Most of us have been waiting out this historic snowstorm and staying off the roads as recommended, but the people who dedicate themselves to helping neighbors in an emergency have to go when they get the call.

Members of the Alna Fire Department did shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday morning, February 9, when they got a medical call to Head Tide Hill Road in the last hours of snow, big winds and resultant snow drifts impacting travel conditions.

“Driving’s hazardous and there are whiteouts, but the plow trucks have been keeping up pretty well and we take it easy,” Assistant Fire Chief Roger Whitney said.

One end of Head Tide Hill Road has a steep, curved hill, with the Sheepscot River at the bottom. The road crews had done a good job with the hill, which was newly plowed and sanded, Whitney said.

“Everything worked out very well. We had no trouble,” he said.

The members responded in their personal vehicles, as is typical for a medical call. The fire trucks had not had to leave the station on Route 218 during the storm, but chains were on the trucks’ tires as they are for any big snowstorm, said Whitney, who also serves as Alna’s Emergency Management Agency director.

“That way we can get get through anything,” he said of the chains.

Edgecomb’s fire trucks hadn’t had to leave that town’s new fire station on Route 27, either.

The bays’ back doors had four-and-a-half-foot tall snowdrifts blocking them but the trucks would still have a clear exit through the front doors, Fire Chief Roy Potter said.

The back doors would be cleared when the winds lowered, because otherwise the drifts would just return, Potter said.

Coming home from his job around 7 a.m. February 9, Potter said he was pushing snow along Cochran Road with the front bumper of his truck.

“I’m just thankful that people listened and were staying home,” he said.

Shortly after 1 p.m. Saturday, Central Maine Power was reporting no outages in Wiscasset or Alna, and a single customer out of power in Edgecomb; Dresden had 17; Boothbay, 14; Southport, 2; and Boothbay Harbor, with the second-highest outage count in the county, at 157. Jefferson was hardest hit for outages at that time, with 247 customers out.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com