Safe avalanches triggered after cars buried

CREWS fired artillery shells yesterday to safely trigger avalanches before they could pose a threat to traffic on a Colorado mountain highway, a day after a huge snow slide knocked two cars off the road in a high pass and buried them.

Eight people had to be rescued from the cars that were swept off the main highway to one of the state’s largest ski areas on Saturday.

Wind whistled through the mountains west of Denver at 100mph yesterday, producing whiteout conditions and driving wind chills well below zero, as the artillery fire was used to set off the controlled avalanches.

Witnesses said the slide pushed the cars down into trees off the road near the Berthoud Pass, which leads to Winter Park Resort.

“Our crews said it was the largest they have ever seen. It took three paths,” said Stacey Stegman of the transportation department.

Crews searched the area, which is about 80km west of Denver, for other vehicles and believed all have been found, state patrolman Eric Wynn said.

The trapped motorists were taken to hospital.

The first sign of the avalanche was a puff of snow on the left side of the highway, said the driver of one of the buried cars. “And it was just microseconds later that it hit us,” flipping his car over the roadside guard rail, recalled Dave Boone of Fort Collins.

“We started spinning and came to rest completely upside down buried in the snow.”

He dug his way out of the car and helped his wife out. They walked away with minor cuts and bruises.