitting the California Highway Patrol to escort vehicles through on the still-icy pavement at about 20 m.p.h.

By 1 p.m., the last flurries from the three-day storm had moved east, the sun was shining, all eight lanes were open, the pavement was largely dry and traffic was moving pretty much as usual.

Temperatures pushed above freezing for much of the day in the Gorman and Lebec areas, and in downtown Los Angeles, the thermometer climbed to 64 degrees. Forecasters said weekend weather in the Los Angeles Basin should be sunny, with highs in the upper 50s to low 60s.

With the improved weather, most of the residents and motorists along Interstate 5, the state’s principal north-south artery, were able to start moving about first thing in the morning Friday. But it took people in the isolated back country around Lebec, Gorman, Frazier Park and Holiday Valley a little longer.

The Yates family, which had begun to get anxious Thursday as food and propane supplies started running low at their rural home in Holiday Valley, finally made it out Friday when a friend with a four-wheel-drive vehicle came to their rescue.

It was not an easy trip for the husband and wife and their two young sons, though. They had to wind about three miles through drifts up to 4 feet deep to the nearest paved road and then another 10 miles or so on icy pavement to Interstate 5.

At the Cracker Barrel General Store in Frazier Park, about five miles up Mt. Pinos Road from the interstate, a dozen locals gathered for the first time since Tuesday to drink coffee and compare notes.

They talked about the worst storm in more than a decade, the hard work digging out and the two days of isolation.

“There’ll be a lot more kids nine months from now,” Harry Petretti said with a grin.

Lee Gelinas said that even though all of them had been stuck in their homes, that did not mean that neighbors were not watching out for one another.

“We called on the phone to make sure that everyone was OK,” she said. “That’s the nice thing about a small community.”

Back beside Interstate 5 in Gorman, trucker Mark Williams watched dejectedly from a roadside service station Friday afternoon as other vehicles whizzed past.

He said he had stopped to drop off his load of gasoline at the station late Tuesday night, “and by the time I got unloaded, I couldn’t get out.”

Stuck for two days in the snow, he finally appeared to be on his way Friday morning when a bulldozer cleared a path in front of his truck. But when he stepped on the starter, he said, “the battery was dead.”

Still, the warmer weather was a welcome change.

Friday’s high temperature reading of 64 degrees in Los Angeles was only four degrees below the normal high for the date, but it was 24 degrees below the 88-degree reading last year, a record for Feb. 10. The low temperature Friday was 51 degrees.

Dave Beusterien, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., a Wichita-based firm that provides forecasts for The Times, said that today promises to be a “great day” in the Los Angeles Basin--”some clouds but a lot of sunshine, with highs in the upper 50s to low 60s.”

It should be a little cooler on Sunday, with a few more clouds. By Monday, Beusterien said, a new storm system moving south along the coast “should park on Los Angeles and stay around for a few days,” bringing general cloud cover and scattered showers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.