More than 200 Indians trapped by snow on Navajo Mountain have received food, coal and hay with more shipments expected.
One San Juan County official believes the worst of the crisis has passed - a crisis erroneously blamed on mud, he said. "There is no mud problem," said Rick Bailey, administrative assistant to the San Juan County Commission. "There never has been a mud problem, I swear to you and I'll give you a million dollars if I'm wrong."Faulty details about the crisis - including claims by Navajo Nation officials that the Indians were mired in mud - can be blamed on the remoteness of the area, he said.
"The isolation has caused everybody real problems. There are no phones there to speak of. When one phone goes down, they all go down." Even though the mountain is in San Juan County, Bailey can drive to Salt Lake City faster than he can drive to Navajo Mountain because of its remoteness, he said.
Navajo Mountain residents have been bound by the snow and hampered by cold and fog, he said. However, crews sent into the area by the Bureau of Indian Affairs have opened the roads.
"Everybody is basically getting around now." Bailey drove to Navajo Mountain on Tuesday to check on the situation.
The Navajo Nation sent Indians to Price to pick up food left over from Desert Storm military operations and additional supplies collected by area Boy Scouts, Bailey said. The nation sent a tribal truck to Salt Lake City on Tuesday to pick up more pallets of Desert Storm food acquired by San Juan County.
"They are in need of some additional hay and coal. We are working on that. I think the Peabody Coal Company in Kayenta, Ariz., will donate the coal free. I'm looking now for funding to pay for the transportation of the coal to Navajo Mountain. If we can find the funding, we can get four truckloads of coal up to them in the next few days.
"They also need some hay. We are working on ways to get that up to them. The Navajo Nation got one truckload up to them, but that has been distributed. They need one more semitrailer truck load this week and possibly another next week," Bailey said.
Navajo police are in the area, distributing supplies in four-wheel-drive vehicles.