By Susanna Ray

Herald Writer

A Cadillac was buried under about 40 feet of snow at Stevens Pass this morning, but the pass was opened back up around 3 p.m. today and Snoqualmie Pass around 4 p.m., transportation officials said.

The Department of Transportation was sending more snow-clearing equipment to Stevens Pass from Skykomish this morning, to add to the four machines already hard at work at the summit, “so we’re punching through,” said Don Senn, the regional administrator for the department’s North Central region.

Senn said 30 to 36 inches of snow had fallen at Stevens Pass since yesterday.

That’s in addition to the 125 inches recorded at the pass at 7 a.m. Tuesday, said spokesman Jeff Adamson, but an official tally wasn’t available yet today because “frankly, they haven’t had time to check.”

At Snoqualmie Pass, 50 inches have fallen in the last few days, bringing the pack up to about 150 inches, said Don Whitehouse, regional administrator for the department’s South Central region.

At Stevens Pass, workers are using two Transportation snow blowers, plus one loaned to them by the Stevens Pass Ski Area, and a heavy-duty loader to clear U.S. 2. Another blower was being sent up from Skykomish to help out on the west side of the highway.

Two vehicles were caught up in an unexpected avalanche Tuesday afternoon, Adamson said.

“We had planned avalanche activity between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.,” he said. “At about 1:30, God decided differently and started sending avalanche chutes down the road.”

To control avalanches during snowstorms, transportation workers routinely shut down the highway for about 20 minutes to release patches of snow, then clear them quickly and let a round of cars through, Adamson said. But between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., “one of the avalanche chutes released on their own, and two cars got caught up in it.” The avalanche moved both cars about two lanes over, he said.

“It’ll shoot under your car and just lift it, and all of a sudden you’re riding on a plume of snow that’s going left and right, when you were going north and south,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a spooky thing.”

A van was pulled out by a loader, but the avalanche chute above the Cadillac released again and buried the car before they could get it out. It was still buried at about 10 a.m. today. The drivers and passengers were safe and uninjured, Adamson said.