submitted by John Beach
The snowstorm last Friday didn’t bring a whole lot of snow by recent standards around here, but it did cause some of the most treacherous driving conditions of the season and in some places it took a long time for plows to respond. Shortly after noon on Friday, February 25, a tractor trailer from Koch Transportation based in Ardmore, OK, got stuck on Route 43 right at the main driveway entrance to the West Stephentown Baptist Church. The truck was carrying 80,000 pounds of Quad 4-wheeler ATVs for Ron’s Cycle Shop in Cheshire/North Adams, MA. The tractor trailer was stuck diagonally across Route. 43 with the tractor headed into the Church parking lot and the rear end near the guard rail on the eastbound side of Rt. 43.
At about 1 pm John Beach called Pastor Trig Tomlinson who arrived in a few minutes, notified the New York State Troopers and proceeded to shovel around the rear wheels of the tractor. Rock salt was put down and after several attempts the tractor trailer, with the aid of a pull/tow by a dump truck belonging to Darcy Construction, was extricated from the culvert and trench on the lower end of the Church drive entrance.
Route 43 had not been plowed for about an hour and, at the rate with which snow was falling, the road was really not passable for eastbound traffic. Some westbound traffic was routed from Route 43 to Griffin and Firetower Roads and back on to Route 43. State Troopers arrived about 2 pm and assisted the driver with putting on chains. The NYS Department of Transportation snowplow came on the scene at about 2:15 pm, and the situation was cleared up by approximately 3 pm. The road was then clear and traffic proceeded normally after that time with the State snowplow making an eastbound run about 3:20 pm.