(soft upbeat music) - [Narrator] When most of us are turning on the heat, this is the place where they're turning on the snow.
- Three days straight of 29 degrees or below, we can start.
- [Narrator] How Hidden Valley creates a true winter wonderland.
60 years ago, St. Louis was celebrating its bicentennial, and that meant taking the saint on a horse off of the city flag.
And remembering the life of Jean Carnahan, the triumphs and tragedies of Missouri's first woman senator.
- Life takes all kinds of twists and turns, and you just have to be ready for those.
- [Narrator] It's all next on Living St. Louis.
(upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat jazzy music continues) - I'm Ruth Ezell.
This time of year most people are looking for things to do indoors to escape the winter weather, but there are some that enjoy just the opposite.
Brooke Butler tells us about one St. Louis destination that when the weather gets cold, really starts to heat up.
(upbeat rhythmic music) - When you think ski resort, chances are Wildwood, Missouri isn't the first location that comes to mind.
Sure, we've got the hills and occasionally the snow, but some may not realize St. Louis is actually a popular destination to hit the slopes.
It is a frigid negative four degrees today here at Hidden Valley.
And here in the Midwest, we know that tomorrow may very well be 60 degrees, but that won't stop winter sports enthusiasts from continuing to visit this season, thanks to the evolving technologies of artificial snow.
- Hidden Valley is the hidden gem of St. Louis.
It was opened up in 1982.
Last year we celebrated our 40th anniversary.
- [Brooke] DJ Koch is the general manager of Hidden Valley.
This is his first year in that role, although he's been around the slopes for many years, which is obvious as he gave us the behind-the-scenes tour of how the snow gets made.
And so your season doesn't start until, I mean, you really never know every year, right?
It's kind of up to the conditions.
- Right, it's all up to Mother Nature.
As soon as we get those, that cold snap cold weather, usually three days straight of 29 degrees or below, we can start.
(playful music) - [Brooke] So let's get into it.
How in the world does this snow stay on the ground in St. Louis's often unseasonable conditions?
Well, as DJ said, it starts with a cold snap, and then they can blast the snow guns to make a snow base.
The snow base is important to act as insulation for new layers of snow.
Now, if you're like me, you might be wondering if there's some sort of chemicals involved in the process, but it's all just water and air.
- That we use, it holds about 2 million gallons, and we use it inside this house about five pumps in order to pump this water out of the retention pond and up on the hill to mix it with air to make the snow that you're seeing now.
- [Brooke] At the snow guns, the water is mixed with compressed air in something called a nucleator located inside the snow gun nozzle.
This is where an important process with what is called the wet bulb temperature comes into play.
- Let me put it this way.
If you, the wet bulb temperature, if you imagine a drop of water and the lower bulb of that drop of water, it's the wet bulb temperature is the temperature that allows that to freeze.
- [Brooke] The quality of snow depends on the real temperature outside and the humidity levels.
That's why when the temperature gets into the single digits, they maximize the snow guns to make piles of snow.
These snow cats, or groomers, then evenly distribute it around the slopes.
And that's the basic inner workings of what appears to the average person as a winter wonderland miracle.
But of course, I couldn't just stop there.
How did this process become such a normal part of ski resort operations?
- [Announcer] By blowing his moist breath into a home freezer, then scraping dry ice into it, Dr. Vincent Schaefer in a simple experiment at the General Electric Laboratories demonstrated years ago the possibilities of artificially inducing snow or rain.
- [Brooke] There are varying claims of fame to the first inventor of artificial snow, mostly because there have been so many different approaches to the process.
In 1936, there was a Japanese physicist who is credited with the first synthesized snowflake.
And in 1949, there were a few guys at a Connecticut ski resort that patented their invention of using chopped up ice blocks.
And of course, we've all heard the Hollywood stories of snowmaking from the cornflakes used in "It's A Wonderful Life" to the asbestos used in "Wizard of Oz."
- Unusual weather we're having, ain't it?
- [Brooke] Many technical directors are credited with advancements in artificial snowmaking, but this was specifically for movie making.
But I'm sure it's not a surprise to most of us that the main reason artificial snowmaking is needed is because climate change is making weather conditions increasingly difficult to maintain the snowy conditions.
So now I gotta ask, with climate change, how has that affected, business, snow season, how is it affected?
- Well, the only effect we have is just waiting for that cold.
It always seems to come.
And some years we can open in mid-December.
Some years, like this year, we haven't opened until mid-January, but it always seems to come.
- [Brooke] So it doesn't seem like the changing weather will be hindering Hidden Valley's operations anytime soon.
And there are continuous efforts to improve artificial snowmaking as over 90% of the world's ski resorts rely on this process.
- There are complete automation snowmaking guns out there being produced where they have their own weather stations.
So we do not have that on hand, but we have a wonderful snowmaking crew that I think does a great job with the non-automated stuff.
And believe me, we will put the best product down that we can and we will never stop producing that experience of a lifetime for our guests.
- Like Hidden Valley, there are many businesses around our city that need to take weather into account, even more so now with the increasing challenges of intense weather conditions due to climate change.
Joining us now to discuss St. Louis's developing plan to combat some of these challenges is Aaron Young, Manager of Sustainability Planning with East-West Gateway Council of Governments.
Thanks so much for joining us, Aaron.
- Hi, Brooke.
- So I think it's important to start with, there's a difference between when we talk about weather and climate.
What is that difference?
- Absolutely, the easiest and quickest way to describe it is weather is what you experience day to day.
So it's almost 60 degrees outside.
That's our weather.
When you talk about climate, it's what the average is over several years.
So climate is a summation of weather that occurs year to year.
- So last year it was announced that East-West Gateway would be developing a new climate change plan for St. Louis.
I know it's still in development, but tell us about that plan.
- Well, it's initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
It's a federal program.
So there's many states and metropolitan statistical areas across the whole country that are doing these plans.
So the EPA introduced a Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program last year, and they gave us a non-competitive grant at East-West Gateway to do a climate action plan for the city of, or the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical area.
And also the states of Missouri and Illinois are also doing climate action plans.
- Now, there's a completion date of August of 2025, I believe.
- Yes.
- It may vary.
What are some of those programs or, you know, developments that we should expect to see from the plan?
- Well, the plan is gonna document a lot of what's already going on.
Climate change has been an issue on a lot of people's minds for years.
So there's already a lot of things happening across the region, and it's primarily to lower carbon emissions so we can avoid future changes, extreme changes in climate, but they call it decarbonization of buildings where they're putting on solar panels and other alternative energy sources and increasing the energy efficiency through weatherization and installation.
And then there's the conversion of as many fleets as possible to electric vehicles.
So most of it's about decreasing carbon so we can avoid more drastic changes in our climate in the future.
- That's a lot of pressure.
I'm sure you know, you're working with a lot of other organizations to develop these plans.
Tell us about some of that partnership.
- Well, we started not on climate, but we started working on sustainability over 10 years ago at East-West Gateway with the help of the EPA from another grant as a federal, another federal grant.
We developed a regional plan for sustainability.
So, and we've branded that one STL.
And so we've been working with organizations and government agencies from all over our bi-state region on doing sustainability in general for the last 10 years.
And now we got this grant to do a climate action plan.
We already have partners together and we already have a foot up or step up on the momentum so we can, we've already started engaging with folks and finding those projects that people are interested in in doing carbon reduction.
So we're working with the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, the St. Louis Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, groups like Renew Missouri and Earth 8365 and Illinois.
There's folks at Heartlands Conservancy and the Sierra Club.
So we have literally hundreds of people in organizations that we're already working with.
- Well, that's, it's a relief to hear everybody's on board.
There have been other plans similar to this in St. Louis and surrounding areas.
How will this plan be different?
- Well, this plan's different because it's regional in scope.
Like I said, we have to do it for the Metropolitan Statistical area, which is 15 counties, both in Missouri and in Illinois.
The other plans that have happened, like the city of St. Louis has a sustainability plan and a climate plan, and a lot of the suburbs have them, but those are focused on their jurisdictions.
So this is an effort to look at more holistic systems to see what we can do in a collaborative manner to have a greater impact on carbon pollution reduction.
- And so why now?
What's at risk if we don't start coming up with some of these solutions now?
- Well, it was an, what's happening now is an opportunity by the federal government to be able to work in a more concerted way, more focused way, on climate change and climate pollution reduction.
What we've been doing was just sustainability in general, which is a much broader topic.
So it was an opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of.
But like I said, we've already been working on it and we've already identified a lot of projects and a lot of agencies are already working on it.
But what this is gonna give us is a little bit of added momentum to have a little bit larger of an impact.
- Well, we're looking forward to seeing how the plan develops.
Aaron Young, Sustainability Manager with East-West Gateway.
Thanks so much for joining us.
- Thanks, Brooke.
(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This week, 60 years ago, in early February, St. Louisans were able to see the city's new flag displayed for the very first time.
The Post-Dispatch ran a photo of that first flag hanging from the newspaper's own flagpole.
1964 was St. Louis's bicentennial and city leaders had decided it was a good time to replace the old flag showing St. Louis, the saint himself, on a horse based on the statue in Forest Park.
The new one was designed by a Harvard professor, Theodore Sizer, an expert on heraldry.
He rejected literal images, no man on a horse, no steamboat, not even the gateway arch in favor of bold colors and symbolic representation of a city at the confluence of two great rivers, something that would stand out at a distance.
Not everyone liked it, of course, some didn't see anything wrong with the old flag.
One alderman said the new one just didn't make any sense to him.
One, St. Louisan wrote to the Post-Dispatch saying, the flag reminded him of, get this, the flag of the Chinese Postal Administration.
Keep in mind, he's talking Red China, and suggested a reexamination of the design.
But for the most part, people back then liked it.
And positive reviews still come in for the bicentennial flag first publicly displayed this week in St. Louis history 60 years ago.
- Finally, we look back on the life of Jean Carnahan, who died last week at the age of 90.
She had been a U.S.
Senator, Missouri's First Lady, mother, widow, activist, author.
After leaving the Senate in 2003, she wrote her autobiography and had a long talk about her public and private life with Anne-Marie Berger.
(quiet upbeat music) - We came out here, and I remember we were on our way down to Mel's home, which is down in Carter County, way down in South Missouri.
- [Anne-Marie] Former Senator Jean Carnahan is speaking to a group at a local Borders bookstore.
She's talking about her life, which she's chronicled in her recent autobiography, "Don't Let The Fire Go Out."
In this book, Senator Carnahan reflects on her life growing up in Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. as a young curious student, and how she first met the love of her life when she was just 15 years old.
- I spent the first 20 years of my life in Washington, and in fact, I met Mel when we were both 15.
He had just come to Washington because his father had been elected to Congress from Missouri.
And so we met in a church youth group one Sunday night.
The next day I was in school with him, and we were sitting side by side.
And of course, my name was Carpenter and his was Carnahan.
So we were side by side in every class alphabetically.
Went to college at George Washington University.
We were side by side in every class.
So I keep thinking that, you know, maybe fate kept bringing us together.
- [Anne-Marie] Jean Carpenter married Mel Carnahan in 1954, and Mel moved his young family back to his home state of Missouri.
After spending some time in Columbia, the Carnahans settled in Rolla.
- And I lived here ever after.
And so this has been our home.
And I like these rural roots.
It was great for raising a family.
- [Anne-Marie] The Carnahans lived a fairytale life for some time.
Jean supported her husband's quest for political office writing for his campaigns while raising their four children.
- We couldn't always afford a campaign office, or employees to work in the campaign.
So I would just clear off the dining room table and bring in a typewriter and a file cabinet, and we'd just set up an office there at home.
And I did that a lot.
- Anne-Marie] But her book also addresses the darkest time of her life and the tragic event that led to her return to Washington, this time as a United States Senator.
So how many acres is this?
- Well, about between eight and 900.
- That's a lot of grass to mow.
- That's why you have (indistinct).
- I spent the afternoon with her at the Carnahan's family farm in Rolla, and the senator gave me a closer look into her life.
You know, you just wrote your book, why now?
Why did you write, why did you decide to write the book?
- Well, I felt like there were so many things that had not been told about what happened in the year 2000, how I felt and what my family meant to me, what my faith meant to me during those times.
And so I just wanted to put that down.
There was just a lot to be told.
- She, of course, is referring to the deaths of her husband, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, her oldest son, Randy, and friend Chris Sifford, all died in a plane crash three weeks before the November elections in 2000.
At the time, her husband was running for the United States Senate.
Well, you wrote in your book that life is not the way it's supposed to be.
And I guess that that is was never more true than October four years ago.
When you first heard that their plane was lost, did you immediately know that they were gone, or did you, - Yes.
- Think that there was hope?
- No, I never, never thought that there was hope.
When I heard that the plane went down and that my son and husband and our friend was on there, I never thought that they would survive.
It was a terrible time in my life.
I don't know of any other time that could compare to it, but it was during that time that I found out that there's a courage that can well up from within you and bubble over and give you strength.
And that you didn't know you had.
- When you realized that there might be a chance that he would still be elected even after he was gone, what did you think?
- Well, at first I thought there was no way that that could happen.
And yet I had to try.
I had to see if people really felt strongly enough about that.
And so I was willing to have my name put up on the ballot.
- When you were contemplating and asked to accept your husband's seat, was that an easy decision to make?
Was that something that you felt you had to do, something you wanted to do, something you thought other people wanted you to do?
- Well, sometimes, all of those at one point or another, but I had looked within myself as to what I really wanted to do and really what I thought Mel would want me to do under those circumstances.
And I knew that he would not want me or any of the family to give up the things that we believed in so firmly and just to walk away.
And so I knew that I had to carry on and do the things that we had both fought for for so long.
And that's what I did.
I determined that if the people would elect him, I would serve.
- And that's exactly what happened.
Weeks after his death in an unprecedented election, Mel Carnahan was elected to the United States Senate.
But it was you who actually went to the Senate.
- That's right, and I was very much aware of that as I stood there being sworn in that day with my children surrounding me and Al Gore, who was the outgoing Vice President, I was very aware that there were other spouses up in the balcony looking down, and that was the location I had intended to be watching Mel be sworn in.
So, it was a bittersweet moment.
- When you took that seat in the Senate.
You had so many people who were supporting Mel, supporting you, all over, you know, wanting, you to succeed.
But at the same time, there were people who were waiting for you to not succeed.
And you were the grieving widow, the grieving mother, and now you were a United States Senator.
I mean, you had to have dug deep.
How'd you do that?
Where'd you find your strength for that?
- Well, I remember the first time I was interviewed, people were very, very kind to me.
And finally someone said, do you really think that you have what it takes to be a United States Senator?
And I guess that just hit me the wrong way.
And I said, you know, people underestimated my husband all of his life, and I suggest that you not do that with me.
And I could see that everyone's eyes popped.
And I had just discovered the strength of the seven-second soundbite.
- But it kind of was a fair question.
- It was, yes.
- You did say in your book that the others, there were winners with high expectations, and you were a widow for whom there was low expectations.
That's a lot of pressure.
- Yes, that is.
- But with pressure came friendship and support.
One of her many supporters, Senator Ted Kennedy, gave her a copy of his brother's book, "Profiles in Courage," and he inscribed to Jean to a profile in courage in her own right.
Did the legislative process, did it surprise you?
Did it disappoint you?
Did it impress you?
- All of those, actually, at some time or another.
I had hoped that there would be more harmony among the members, because I had heard that many years ago that was the case, that you could make compromises, you could have friends on the other side of the aisle.
You worked together.
Tom Eagleton, our former senator, spoke of such times.
But that was not the way it was.
There was not that camaraderie that you, one time could have.
- Despite political discord, Carnahan believed in the system and was looking forward to continue fighting for what she and her husband believed in.
But just months after becoming a senator, the house she shared with her husband was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.
And just two days after that, the United States experienced the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Carnahan immediately returned to Washington referring to her personal devastation as inconsequential.
And to add to her chaos, Carnahan only had two years before her term expired.
- So not only did I have the job to learn and spent a lot of time on that, I immediately had to start up with a campaign that was going to occur over the next two years.
So I realized I had to work in double time, so to speak, and, but that was just part of being there, and I realized that I couldn't complain about it.
It was just part of the way the process was going to be for me.
- When you went for reelection, that was your, basically your first campaign for yourself.
You had gone through so many with Mel, but this was the first campaign for yourself.
- That's right.
- Did you feel like it was yours, that you deserved it?
- Oh, very definitely.
I put my best in it.
I got out and I campaigned all over the state and raised the money that I needed to do to put on a campaign, but at the same time, I had to be in Washington.
That was a very important time in our nation's history.
And so I had kind of a choice there.
I could do a Rose Garden strategy and not come back, or I could come back here and miss votes.
But I decided that I would stay there and I would get every vote I could.
Voted to support Homeland Defense.
And I was among those who did that.
- In a close race, Carnahan lost the Senate seat to Republican Jim Talent.
- I was severely disappointed because I had so much wanted to serve out the term, wanted very much to do that, and had worked very, very hard to do that.
- Your were just getting started with what you wanted to do.
- Exactly.
I exactly, I was, oh, I had been running on two tracks up till then.
I was kind of looking forward to just running on one and thought I could do a good job on that.
And I had some really good committee assignments, and so I was looking forward to some of the committee work, especially on the Armed Services Committee, but it didn't turn out the way I expected it to.
Life takes all kinds of twists and turns, and you just have to be ready for those.
Politics is really about, it's about improving people's lives, and there's all kinds of opportunity to do that.
It's not just the perks and the privilege and power that you get in holding public office.
It has to do about improving people's lives.
And you can find opportunities to do that in your communities, in public office, and just a number of places.
(gentle music) - And that's Living St. Louis.
Keep reaching out to us at NinePBS.org/LSL or on our social channels.
I'm Ruth Ezell.
Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.
(upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat jazzy music continues) (upbeat jazzy music continues) - [Announcer] Living St. Louis is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.
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