Swift thaw a sure cure for cabin fever

Kurt Raab from Phoenix walks down Battle Ground’s Main Street with take-out Chinese food slung in bags around his neck Saturday. In town to visit his mother, he had been homebound for days due to the weather. (Steven Lane/The Columbian)

Les Schwab employee Nate Smith fixes a flat tire caused by a piece of metal from a tire chain at the Battle Ground location Saturday. (Steven Lane/The Columbian)

Merlin Ahola buys a 12-pack of beer from co-owner Mandeep Chima at Al and Ernie’s Foodliner in Battle Ground on Saturday. Ahola lives east of Hockinson and had been unable to get around recently because of deep snow; Chima kept his store open no matter how frightful the weather outside got. (Steven Lane/The Columbian)

BATTLE GROUND — Thawing has come to the hub of Clark County, a city ringed by rural areas where there are no snowplows to clear isolated driveways.

Downtown Battle Ground was drizzly and almost balmy Saturday afternoon, allowing some to venture out after days sequestered at home.

Kurt Raab, who grew up in California and lives in Phoenix, wasn’t complaining, even though he had been stranded at his mother’s home at the bottom of a hill outside Battle Ground for almost a week.

“It’s just fine as far as I’m concerned,” Raab said about the winter blast that paralyzed parts of Clark County. “It’s a little colder than Phoenix, but it’s nice.”

Raab took the time Saturday afternoon to walk a couple of miles into Battle Ground to buy Mongolian beef and other entrees from the Silver Dragon restaurant.

“I was getting a little stir-crazy,” he said as he walked back to his mother’s home, with cartons of hot food slung over his neck in bags like a yoke on an ox.

Raab said he had been at his mother’s home since the snow started piling up last weekend. His mother didn’t want him walking to town, but he assured her he would be fine packing his cell phone.

Despite being stuck for almost a week, Raab wasn’t ready to say he was suffering from an acute case of cabin fever

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “Nice-sized house, so there’s plenty to do.”

Last weekend’s storm was one of the biggest in recent memory. Merlin Ahola said there was 3 feet of snow at his home about two miles east of Hockinson.

“Loved it,” he said while buying a 12-pack of Coors Light at Al & Ernie’s Foodliner. “Wish it would have snowed 6 feet.”

Ahola said he got out Friday for the first time in several days. It was nice to be able to drive around without spinning his wheels, but Ahola didn’t feel that he had to get out of the house.

“I had lots of stuff to do,” he said. “I had roofs to scrape off so they didn’t collapse.”

Mandeep Chima, one of the Foodliner’s owners, said he has been diligently manning the store during the thick of the storm. The store, he said, is open “395 days a year, eight days a week.”

“I never shut down, rain, snow, sleet or ice,” the Orchards resident said. “I can’t really call my boss and say, ‘I can’t make it.’ Wait a second. That’s me.”

Two blocks away, Alex Paliy was helping shovel the last bit of slush from the Slavic Evangelical Baptist Church in preparation for Sunday services.

Paliy said 1 feet of snow piled up at his home north of Lewisville Park, but that didn’t keep him from routinely venturing out in his Honda.

“’Cause it’s Christmas season,” he said. “Nothing would keep me at home.”

Others don’t have much choice.

Jeff McCrary, manager of the Les Schwab Tire Center in Battle Ground, said about 30 people stopped by the dealership Saturday to have flat tires repaired. The primary cause was chunks of tire chain left behind in the street, remnants of recent days when chains were a winter-driving must but now only a bare-pavement hazard.

Despite a rapid post-Christmas thaw, there are some people who wish Santa had brought them tire chains. “We’re still getting phone calls from people in the north end of the county who are snowed in and can’t get out of their driveway,” McCrary said.

McCrary said a busy shop with waiting customers means he can’t afford to send employees out with chains to rescue people from their wintry predicament.

“Our delivery rate is $90 an hour,” he said. “They would pay it in a heartbeat.”

Jeffrey Mize: 360-735-4542 or jeff.mize@columbian.com.