SPOKANE, Wash. – At least 25 cars needed help getting up Maple Street between 5th and 7th avenues after Wednesday’s snowstorm. Waiting there to greet them, a group of over a dozen handy volunteers spontaneously came together to help get the cars up the lower South Hill and on their way home.
“I came down to shovel the walk and there’s just two guys pushing a car,” South Hill resident Tom Bronkema said. “I started helping them with a shovel and more people started coming.”
Between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., about 20 people ended up helping cars in some form. Some shoveled underneath their tires to help get them out of sticky situations. Others pushed from behind to give the vehicles the extra momentum they needed.
“It feels really good and it kinda warms my heart,” middle school-aged Elizabeth Roullier said, “to know that a lot of people with kids at home can make it home safely.”
While the sense of the tight community in the neighborhood was strong, the locals turned their attention – and blame – to the broader community.
“Every year it seems like this hill is the last one to get plowed,” Markeah Waggy said. “Neighbors come out, sometimes we have a lot of neighbors start bringing drinks and snacks and everything. Everybody gathers to push cars up the hill until the city gets somebody out here.”
It took a while, with no plow in sight until rush hour was over, despite the amount of cars stuck trying to take a popular route from downtown to the South Hill.
“Plows have really been focusing on those main arterials and that street may not be one of the priority arterials,” City of Spokane Communications Director Kirsten Davis said. “But (we) sure do appreciate those folks that are willing to get out there and help, that’s kinda what it takes on days like today.”
