Amid an atmospheric river, Tahoe residents find gas pumps dry and grocery stores empty

泵已经干涸在加油站,因为凌晨kend closures of Interstate 80 prevented big rigs from delivering fuel. The shelves and refrigerator aisles are empty at many grocery stores, said Christina Temple, a resident of the Prosser area.

“I went to the store on Tuesday to buy orange juice and eggs,” Temple said, describing how the refrigerated section was bare. The nearby 76 and Beacon gas stations had run out of fuel, and Temple’s mail carrier, who was snowbound in a condominium in Tahoe Donner, had not come for about a week.

Brutal weather often causes severe disruptions to daily life in the Sierra, but this winter’s series of storms has been particularly treacherous. In the South Lake Tahoe areaan ice dam crushed a houselast week, killing a dog and displacing a family when the roof collapsed.

When Temple looks out any of the windows in her home, all she sees is endless sheets of white — no sky or treeline. The snow is a heavy slush that locals have nicknamed “Sierra cement.” She’s paid $600 hiring people to remove snow from her roof, but it continued to pile up Thursday. As dusk settled, her husband was on the roof, shovel in hand, snowflakes pelting his neck.

On Monday, Tahoe Unified School District closed all schools, explaining in social media posts that most bus routes had been reduced to one lane, “which creates dangerous situations for our buses” and for students waiting at bus stops. When a new atmospheric river hit Northern California on Thursday the district reduced school schedules, citing the thick snow. Officials in the town of Truckeedeclared a local state of emergency.

Temple, who is known in her mountain town for running a weather and safety page on Facebook, offered one piece of advice for Bay Area residents contemplating a ski weekend in Tahoe.

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s a terrible idea.”

Reach Rachel Swan: rswan@sfchronicle.com