I think Minot AFB and GFAFB were almost the same distance from town. The city of GF was about 15 miles away and after a big storm my wife and I would drive to town and count the "dead bugs" (vehicles upside down) in the median. Most of them were four wheel drives. Most people don't understand the laws of physics apply to four wheelers as well as two wheelers.
Not long after I got there and was still a Second Lieutenant on Crew we had a massive blizzard. The on-duty crews had been out in the capsules for two days and around 10am they sent out the relief crews. My crew was going to A-0, the furthest LCF and the two crews for B-0, E-0 and D-0 got behind me. I was the only northerner so they had me drive lead. US-2 was not bad but as we turned north the Route 1 (Lakota) the snow was two to three feet. I used the Suburban as a snow plow and made it to A-0 after six hours of driving. The other crews dropped off as they got to the roads needed to get to their LCFs. The E-0 crew got stuck not long after they turned off.
“Most of them were four wheel drives. Most people don’t understand the laws of physics apply to four wheelers as well as two wheelers.”
I had similar thoughts after making the last post. Many never had the vehicle in 4WD. There’s was this strange belief that 4WD was not needed until you got stuck.
And yes, they were on their roof tops!
One of my pet peeves is they would drive bumper to bumper on ice at about 15 MPG. Problem being this would be a chain reaction when a lead vehicle lost control. Often there would be 10 - 30 car pile-ups.