Hays offers warm welcome on the coldest of days to truckers stuck during blizzard

By James Bell
Hays Post

Trucks parked in the lot of BOS Motorsports, just north of I-70, Hays. — Derrick Unrein helps truckers park in the lot of Golden Plains Trucking.

During yesterday’s winter storm and the subsequent closing of Interstate 70, over the road truck drivers found themselves stuck in Hays.

Generally being forced to stop in an unfamiliar area is an unpleasant experience for drivers, but rather than complaining about the situation, communication between the drivers through the day was full of gratitude over the City’s response to their plight.

“We probably got around 300 trucks in the City of Hays,” said Joseph Dowdell, one of the drivers stuck in Hays yesterday.

It is standard procedure to stop interstate traffic in times of such severe weather, but Dowdell and his fellow drivers were shocked by the uncommon response of the city and its citizens.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “I’ve never seen the people of the town go out of the way to help a truck driver.”

And getting stuck during storms is something Dowdell is very familiar with, as he runs from Columbus, Ohio to Denver every week.

“We all talk on the CB and we’ve been talking, we’ve never seen a city that just went completely out of their way,” Dowdell said. “We wanted to give the city of Hays a shout out and say thank you.”

The welcome began as soon as drivers stopped to pull off I-70 as drivers were greeted by HPD officers.

“When you get off the highway, going 70 west, when you get off that ramp, a police officer of the City of Hays would meet you and hand you a piece of paper that says where to park and safe places to park,” Dowdell said.

They also answered questions the drivers had, despite the bone-chilling wind.

“He was freezing his butt off, but still was really pleasant,” Dowdell said.

After the drivers were parked, busses transported drivers around town giving drivers options for dining, shopping and just to relieve boredom. The HPD also checked on the drivers frequently.

“The police department has been unbelievable, they have been riding around, checking on us, making sure we’re okay,”

Drivers began leaving Hays after the interstate reopened yesterday evening, but un-doubtably next time they are stopped for weather, they will think of Hays.