The Blizzard of '93 (Part 2)

A short time later, Ross, one of the desk clerks, was able trudge in by foot from his home a couple miles away. We agreed that so long as it was just the two of us, he would work 12 hours during the day and I would cover the other 12 at night. (We both ended up working longer than that. Many tasks arose that required someone to be away from the desk, so we covered for each other quite a bit.) I set aside three rooms on the first floor for Ross, Mary and me.

By the time Ross relieved me on Sunday morning, the sole vending machine had been picked clean. Fortunately, I had already procured a small stash of items, so I had a few snacks to ration. The 24 hour convenience store down the block closed up shop by Sunday afternoon. One guest came back from there to report the worker had locked the doors and posted a sign that read "Sold Out of Everything." A few guests forced their way through the deep snow to Denny's a couple miles away only to find out the restaurant had nothing left by the time they arrived.

Realizing that we all needed food, I called information and asked for the "Emergency Operations Control (EOC)" non-emergency number. This was the 911 call center back then. I told the operator that we had nearly 90 rooms of people who had no access to food. She told me someone would call me back shortly. A few minutes later a man called and asked what we needed. I told him we mainly needed food and water. He said a truck would be by to deliver some items shortly. Within an hour a large, almost "monster" truck pulled up at the front door. Out hopped a man who I recognized as Vice-Mayor Gene Ellison. He brought water, crackers, loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly and a large, unsliced bologna with some paper plates and a few plastic utensils.

I went into the abandoned restaurant area to look for a table. Most of them were damaged, dusty, and too unwieldy for me to move on my own. I did find a couple saw horses and an unused door that was probably meant as a replacement for a guest bathroom. I moved them to the lobby and Gene and I started loading up the table with the items.

As guests started making sandwiches, Gene made sure everyone knew who he was and that he had brought the food in from a local charity. It might have been good PR for him if not for the fact that the guests were ignoring him as they lined up for food...