Heavy Snow Traps The Town Of Hanna, Wyoming

Has anyone heard from the folks in Hanna, Wyoming in a while?

No?

What about the town of Medicine Bow?

That's because those two towns have been cut off from the rest of Wyoming, the only road to them buried in feet of snow.

This last big storm, along with snow drifts, put so much snow on the highway that the only way to dig out was to bring in THE BIG TONKA TOYS!

The pictures below, in full size below, have been making their way around social media sites like Facebook.

There are backroads leading in and out of these towns but they are gravel backroads.

That's not going to work. There is only one paved road for Hanna, in and out of town.

Using Google Maps you can see Medicine Bow and Hanna.

Highway 487 comes down from the north onto Medicine Bow.

But Hanna can only be accessed by Highway 287/30.

What you're looking at in the photo below is a section of county road 72 being cleared.

It connects Hanna to Highway 287/30.

That little section of 72 is paved.

But, as you can see, in this photo is buried.

BRING ON THE MACHINES!

Well, maybe.

All of this snow actually stranded 4 snow plows and a wrecker.

It's going to take more than one pass to get this job done.

But this weekend's weather calls for heavy winds.

They are going to be back at this again, real soon.

Here is the first of 2 pictures showing what they are dealing with.

The folks of these small towns are used to getting a few storms a year that lock them in and it might be a while before those roads reopen.

So when winter comes, they stock up.

Because, sooner or later, THIS is going to happen.

Probably more than once a winter.

There is only one small grocery store in the entire town.

Not too long ago a woman in Medicine bow was giving birth, right in the middle of a big snowstorm.

This second picture gives you a good idea of how much they are trying to push.

There are no hospitals in that area. A local marshal was in town and rushed over to deliver the baby.

There has been discussion about bypassing part of I-80, which is constantly getting shut down and making 287/30 an interstate loop.

But 287/30 is often closed as much as I-80, for the same reasons.

Hanna is a town in Carbon County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 841. The town was started as a coal supply location for the Union Pacific Railroad. Much of the old town is built on top of the former workings of the Hanna No. 4 mine. Wikipedia