A Hero’s Welcome : L.A. Salutes a Worker in a Remote DWP Outpost Who Drove Six Hours to Rescue a Woman and Child Trapped by a Blizzard

Kirk Reinschmidt, an equipment mechanic with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, toils in more obscurity than most city employees could imagine.

On a typical workday, he doesn’t come anywhere near the department’s Hope Street headquarters. Memos issued by the DWP brass are sent to him by mail. City Hall is just a building he visits maybe once a year to take civil service exams.

On Tuesday, however, Reinschmidt, a 17-year employee who is stationed hundreds of miles north of Los Angeles in Cedarville, Calif., was welcomed into the heart of city government.

Paraded before the City Council, nattily dressed in a Dodgers tie and faded corduroy jacket, Reinschmidt was honored as a hero. On Jan. 6 he drove a city Sno-Cat six hours through a storm to help rescue Jennifer Stolpa, who was huddled with her 5-month-old son in a snow cave in northeastern Nevada waiting for her husband to return with help.

“Many times we forget that we have employees in remote locations who do their jobs with little notice or fanfare,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who chairs the Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees the DWP. “This is a wonderful example of DWP employees being in the right place at the right time and going beyond the call of duty.”

DWP operates offices throughout California, as well as in Nevada and Utah--small satellite operations designed to maintain transmission lines and telecommunications systems and provide power to the energy-hungry city, said Dan Waters, DWP’s general manager.

“It’s a real effort to stay in touch with everyone,” said Waters, who was stationed for four years near the Grapevine pass. “They do feel like they are left out at times. It’s difficult when you have people scattered throughout the Western states.”

Behind Reinschmidt’s large rescue vehicle plowing through the blinding flurries were two other DWP employees in another large, tractor-like vehicle, Brian Cain and Bob Worley. Directing the operation long-distance was Norm Nielsen, a mechanic who is Reinschmidt’s boss and is stationed at a facility in Boulder, Nev.

“This was a perfect example of teamwork,” said Nielson, who also received a commendation Tuesday in Los Angeles. “It’s great.”

Reinschmidt, 41, a second-generation city employee whose father repaired boats in Los Angeles Harbor, said he did what any city worker would do. When approached by the California Highway Patrol to use city equipment to assist the rescue effort, he contacted his supervisor. When the OK was given, he set out across the snowy terrain, following James Stolpa’s footprints in search of a blue sweat shirt tied to a bush.

Reinschmidt never did find Stolpa’s rescue signal, but his vehicle--which he proudly refers to by its official name, the LMC 1500 Sno-Cat--pulled up at the Washoe County cave minutes after state of Nevada highway workers had discovered it. Their trucks were getting stuck in the drifts, so it was Reinschmidt who drove the mother and child to waiting ambulances.

“All I really was was a chauffeur,” Reinschmidt said. “Any city employee would have done the same thing.”

The saga began Dec. 29 when the young couple’s pickup truck became stranded in a snowdrift about 40 miles east of the California border as they tried to take a shortcut on a trip from Castro Valley, Calif., to attend a funeral in Pocatello, Ida.

The mother and child took shelter in a small makeshift cave while James Stolpa--an Army private stationed at Camp Roberts near Paso Robles, Calif.--trudged more than 40 miles to a state highway office.

The baby, Clayton, emerged with a clean bill of health, but the parents are being treated for severe frostbite at Reno’s Washoe Medical Center. Jennifer Stolpa, 20, underwent surgery Monday to remove part of her frostbitten feet. James Stolpa, 21, is expected to undergo a similar operation.

Reinschmidt said, however, that based on what he knows, the family ought to be counting its blessings.

“Knowing the grim realities of that area . . . they were lucky to survive,” he said. “It was snowing pretty heavy. . . . The next day definitely would have been too late.”

The official plaque he received from the City Council and the accolades heaped on by colleagues and supervisors were great, Reinschmidt said, but the real thanks came in that remote mountain area when he pulled up in his tractor.

“My reward,” he said, “was seeing Mrs. Stolpa’s face and hearing the baby cry.”