Working through the winter weather

Emergency services workers are on the job, no matter what. For others who typically work around the clock, Monday's storm challenged them to define a line between safety and service. Here are a few stories:Essential road travel

Groceries, medications, work, hospital.

Cape County Transit Authority would pick up customers after 2 p.m. Monday for those four reasons. Buses were stopped at 2 p.m. but cab service continued.

Every few minutes, dispatcher Raichelle Clubbs took a call from someone too bored to stay home and too scared to drive through the ice storm.

After Clubbs finished talking to a caller who wanted to visit a friend, she hung up the phone and shook her head a little.

"She said it was too dangerous for her to drive. But she wanted us to," said Clubbs. Her shift was supposed to end at 6 p.m., but got extended until 8 p.m. After work, she didn't plan on driving, either.

"My fiance is picking me up," she said.

Buses were halted at 2 p.m., though a driver was on his way back from Perryville, Mo.

Tom Mogelnicki, the transit authority's executive director, used his own SUV to get one customer home, he said, "because our cab couldn't go where he lived."

Bad weather, good business

When the weather turns ugly, business booms for Scott Bucher, owner of the Imo's Pizza franchise in Cape Girardeau. On Monday, he made adjustments to accommodate the hazards.

"We make our delivery zones small and raise our minimums from $8 to $15," he said. "We can't run a salad here and a sandwich there."

He'd just directed a large delivery to Southeast Missouri Hospital after cafeteria workers were sent home early.

Bucher expected to make a few deliveries himself.

"Drivers deliver as long as they want to," he said. Safety, not supplies, determines how long the pizza shop remains open in bad weather. By 4:30 Monday afternoon, he glanced out the window and said, "We're getting close. Maybe another hour or so."

Pumped up

A few blocks away, Patrick Nissen ducked into Kidd's gas station on Broadway for cigarettes. He'd gone to the bank, which was closed.

"So I went home and got my ATM card, went to Aldi's for groceries and came here," he said. "I'm from Chicago, so I'm used to it."

Kidd's was scheduled to close at 3 p.m., but by 4:30, a steady stream of customers came through the doors for groceries, beer, cigarettes or to pay for gas. One cashier, who declined to give her name, said the usual closing routine was upended. She locked the door during a lull, only to unlock it when a man pulled up to a gas pump.

On call

Christi Guilliams spent Monday afternoon altering funeral service arrangements set for Monday night and today. The McCombs Funeral Home director said it's rare to close a funeral home.

"We've had to put off some graveside burials. Not very often have we had to postpone visitations," she said.

Still, she and other funeral directors must respond to calls regardless of the weather.

"That's why I got a three-quarter-ton Suburban. That's my wheels," she said. On Monday, she added a safety feature to her boots -- snow spikes.

"The are blunt-nosed screws that are in rubber straps you put around your winter work boots," she said. "It makes a big difference. I feel so much more confident walking around."

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127