"Got to keep ahead of the game": Amador County residents in good spirits as they dig out of snowfall
PIONEER -- Jeffrey Bell and his wife, Gladys Bell, are feeling back to normal after nearly a week in the dark.
"We just got electricity yesterday where I'm catching up to what's going on," Gladys explained Monday.
The two live just north of Pioneer off Highway 88 and are still waiting to get their property road, about a quarter mile long to get to their house, to be plowed. To get their groceries into the house, they say, they take a sled and load up the groceries on it. But they know they're one in a line of many across the county.
Pacific Gas and Electric and the Amador County Sheriff's Office have been working around the clock to get things up and running again, residents say.
In the meantime, it's a bit of a waiting game. Gladys is a teacher with the Amador County Unified School District and the snow days keep piling up.
"We've been closed since, I think, last week, Wednesday, and so we're closed today again," she said.
There was widespread vocal approval from residents in Pioneer on Monday about the job emergency services and utilities had been doing in the area. As of Monday, only 150 power outages had been reported by PG&E in Amador County, much of it concentrated just north of town near Mace Meadows Golf Course.
"PG&E has come by our house checking on us as well because we live pretty far back, and they also been checking our lines and stuff," Jeffrey mentioned.
Joe Bowles, who is the manager of the Pioneer IGA -- one of the only grocery stores on that stretch of 88 -- said it's a game of wait, see and then get to work.
"Just shovel, shovel, shovel, you know?" he said. "I'm fortunate to have someone down the street that plows for us, but it's a lot of shoveling. Got to keep ahead of the game."
Pioneer's IGA has a generator and hasn't lost power or had supply lines cut by road closures. Propane and water are still plentiful and the store has played a big role in those that weren't stranded due to snow piling up on backcountry roads.
"It's actually been pretty decent," Bowles explained. "There's some trucks that can't make it up the hill, you know, it gets a little icy, but for the most part, a lot of people. We've been getting a lot of supply so it's been good."
As the snow continues to fall, then melt and fall again, residents are equal parts burnt out and understanding that this is what they signed up for. The greatest source of pride, Jeffrey said, is the community response and rallying around each other and their neighbors amid a winter that has longtime residents calling it among the heaviest in a long time.
"Up off of Mace Meadows, there was a lady that had an emergency with the ambulance," Jeffrey said of an Amador County Sheriff wellness check turned search and rescue on Sunday night. "They walked in about a quarter mile to get to her and tracked her out. It's a tight-knit community up here and that's what we live for up here."