Shirley accesses damage
Relief effort includes pre-dawn treks to remote hogans

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. discusses flight plans with pilot Earl Watters, right, while en route to Black Mesa Saturday. Roads are so muddy that the most remote areas are only accessable by helicopter. (Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent)

By Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Using a tiny six-hour window of opportunity, the growing winter storm relief effort focused this morning on delivering supplies in the most remote stretches of the Pinon and Hard Rock Chapters of the Navajo Nation.

By the time the emergency, declared on Jan. 7, is finished, it is possible that more than 1,000 families in more than 30 chapters will have received aid.

Crews were to begin assembling at 1 a.m. today to travel over frozen ruts in an operation which must conclude around dawn while the mud is still frozen and hard enough to support trucks. The ground becomes so gooey with daylight that even a hardy duece and a half a 2.5-ton U.S. Army truck designed to be driven over rough and roadless terrain can't go any farther.

Even when the mud is frozen, it isn't easy, as attested to by Apache County Sheriff's Office Commander Travis Simshauser. He told about 30 people at Sunday morning's organizational briefing, "Even though it's traversable, it's treacherous and trucks have fallen off into the ruts" of the frozen ground which are up to a foot deep.

The effort this morning focused on the two chapters. Volunteerswere ready to load food and supply boxes into the convoys which were to be guided by local residents to those stranded far out.

Maybe more tomorrow
A similar drive most likely will be mounted Tuesday before dawn in the Forest Lake, Black Mesa and Tachee-Blue Gap Chapters, giving newly-elected chapter officials time to prepare the supply boxes.

Pinon Chapter, with the staging area at the Chapter House, is reachable by paved BIA Navajo Region highways. Hard Rock, a Navajo peninsula surrounded on the east, south and west by the northern boundary of the Hopi Reservation, has benefited from its Chapter President, Percy Deal, also being the long-time District 1 Navajo County Board of Supervisors member.

At the briefing, there were constant reminders that the top priorities remain the elderly, those needing medicines and single mothers with children, all in the remote areas.

And the discussion centered on trying to avoid duplication by reaching, first, those who have not had visits, especially if an assessment had been made of the family. Once again, the Community Health Representatives almost universally referred to as CHR's received the highest possible praise for their work, both for the accuracy of their information and their knowledge of the members of the families' needs.

If, for some reason, motorized vehicles can't reach the people from the staging areas at the chapter houses, officials might have to resort to Deal's suggestion that people will have to be reached the old-fashioned way, with pack horses and guides in the saddle.

The council pulled out about one-fourth of the tribe's emergency account to allocate $4 million for the relief effort, with $1 million to the Emergency Management Department and $3 million to all 110 chapters, even though less than one-third have been hit hard enough to ask for help.

Relief supplies
Today's deliveries will be drawn from 1,000 sacks of 20 pounds of potatoes, two semi-tractor-trailer loads of hay (48 tons from NAPI), 500 tons of coal from the McKinley Mine, and other supplies such as dog food, wood and water.

Other donations have included two trucks full of non-perishable food delivered to the Apache County Road Yard on U.S. 191 in Chinle from the Flagstaff Care and Share Food Bank (conditions permitting another load is expected Tuesday), 150 blankets and 150 cots from the Red Cross in Flagstaff, Peabody Western Coal Company equipment to clear roads, the large trucks from the National Park Service at Canyon De Chelly National Monument, five cords of wood from the tribal Natural Resources Division, free permits for the emergency from the tribal Forestry Department, a battery for a Ranger 6-wheeler, five tow chains and 10 gas cans of 10-gallons each from NAPA Auto Supply and 50 food packages from the tribal Food Distribution Department.

The latest count showed of 656 families assessed, 258 families were at high risk according to emergency operations center information officer Selena Manychildren. Simshauser had said that in assisting the tribe, Apache County deputies had seen more than 400 people in a week.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., on Saturday, flew in a rented helicopter with Public Safety Division Director Samson Cowboy, to visit some of the people stranded on Black Mesa.

He summed it up by saying he hadn't seen so much standing water across such a wide area in a long time. "The people were saying they haven't seen so much snow or mud in a long time, too. Our first concern must remain the protection of human life, livestock and property," he said through spokesman George Hardeen.

A pilot flying for the Gallup Raptors Squadron of the New Mexico Civil Air Patrol showed videos taken from about 1,000 feet above the terrain over Tsaile-Wheatfields and Black Mesa. He said he was surprised to see so much traffic moving about and noted that most of the snow was in burned out areas of the forests or in deep canyons. The pictures were taken before mid-morning Sunday. There were more red rocks than white snow visible on the screen.

The relief effort has been dubbed "Operation Hashtklish (Mud)" by tribal officials, with today's effort sub-titled the "Black Mesa Detail."

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone (505) 371-5443.