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No room at the Inn
By J.B. Blocker, Special Contributor
Henrietta, Texas, lies 20 miles south of Wichita Falls on Highway 287. There are about 3,000 citizens and one hotel advertized on the Internet, The Best Western.
They rarely see a White Christmas in Henrietta!
For one Collin County family - Plano, Texas, was still bright and sunny on the morning before Christmas.
They take an annual trip to Santa Fe to ski Christmas. With two rambunctious young boys on holiday, it’s a great private family get-a-way from their two thriving law practices.
Santa Fe is a great place to ski if the snow is good, which it is this winter!
Ralf was anxious for some family time as well as thinking time.
You see, Mr. De la Garza, who is a candidate for Collin County D.A. had just announced his dramatic filing from the Republican Party to the Democratic ticket.
His dad is happy. His mother, not so much.
Such is the world! When he returned from the ski trip, his campaign will require a lot of answers.
I like to think that God in his humor might have allowed for a little wrinkle the D.A. candidates views of reality.
WE CAN MAKE IT!
By 1 p.m. Christmas eve, the De la Garza family had loaded the car and ready to roll.
Even so, wife Marina and mother-in-law Marina questioned the wisdom of challenging the storm that had already hit the Texas panhandle. They would be driving right in to it!
Now, Ralf is feeling determined, confident, and much in need of this last family get away for months to come as his D.A. campaign advances.
He also didn’t bother to see the TV reports his ladies had just reported on to him. Besides, he had a big ol' Navigator, and they were packed.
He should have filled up on the way out of town, but he could do that later! Being low on gas might have saved their life!
THE BLIZZARD
Somewhere between Denton and Decatur, Texas, the roads began to disappear.
This was a good time to turn back if they could find the right place. The right place didn’t come.
The freezing ice was making the wipers useless. He couldn’t see the roads. He couldn’t see Exit signs. Everyone needed to be quiet and keep a look out!
The two-hour drive was in its fifth hour behind traffic that began to pile up and then stop!
They were running out of gas! They couldn’t just wait it out!
Rafael De la Garza made a bold move!
He crossed the median and took off north to Wichita Falls on a south bound lane. Soon, a caravan formed behind them as they passed the jack-knifed 18 wheelers that blocked the north-bound lane.
Soon, Ralf could barely be sure he was on the road. His defrosters couldn’t keep up, and he couldn’t risk pulling over for fear of getting hit or stuck. He was still running out of gas! He had put his family in the middle of a blizzard without a Dairy Queen in sight!
The time you spend in this situation is magnified by a hundred worries. As Rafael would later express to me, “An experience like that can make a strong man feel very weak!”
Up ahead, the family sees the lights of what looks to be a hotel. The Henrietta Best Western is barely visible, and in this story our hero manages to run off the road and get his big ol' Navigator stuck.
Ralf has more lessons coming!
That’s OK! They are safe, and they have money!
YOUR MONEY IS NO GOOD!
As the family lugged their necessaries to the motel on the range, they already expected increased room rates.
When they gratefully approached the desk clerk with credit card in hand, they were shown their new reality. Up and down the halls, stranded families were already lining the nooks and crannies of the building.
Here it is, Christmas Eve, and there were no rooms at the inn! Wonder when that’s happened before? They were also very far down the list.
Money would not make a difference!
But soon afterward, the clerk returned to the De la Garzas to make a room available.
It seemed that a single truck driver could not see taking a room when there were those such as the family with two women and two young children having to sit on the floor of the lobby!
Funny that having his mother-in-law on the floor of a lobby might have gotten them that room.
The trucker went on back to his rig without fanfare and let the clerk give the De la Garza family his room.
You can’t buy things like that. But there are people like that trucker everywhere who rise above themselves.
CAN'T BUY WHAT THEY DON'T HAVE
Christmas day in a single room at the Henrietta Best Western would normally include a Continental Breakfast. Not this Christmas!
There would be no free pastries, cereals, juices, or even coffee. All that was gone yesterday and refills were not arriving until the roads were cleared.
Rafael recalls, “We tried all the change machines, but they were already empty. Besides, all the vending machines were already cleaned out anyway. On Christmas Day, instead of eating, everyone was out helping to un-stick everyone else.”
The blizzard had caused many to finally run off the road or even get stuck in the parking lot. There was nothing to do but try to help clear the drive way and parked cars. There wasn’t going be any help until they all helped to clear the way.
“It was a great experience to have shared with my two young sons," he said. "You can’t buy these kinds of opportunities to share hardships with your family and even strangers. And we all are better for the experience.”
No one was really sure what they would do about food. They still couldn’t leave and were now part of a new community forged together by an extremely white Christmas.
“The Citizens of Henrietta started sending over food," he said. "My family had some brisket sandwiches sent by an anonymous but wonderful lady. We can only hope she finds out how appreciated she is and how those sandwiches are now part of our most priceless Christmas diner memories!”
SHERIFF'S REPORT
This writer called Clay County Sheriff Kenny Lemons to get an idea of how dozens of families could be stranded for two days just 20 miles from Wichita Falls.
As it turns out, they had their hand pretty full!
The icing sleet came in about sundown and quickly covered everything before the blinding snow covered the ice. They estimate that up to three inches of ice had covered the roads before the 14 inches of snow blanketed the county!
“Within an hour, there were jack-knifed rigs on every highway and in both directions.” reports the sheriff.
This was Christmas Eve, and so just a skeleton crew remained at most places by 5 p.m.
An hour later, and they too would have been trapped for more than two days!
As it was, only one sheriff’s deputy and two game wardens had four-wheelers. The rest of Clay County and Henrietta’s Law was iced in where they stood.
“Those two game wardens, Eddy Hood and Pat Cannan, deserve a lot of praise. They each worked well over 30 hours straight rescuing stranded travelers.”
The Sheriff had a few other facts for us: “In a county with 11,000 population and 30 county employees, we received over 7,000 calls in a 59-hour period!” The sheriff’s staff was left with four stranded 911 operators who would be trapped for over 24 hours.
More than 800 stranded emergency calls came in Christmas day.
“Our local farmers came to the rescue. They arrived in their tractors and 4X’s and carried police, highway patrol, and sheriffs deputies around for those critical hours from Christmas Eve into another freezing Christmas night! Well over 100 vehicles were stranded for a day and night while others venturing out were just adding to the problems.
“This is my first winter as Sheriff, but I’m not sure we could have done any thing much different. We’ll study it and see, but the fact is, the extreme ice storm can’t be prepared for. Especially on one of the busiest family travel days of the year! I am especially proud of the way our citizen came around and spent their Christmas rescuing and feeding those who were stranded in Clay County.”
THE BEST IN THE WEST
Barbara Smith and her staff are popular with the more than 300 travelers who shared all that the 51-room hotel could provide. They found the way to accommodate all these stranded families with a staff of three and phone calls to their friends.
Their friends included Tammy from the café named As Good as it Gets, the Mission Outreach and the Methodist Church who found ways to have food brought in to feed all of the visitors.
Desk Clerk Darla said it best, “Everyone began helping everyone else. People shared rooms. They helped clean rooms. They shared food. They helped dig each other out. They helped our staff, and they even went out to the highway and helped others. It was the Christmas spirit playing out before our eyes!”
The De la Garza family wish to thank the citizens of Clay County who are now bound by this magnificent event, the strangers who lent a hand and became their friends and the tireless staff at the Henrietta Best Western for one of the most memorable family Christmases ever.
In this difficult time, the De la Garza family found that we are all the same and our needs are all the same: Shelter from the cold, a warm meal, and the hand of a neighbor when we are in need.
J.B. Blocker (pictured with the horse) is a McKinney-based media consultant. Contact him at jbblocker@hotmail.com.
Photos by Juan Carlos, a McKinney and Allen-based photographer from Entertainmentphotos.net.
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
judyj0110 wrote on Jan 16, 2010 1:43 PM:
" Very nice article that certainly does remind us just how unselfish, brave, thoughtful and caring people can be when times get tough. On the other hand, would you want this De la Garza guy to be YOUR D.A.? He appears to be oblivious to the dangers he blindly drove his family into. Both wife and mother-in-law cautioned against it, news reports did to. Not only that, but the fool starts into it without adequate fuel in the car or even a plan as to what they would do if the weather and roads DID become too bad to continue on. If Mr. De la Garza would put his own family into this kind of dangerous situation, I certainly wouldn't want him in a position to make decisions that effect a whole lot of total strangers. "
sac wrote on Jan 23, 2010 5:07 PM:
" Why do people always feel the need to be negative? This is a GREAT article for many reasons. Are you seriously going to question his qualifications as a DA after reading this article? Did you miss the point how he and his family spent their Christmas helpinig others? Thank goodness you don't live up North--you'd never leave your house. Oh yes and the weathermen are always 100% correct on their forecasts. People -- read an article and find the good.... "
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