My friend lives at 4000 feet elevation on Mt. Shasta and is around 80 years old and alone there with his dog and Cat. But, he likely will be okay because he has lived this remotely since about 1972 when he first built the first part of his home there. He has both solar arrays for when it is sunny and a gasoline generator for when it is not sunny enough and he has a well for water. So, he's probably okay alone even at 80 years old (as long as something doesn't go wrong).
However, he did have a blood clot and had to be flown by helicopter to Sacramento to save his arm recently. So, maybe as long as he is taking his blood thinners he will be okay with his dog and his cat at 80 years old.
The reason I mention this is this is not the only person I know around the state of California that is snowed in today and who might be snowed in for weeks more with no way to get out except maybe by rescue helicopter. And even if these people were rescued by helicopter where would they go then? Most of these people could not afford to stay in a hotel who live remotely like this.
So, likely people older and infirm could die in their homes in the wilderness some until the snow either melts off from where they live or they get someone to plow their roads. This is true from the north of California through Mt. Shasta, all the way down the Sierras and as far south as Big Bear which is near Palm Springs and the deserts.
What is unusual about 10 feet of snow at 4000 feet on Mt. Shasta is that I lived out near my friend when I owned 2 1/2 acres from 1980 to 1989 and built an A-Frame house for my family then in 1980. But, when I lived there the most snow that fell was about 8 feet of snow at one time at that time. So, 10 feet of snow is some kind of record. When he was a younger man he had a snow plow attached to his 4 wheel drive truck and sometimes would plow the road out all night long when 7 feet of snow fell. I always thought it was too expensive to do this and so I just parked my International Harvester 1974 Scout II (which is probably the most effective off road 4 wheel drive I ever owned) a few miles away and my family and I would ski in on cross country skis to our home when we had to. We would tow our groceries and supplies in behind us on a bobsled with everything bungy corded onto the sled. At that time we had candles and Aladdin Kerosene Lamps for light at night and my father welded me up a wood stove out of an old water pressure tank on his 2 1/2 acres of land before water was piped in there in the 1970s. We had a big big clawfoot bathtub and another wood cook stove that was an antique where we could bake bread and cakes and casseroles too. It was a good life then in the wilderness and living that way is one of the reasons I'm still alive today because I learned how to get to inner peace living in the wilderness and how to keep it ongoing throughout my life ever since.
But, now my friend is old and can't afford a snow plow and the damage it does to one's vehicle to run it as a snow plow with a 4 wheel drive truck so he is snowed in in 10 feet of snow. Besides by the time the snow gets that deep unless you have a big snow blower 10 feet tall like they remove snow from larger roads like Interstate 80 you are never going to get that snow off the roads for miles anyway. You must remove snow as it is falling or it sets up often as ice and that is 10 or 20 times more difficult to remove.
This is the reality of snow getting sun on it and turning the top foot to ice at night when it freezes more.
Later that day in the evening:
My friend called me on his smartphone and told me that the record of snowfall for where he presently lives is 12 feet of snow in 1995. Since he bought this land around 1970 he was living there when this happened.
I personally remember in 1992 that there was 12 feet of snow in the winter of that year in Mt. Shasta. I had moved away from Mt. Shasta to the SF Bay area the summer before this but friends invited us up to stay with them during the extreme snowfall. There was no place to park unless you dug by hand with a snow shovel a place to park your car or truck. And people who couldn't get the snow off their roofs had their roofs collapse so mostly older people who couldn't climb their roofs safely or hire someone had their roofs collapse in 1992 in Mt. Shasta. Some even took a small snow blower up on their roofs because the snow was higher than the tops of most roofs at 12 feet. So, it was helpful to have a snow blower to send the snow higher and further away to actually be able to move the snow off their roof to a non-load bearing place away from the roofs.
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