Snow-caked roads led to more than a dozen tows by Simmons Garage over the past five days.

“It’s been pretty busy,” said Gary Peterson, assistant manager of Simmons.

“Business is good, it just takes a lot longer to get everything done.”

The Clinton tow truck company, now in its 59th year, had nine rigs operating this week. With so many trucks, the wait to be towed was about one hour, Peterson said. He had a guess as to why Thursday was slow, despite the additional four inches or so of snow that fell on the South End.

“I think people who think they shouldn’t be out, aren’t out,” Peterson said.

“It’s not as bad as we would have thought it was. I think when the snow came early in the morning, people were able to stay home.”

Some of the worst accidents happened earlier in the week, including a rollover on George Road in Clinton. There were six cars off the main roads – and on the company’s to-do list – where Simmons towers can’t drive, especially beachfront property at the bottom of steep grade roads.

“If they’re on a steep incline it’s pretty hard for us to get them,” Peterson said. “In a super slick condition, it just pulls the tow truck to them.”

Decisions like that kept Simmons Garage from having to tow one of its own trucks. By Thursday afternoon, the company had not lost any of its trucks to the bottom of an icy hill or a slick ditch.

Government snowed out

The snowstorm brought the routine work of local governments to a halt.

The Langley City Council meeting Tuesday night was canceled and rescheduled to Wednesday, Jan. 25.

The city’s Design Review Board had planned to meet Thursday and get its first look at Wharf Street Landing, a new commercial/residential four-story building that developers want to build near the Langley Marina, but that meeting was called off, too.

Langley City Hall closed early Tuesday, and was only open until noon on Wednesday and Thursday. Essential personnel were at work through the snowstorm, however, including public works employees, police officers and others.

Few injuries for fire/EMS department

Commuters who chose to stay home meant it was a slow week for South Whidbey Fire/EMS, and that’s just the way the firefighters like it.

Icy roads contributed to a handful of car accidents, and no passengers or drivers were injured. The fire district’s time was spent clearing downed trees and broken branches off streets.

“Nothing really out of the ordinary based on the storm,” said Fire Chief Rusty Palmer.

He said the low volume of car accident reports on the South End was a direct result of people staying home.

“I was very impressed with the way people were driving,” said Deputy Fire Chief Mike Cotton.

Drivers on South Whidbey may have learned from earlier troubles. Snow began falling Sunday and by Monday, fire department responders were called out to two different rollover accidents in the Scatchet Head area caused by snow-covered streets.

“We’ve been out and about a lot, and traffic seems to be considerably lessened,” Palmer said. “A lot of businesses have closed, the schools, too. For the most part, people hunkered down to wait it out.”

A majority of calls were for downed trees in the road. There were trees down on Coles, Amble, Lone Lake, Surface, Bob Galbreath and Wilkinson roads. No homes were damaged by trees, Cotton said, though plenty toppled over.

“I probably had more full-size trees come down the past two days than I do in a windstorm,” he said.

South Whidbey Fire/EMS, formerly Island County Fire District 3, averages about five calls per day. Since the winter storm rolled in and dumped more than eight inches on South Whidbey in a few days, the fire department responded to 23 calls.

“We were busier than we normally are,” Cotton said.

Trash piles up

The snowstorm also left plenty of full garbage cans on South Whidbey, as the trucks were unable to drive on the slick streets.

Island Disposal, a division of Waste Connections, attempted to pick up customers’ garbage Friday.

Customers who did not have their trash retrieved earlier in the week can put out an extra can on their next pickup day.

Transit cancels service

The snow was a big worry for Island Transit, but there had been an even bigger one: leaving a bus rider stranded somewhere.

Martha Rose, executive director of Island Transit, said the public bus company did its best to alert riders, and their employers, about when and where the buses were running.

Island Transit had to shut down service on Tuesday because of the snow. At 2 a.m. the next morning, transit employees were out checking local roads to see which routes could remain in service.

A key concern, Rose said, was getting people to where they needed to go, and back again.

“We’ve got to get them home; we’re not going to leave them stranded,” she said.

When dubious roads caused the transit agency to curtail bus runs on Wednesday and Thursday, smaller shuttles tried to stay in service to pick up passengers.

“It’s been kind of wild,” she said. “I can’t believe this weather. It’s going to go down in history. I wouldn’t call it epic, but whew!”

Thursday’s snowfall largely limited Island Transit to shuttle service on the highway, with detours onto side streets mostly unthinkable.

“We’ve been limping along,” she said.

Rose said some people have asked why the transit agency doesn’t have a snow schedule, but added that it’s been tried in the past without success. Snowfall varies greatly on Whidbey, she said.

“In Langley it can be sunny, and Oak Harbor, snow. And everything in between,” she said.

Whidbey power stays on during storm

Though the winter weather left nearly 300,000 people without power in Western Washington, residents on Whidbey faced scattered, small outages from the storm, said Walt Blackford, community services manager on Whidbey for Puget Sound Energy.

Blackford said that by 6 a.m. Friday, about 260,000 PSE customers were still without power, but there were no outages on Whidbey.

Weather turns to warming trend

Relief finally arrived Friday on South Whidbey. After five days of snow and ice, temperatures warmed and began melting more than 8 inches of snow.

The winter storm began Saturday. A cold air mass lingered in Western Washington and mixed with more cold air from British Columbia.

“That’s one of the scenarios where get a lot of snow in Western Washington,” said Dennis D’Amico, a meteorologist with National Weather Service office in Seattle.

A second storm system moved into the Puget Sound area Wednesday, spreading precipitation which led to additional snowfall.

The third and final storm system swept north from Oregon, warming the air slightly, which led to freezing rain and light snow throughout the day.

The air warmed quickly on Friday. The morning began at below freezing temperatures, and by 10 a.m. South Whidbey’s temperature was measured at 37 degrees.

“Finally, we are starting to flush the cold air out,” D’Amico said. “That cold air is retreating.”

Record writers Patricia Duff and Brian Kelly contributed to this report.