On Monday afternoon, Ryan Sermersheim, president of Evansville Area Jeepers (EAJ) is driving his lifted 2018 Jeep Wrangler back to Deaconess Midtown Hospital in Evansville.
He's picking up an employee he’d dropped off at about 5 a.m. that morning. The roads are much clearer than they were at that hour.
“This morning it was very slick,” he said. “Everything was still snow covered. It was just tire paths down each lane. With all the ice we had, there were a lot of downed tree branches and trees themselves blocking the road.”
The winter storm lead to a State of Emergency being called for the area, and the Evansville/Vanderburgh Emergency Management Agency to issue travel warnings during the worst of the weather.
Tens of thousands were, and still are without power throughout the region.
Before the storm, the EAJ activated ‘Operation Snowflake’ – a volunteer service they started five or so years ago.
When roads would become impassable, they saw a way they could help and have some fun in the snow with their jeeps.
They take medical workers, nursing home employees and county jailers to work. Sometimes they take medical patients.
His wife Kelsey and other EAJ admins become dispatchers for people needing rides.
“There's basically just a big group message of all the drivers,” Sermersheim said. “So they'll post, and whoever's closest can grab them, and we just kind of coordinate that way.”
“Several of our members have Jeeps that are modded, and we drive them off road,” he said, adding that many used their bumper-mounted winches to move fallen trees from roadways when needed.
Sermersheim is picking up his friend Kate Riordan, x-ray technologist at Deaconess. She lives on the hilly West Side of Evansville. He gave her a ride at 4:30 that morning and off-roading was required due to a fallen tree.
“It was at least a huge limb that was across the road,” she said. “There was no way around it. He just totally off roaded and went around. I didn't even know it was possible.”
She normally drives a minivan, a vehicle she didn’t think could make it down the driveway following the storm.
“Because we're a hospital, we have to show up,” Riordan said. “The sick people show up, whether staff is there or not. So you have to have somebody to run the place.”
She said about half the Midtown staff made it in, and they were able to function as a hospital. Deaconess is not officially affiliated with Evansville Area Jeepers.
St. Vincent hospital employees were dispatched by the hospital to the jeepers via phone line.
Citing improved road conditions, Operation Snowflake was closed late morning Tuesday at least for this particular weather event.
Sermersheim said they had about 30 drivers give about 150 rides starting January 5 through the whole ordeal.
Support independent journalism today. You rely on WNIN to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Give to grow our local reporting today. Donate
