Everyday heroes arrive in a snap to keep holidays rolling

Cold comfort

A blizzard hit Anhui province on Jan 31, bringing huge challenges to local traffic management.

By Sunday afternoon, Anhui Transportation Holding Group, which administrates more than 5,000 kilometers of expressway in the province, had dispatched nearly 10,000 workers for emergency response work, according to the company.

Liu Meichen, aged in her 30s, oversees an expressway toll station in Jinzhai county in mountainous Lu'an city. On the night of Jan 31, she was ordered to gather supplies and head to the station after a traffic jam was noticed in the company's monitoring room.

"My supervisor, who has worked longer than me, told me the situation was almost as serious as 2008, so we need to respond quickly," said Liu, who has worked for the expressway company for 11 years.

When she arrived at the traffic jam site in an emergency response vehicle, she was shocked to see the road blocked by hundreds of vehicles and covered in snow and ice.

By Sunday afternoon, the expressway management company had dispatched snowplows about 4,400 times across the province and 5,200 metric tons of snow-melting agent had been used to clear the expressways.

"But the snow was too heavy in Jinzhai, new snowfall just kept covering up the roads as the workers kept sweeping," Liu said.

"My colleagues and I got out of the car and moved supplies by foot," said Liu, adding that rescuers were already on the scene clearing snow and ice.

Weather reports said snowfall in some areas of the county was more than 15 centimeters.