Every year by mid-January, the residents of Silverton, Colo., have been under several avalanche alerts and faced numerous power failures lasting from a few hours to most of the day. Depending on which side of the mountain they live on, they may have also become snowed in a few times.

Such conditions are a fact of life, explained DeAnne Gallegos, spokesperson for the San Juan County Emergency Management team. In fact, for two days this January, the one road in and out of Silverton was closed.

“Those of us who live here actually kind of enjoy the weather. We think of others being snowed out when we’re snowed in.”

Awareness and preparation seem to be keys that the rugged folks of Silverton embrace. Tucked in a lofty mountain valley in the southwest corner of Colorado, just north of New Mexico in the San Juan mountains, the 800 full-time residents of city know well how to weather the weather.

During the height of winter, access to the town is pretty much limited to one way in and one way out. The Highway 550 mountain corridor is it and can be closed for days at a time.

If residents are snowed in they have to be prepared with several days’ food and water, plenty of batteries and some way to power and heat their homes. If they’re snowed out, they are told to have an overnight bag in their vehicle with necessary medications, a change of clothes, a phone and charger, and money to pay for lodging until the roads reopen.

“Sometimes people will be able to stay with friends if they can’t get home,” Gallegos added.

Since cellphone signals can be spotty in mountain passes, a life-saving piece of equipment is a satellite communication device. The device sends an SOS signal if a person is stranded. It also has the capacity for two-way communication.

The greatest danger in the area surrounding the 19th-century mining town is avalanches. Massive snow slides during or after snowstorms can close the three nearby mountain passes for as many as 30 days a year. In 2019, an avalanche dumped nearly 40 feet of snow on one of the local roads.

“We can have as many as 20 to 30 days or more each year when the passes are closed one direction or the other,” Gallegos said. On average, there are seven to 10 days a year when the roads are fully closed.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center issues warnings for areas of the state on a one to five scale, with one being the lowest risk and four and five warning people that the risk of an avalanche in a particular area is high. When the risk level is at five, or “extreme,” Gallegos said the message is “Do not be touring in the backcountry.”

But life in Silverton is not all about the danger lurking in those mountains. “We are an 86% tourism-based economy,” she said. During the winter, a few hundred part-time residents move into Silverton to take advantage of the skiing. In the summer, the population triples with tourists who enjoy hiking, trekking, off-roading and other activities in the surrounding mountains. “It’s a really healthy lifestyle here.”

While it’s important to be able to live a self-sustaining lifestyle, Gallegos noted that Silverton has a “healthy and thriving senior population” numbering more than 100 people.

Without a doctor, nursing home or hospital in town, and with the thin air at 9,318 feet, being healthy is key to staying independent and continuing to live in Silverton, she said. With an ambulance on call, helicopter transportation to the hospital in Durango and a handful of paramedics who are trained to handle medical emergencies, Silverton residents have to be conscientious about not having a complete array of medical services immediately available.

One of the hallmarks of life in Silverton is the number of senior-driven programs. Silverton’s senior center is an asset for keeping older residents engaged and active. “We have a counselor who checks on our seniors regularly, and we do a once-a-week free lunch so they can gather and we can keep an eye on them, and we can make sure they’re doing well,” Gallegos said.

In the winter, there is a shoveling program to ensure that snowed-in doesn’t mean unable to get out the door. Gallegos added that one of the ways Silverton is working on ways to make life even healthier for all residents is the construction of a geo-dome for growing vegetables year-round.

A Facebook page for the senior center announces events and asks for assistance in picking up a prescription for a resident or providing transportation to Montrose or Durango, which are about an hour’s drive. Gallegos said the town also uses the Nixle communication system to provide real-time alerts to local residents about weather conditions, road hazards, wildfires and other critical events that can affect health and safety.

Helping people live better in Silverton also prompted the creation of a resiliency goals effort to reach local residents.

“We want to get government offices and the community on propane generators so that they have a backup source of heat and power,” she explained. The town has already installed propane generators in places like the senior center to create warming stations for anyone who does not yet have a backup source.

The resiliency campaign includes simple tips for residents such as making sure they have clean drinking water in an emergency; not using a gas stove to heat the house; having extra batteries for flashlights, clocks and radios; and keeping the refrigerator door closed to save the food inside.

Gallegos, a self-proclaimed “mountain girl,” grew up in Denver but moved to Silverton, where she had spent time with her grandparents during her youth. She said living in a tiny mountain town means that Mother Nature often determines how people live, but that the real reward is living in harmony with Mother Nature.

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