Fat snowflakes melted quickly on their shoulders and heads as riders climbed onto Waco Transit’s Route 3 bus Tuesday. They waited in ones and twos at bus stops around the city, their shoulders hunched against the snow.

As with the teachers and students who hustled to school earlier in the day, other residents had to get to work or appointments.

They said they were thankful the city buses were running.

An unidentified man rolls up a snowball near one of the bus stops at the downtown city bus depot.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

Ricky Rodriguez waved down the bus on Waco Drive near Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

He said he was going to the health department downtown, but he would have preferred doing a different kind of waving on the side of the road.

Rodriguez works as a marketer dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume for Liberty Tax Service on Valley Mills Drive. He waves at passing drivers to entice them to have their tax work done at the store.

“I wanted to work today. It makes it look New York-ish,” he said, picturing the snow falling on his Statue of Liberty outfit. “I told them I’ll work in the snow. I don’t want to work in the rain.”

The tax office didn’t open Tuesday because of the weather. The situation left Rodriguez a little worried. He’s homeless and depends on his day-labor wages, he said.

As the snow continued to fall, he said he hoped the Salvation Army shelter would have a bed available for him.

Rodriguez said he was prepared to stay outside, but he didn’t want to.

The Salvation Army was making plans by the afternoon to have extra cots and blankets ready for a larger-than-usual crowd.

“We won’t turn anybody away in weather like this,” spokeswoman Christie Harper said.

Winter wonderland

Route 3 is one of Waco Transit’s most popular routes, stopping at the Waco VA Medical Center, 4800 Memorial Drive, and Wal-Mart. It made for a scenic ride.

The bus wound past the vast white fields at Floyd Casey Stadium, down the slushy ruts of Valley Mills Drive and through North Waco neighborhoods.

Small front yards lay pillowy and pristine, waiting for children to be released early from school and ravage the bucolic scene with a rare snowball fight.

Bus operator Carolyn Johnson finished her runs on Route 4 by 10 a.m. and hopped on to Route 3 to catch a ride to her son’s workplace, where she would drive his car home.

Johnson, who usually drives a medical van, said she had more riders than she expected Tuesday morning.

“You know, when Waco gets bad weather, everybody panics,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Tuesday’s Route 3 driver, Dwight Holmes, said they don’t mind driving in the snow.

The steady, soft flakes were no match for the yardstick swipe of the windshield wipers. What you have to watch out for, they said, is other drivers.

“You have to whether it’s sunny or snowy,” Holmes said.

Residents using a bus today, with its chance for icy roads, can call Waco Transit at 750-1613 to learn which routes are running and whether there are delays.

wgragg@wacotrib.com

757-6901

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