(Keith Johnson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Curtis Pasin stands on a ladder as he, Ryan Evans, right, and Kevin Howard put the final touches on an 11-foot snowman they built over five hours in the front yard of their Millcreek home, November 10, 2012. The three used a long wooden plank to roll the heavy upper sections into place.

Wintry weekend spurs power outages, car crashes, runs on snowblowers

Weather » Utahns cope with crashes, outages — and a run on snowblowers.

By david burger and Michael McFall

| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Nov 10 2012 04:53 pm • Last Updated Mar 06 2013 11:32 pm

As the season’s first snows continued to pound much of the state Saturday, Utahns in different places greeted the second round wintry weather in different ways.

Nearly 10,000 did so with no power when electricity went out for hours in parts of Davis and Salt Lake counties. Maria O’Mara of Rocky Mountain Power warned Utahns to call 911 and the power company if they came across any downed lines.

Thousands of others spent Saturday morning slipping and sliding on slushy roads. Although there were "lots of crashes" — from a three-car collision on Interstate 15 near 11400 South to a west-side rollover on I-215 near 3500 South — Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Lawrence Hopper said none had serious injuries.

"People are slowing down," he said, "and the slower the speed the lesser the injury."

In all, UHP reported two crashes in Weber County, 14 in Davis County, 51 crashes in Salt Lake County and 17 in Utah County. Seven injuries were reported in Salt Lake County and one injury occurred in Utah County, according to the highway patrol.

Troopers are reminding interstate drivers that in case of a fender bender, the safest move is to drive to the nearest exit and get off the freeway whenever possible.

Many Utahns preferred to hunker down in movie theaters, watching James Bond woo women and kill bad guys in warmer climates. And then there were the die-hard football fans who planned to watch Brigham Young University’s Cougars take on Idaho at LaVell Edwards Stadium on Saturday night.

Here is how a few Utahns welcomed the season’s first wintry weekend:

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With more than 20 inches of snow falling at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort this weekend, the scheduled Nov. 17 opening might be pushed forward, said Emily Moench, communications manager of the resort.

A decision will likely be made once the storm moves on, perhaps on Monday, she said. During the past several years, resort officials had been happy to open the ski season earlier than the scheduled start date because of early storms.

The dumping of natural snow comes just as the resort has doubled its snow-making capability over the past year, according to Moench.

Snowbird spent more than $1 million on enhancements during the off-season for the upcoming winter, including the purchase of new pumps.

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Snow blows — especially when you need your snowblower attended to all of a sudden.

Kyson Crowell, of Crowell’s Flying Wrench in Murray, associates the arrival of heavy snowfall with the arrival of heavy calls to his mobile-engine repair business.

By 3 p.m. Saturday, Crowell had received about three times as many calls for his services than he did three Saturdays ago.

While he isn’t as busy now as he is in the spring and summer months when lawn mowers need repairs, Crowell still spends more than 10 hours a day — and 60 to 80 hours a week — fixing snowblowers.

He’s not the only one.

A Midvale receptionist at Pehrson’s Power Equipment said her staff was so "swamped" with calls for sales and repairs that nobody had the time to talk to a reporter about increased demand — and that was only after the reporter had to listen to two recorded messages from former quarterback Brett Favre extol the virtues of Snapper lawn mowers and snowblowers.

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