A34-lancastar Farming, Saturday, March 20 1993 Blizzard Keeps Milk Haulers On The Road Day And Night EVERETT NEWSWANGER Managing Editor ON THE SNOWY BACK ROADS NORTH OF PARADISE (Lancaster Co.)—‘The first day of spring is one thing. The first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month ” Henry Van Dyke is credited with this statement. But Art Erdman, milk truck driver for Atlantic Dairy from Leola, and every other milk hauler on the East Coast would cer tainly agree that the “Blizzard of ’93” last weekend didn’t seem much like spring. With the tons and tons of snow on rural roads from Georgia to Maine, milk trucks couldn’t get to dairy farms for reg ular pick-ups. And with farm bulk tanks bulging and overflowing with several extra days of the “liq uid health,” the bulk milk truck driver became the most sought after, the most prayed for, and the most welcome person to arrive at the farm. For Erdman, the nightmare began last Saturday when he needed to leave home in the bliz zard, breaking away from his nine year-old son Nicholas, who cried Caught on a corner. Dogging It Through. because he didn’t want his daddy to go. On his usual round of pick-ups on Amish farms, Erdman made it through to almost the end of the route before he got stuck in a far mer’s lane Driving Mack. Anyone who knows Erdman, knows he never puts chains on his truck-in fifteen years of driving milk truck, only one or two times at most But he put chains on last Saturday and finally worked his way in and out of the remaining farm lanes and started down Route 30 toward the Lehigh Valley plant at Lansdale. The snow and 90 mile per hour wind made visibility so bad he missed the Coatesville by pass and ended up in town, needing a snow plow to get him back on the right road again (Turn to Pag* A 35) * i A welcome sight. Ready To Roll. Connected. " *\ ~, ■r’r*. * •-* ■» f•. r /Z V/ \ *
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