Video: Car pulled out of deep snow after driving off Highway 50 in Lake Tahoe area storm
A captivating video shows the recovery of a vehicle that flew off Highway 50 near Twin Bridges and got buried deep in the snow, punctuating winter driving dangers as one of the Sierra Nevada’s heaviest snowstorms of 2024 plows through the Lake Tahoe region.
Lake Tahoe Towing posted the video Friday on its social media channels. The company’s recovery of the Nissan Rogue happened during the last February storm.
The father-and-son team that owns Lake Tahoe Towing, Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Manuel Jimenez III, said the vehicle remained over the side of the cliff “for several days” before they were able to recover it at the end of the storm.
The pair have worked in the Tahoe area for seven years, and often post videos of their activity online to thousands of followers.
Even if people are warned not to travel during a storm, their experience tells them they will still be busy getting people and their stranded vehicles out of predicaments, they told the Los Angeles Times in a recent article.
“When they don’t heed the warnings, and people are saying this is going to be a big one, we end up with six, seven miles of car jams within town,” Jimenez Jr. told the newspaper. “They can’t even leave the basin.”
In blizzards, their companies, Lake Tahoe Towing and South Lake Tahoe Towing, will sometimes get two calls a minute from drivers asking for help, the Times reported.
This severe weekend winter storm is forecast to bring heavy mountain snow, strong winds and rain to the Sierra Nevada. Winds topped 100 mph at Palisades Tahoe ski resort.
