LV residents weather hazards of wintry blast

Jace Radke

Monday, Dec. 21, 1998 | 11:05 a.m.

Las Vegas Valley is locked in a deep freeze and will remain there for the next several days, the National Weather Service said today, but there may be a slight thaw before Christmas.

Sub-freezing temperatures and gusting winds late Sunday and early this morning in the Spring Mountain area on State Route 160 to Pahrump created hazardous driving conditions, causing three accidents because of ice on the roadway between mile markers 18 and 24.

The Nevada Highway Patrol warned drivers to use extra caution on the mountainous route.

NHP Trooper Scott Flabi said there were three accidents between 5:14 a.m. and 6 a.m. today, forcing the highway to be closed briefly so that investigators could take measurements related to the accidents.

The accidents resulted in minor injuries, Flabi said.

NWS spokesman Scott Cordero said cold air is entrenched over Southern Nevada.

Cold temperatures and strong winds will make weather conditions uncomfortable in the valley for at least the next few days, with winds blowing at 20-25 miles per hour.

"It will remain quite cold," Cordero said, "with the lows in the valley in the mid- to upper 20s for the next couple of days. The highs will be only into the mid- to upper 40s."

Temperatures in the mountain regions will be in the low single digits, according to Cordero, and the highs only in the 20s.

"It is a dry air mass, but bitterly cold," he said.

Tonight's low is expected to be 28.

The projection for the Christmas holidays is dry, slightly warmer weather for Southern Nevada.

Christmas Day the lows will be in the mid-20s to mid-30s and the highs in the mid-40s to mid-50s.

Though the temperatures are below normal, they are not record-breaking.

Cordero said the normal high for Dec. 21 and Dec. 22 is 56 degrees and the normal low is 33 degrees.

A record low of 12 degrees was set in 1990; a record high of 68 was set in 1950.

A Sunday morning fire in a home in northwest Las Vegas may have flared up again Sunday evening because of wind gusts up to 40 mph, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

The original fire at 9632 Grand Island Lane in Summerlin started about 10:45 a.m. in or near a Jacuzzi motor in the house's second story bathroom, investigators said. The fire caused $50,000 in damage to the home, which caught fire again about 5:15 p.m.

"If one small ember got inside, the winds could have fanned it to start another fire," Szymanski said. "We are still investigating what caused it to start, but the winds are probably a determining factor."

The high winds fanned the flames that engulfed the entire roof of the house, causing embers to blow onto several homes under construction in the development, Szymanski said.

"Our first priority was to make sure that none of the other homes or construction sites caught fire," Szymanski said. "With the high winds it's the perfect condition for a house to burn down. A fire runs rampant with these conditions, and it's hard to get the water to go where you want it."

The two-alarm fire was brought under control in about 30 minutes and there were no injuries, but the entire second story of the house was destroyed, Szymanski said.

Earlier in the day the winds caused another problem for the fire department when a large construction trailer blew over, trapping two people inside.

At about 11 a.m. a trailer at the site of Clark County Parks and Recreation's "Lone Mountain Park" on Jensen Street in northwest Las Vegas toppled over, Szymanski said.

The single-wide trailer was lying on its side, and the wind was too strong for rescuers to go through the door, which was on the top of the trailer.

Instead firefighters used a chainsaw and circular saw to cut through the roof of the trailer, which at the time was perpendicular to the ground.

While cutting the hole, firefighters used a forklift to push on the trailer against the wind so that the trailer would not continue to roll, Szymanski said. The two men in the trailer suffered minor injuries.

Those working Sunday night got a taste of the cold weather as snow flurries moved across the valley, dropping short bursts of snow.

"It snowed for about 10 minutes here, and everybody was coming out to look at it," Pinkerton Security guard Jerry Kelly said at the Vons supermarket at Pecos and Russell roads. "Since I moved here four years ago, I got used to the heat, so this is kind of a change."