220 Jewett Blvd, PO Box 218, White Salmon, WA 98672 | 509.493.2112
TREE DAMAGE -- These two vehicles received the brunt of downed tree limbs last week during the snow/ice storm that hit the area.
By BEN MITCHELL
The Enterprise
For the past couple months, winter has been eerily absent from the Columbia River Gorge. While temperatures were close to normal, precipitation amounts were anything but as the sun continued to shine day after day.
That all changed last week when winter storms began to pound the Gorge, the Cascades and much of the Pacific Northwest. The snow began falling on Jan. 16 and, as of Jan. 24, continued to fall. Within a couple days, Bingen, White Salmon and Hood River went from having bare earth to over a foot of snow on the ground. Freezing rain arrived midday Thursday and continued to fall through the weekend, glazing over everything in sight with a veneer of ice.
Many trees were already bowing under the weight of three days of heavy snow and the additional weight from the freezing rain proved too much. Limbs snapped from their trunks and damaged residences, vehicles, and took out utility lines on both sides of the Columbia River.
Power outages left no communities unscathed, with Klickitat County homes and businesses from White Salmon to Bickleton all losing power. At one point on Jan. 19, the Klickitat County Public Utility District reported there were 3,000 customers without power in the county.
Well over 1,000 customers in Hood River and Mosier also lost power, according to Gorge Radio’s Web site. All but 27 customers in Hood River had electricity back by Tuesday morning, while Mosier totals were unknown. The radio stations were also affected by the storms, with KCGB, KMSW, KACI-FM and the 103.9 FM translator for KACI-AM all getting knocked out, some for several days. The Crag Rats, a mountain search and rescue team based in Hood River, helped transport an engineer to repair the KCGB transmitter at Fir Mountain.
As of 7:50 Tuesday morning, approximately 1,850 customers remained without power in Klickitat County, according to the Klickitat PUD. The PUD hoped to energize the rest of Appleton, Snowden, Glenwood and Trout Lake areas by Tuesday or Wednesday. Crews were also brought in from the Benton, Franklin, Cowlitz and Clallam PUDs, and all were working 16 hours a day to expedite the return of utilities. The Klickitat PUD office was also staffed 24/7 to take calls from customers.
Lots of snow and ice and little electricity meant many closures and cancellations last week. White Salmon’s City Council meeting, normally held on Wednesday evenings, was postponed until Monday. A PacifiCorp meeting that was to be held Jan. 18 at the Pioneer Center in White Salmon was also pushed back a week. Washington Gorge Community Action Program locations, the White Salmon Youth Center and the Northshore Medical Group in White Salmon and Stevenson all closed at some point last week, according to the Gorge Radio Web site.
Observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 16 allowed schools to hang onto a snowday, but the White Salmon Valley School District had to cancel school, sports and afterschool activities for the entire week. Finally, on Monday, students begrudgingly returned to school for the first time since Jan. 13, with buses running snow routes.
Karen Oliver, administrative assistant for the WSVSD, said the school had used four snow days and only two are scheduled into the district calendar. As a result, the semester break has been moved from Feb. 26 to March 1 and the last day of school has been bumped back from June 13 to June 15. Oliver mentioned that if school had to be cancelled one or two more times, the commencement ceremony for Columbia High School seniors could also be delayed.
The Trout Lake School District, which is no stranger to big snow dumps, fought hard to stay open, but ultimately succumbed to the wrath of Mother Nature. Trout Lake Schools had a late start on Jan. 17 and were closed Jan. 18, but started on time Jan. 19.
Then the power went out.
No electricity meant students were sent packing on Jan. 19 and as of Tuesday, had not returned since. Superintendent Doug Dearden, whose home had also been without power since Thursday, said that in his 24 year-tenure, he could never remember the school being closed for this long.
“It’s a rare thing,” Dearden said. “When the power goes out, there’s not much we can do.”
In addition to knocking out power, the ice made road conditions slippery for drivers and pedestrians alike. Multiple crashes were reported on both sides of the river, including a semi-truck that clipped the wall of Tunnel No. 4 on SR 14. Luckily, there were no injuries.
On Jan. 19, the Oregon Department of Transportation required chains to be used on I-84 from Milepost 64 in Hood River all the way to Milepost 228, which is 33 miles west of La Grande, Ore. The Port of Hood River also warned drivers of the slippery deck on the Hood River Bridge and signs reading “SLOW” began to pop up, urging motorists to drive prudently.
Most cities have enjoyed not having to spend hardly anything for snow removal costs this winter, but the free ride came to a screeching halt with the arrival of the storms. White Salmon Mayor David Poucher, who declared a state of emergency along with the county on Jan. 19, gave a rough estimate that it may cost the city $5,000 or more in overtime for city employees who have had to come in at 4 a.m. to keep up with the snow.
Poucher and City Administrator/Public Works Director Pat Munyan said they were “proud” of the city employees’ hard work. Poucher also expressed his pride in the many citizens that have donated their time and resources to one another to provide aid during the storms.
Despite not having power, Paul Doty, manager of Hi-School Pharmacy in White Salmon, kept the store open on Saturday so customers could pick up water, batteries, or even prescriptions, so as long as they were already filled. Employees personally walked with each shopper and tallied up their items with a grease pencil. With the computers down, employees had to go back to the Dark Ages and take imprints of customers’ credit cards who didn’t have cash. But the store couldn’t stay open forever.
“We stayed open on Saturday because people needed supplies,” Doty explained. “After we sold out of kerosene and propane and when I started seeing my breath I said, ’OK, that’s it.’”
Warming shelters were set up at Jonas Ministries in Trout Lake and the White Salmon Fire Hall. The American Red Cross set up a 24-hour shelter at the fire hall and local restaurants and other businesses showed up to donate food and resources to the displaced residents. Those who were at the shelter were very thankful to the Red Cross, the White Salmon Fire Department and to everyone that donated supplies.
“They wait on you hand and foot here,” said Ralph Jeanne on Monday, a Lyle resident that had been in the shelter for two days. “They won’t let you do anything on your own.”
Another shelter occupant said she was very grateful to rescue personnel (she was unsure of whether it was the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office or the Klickitat County Search and Rescue Team) that helped get her out of her home in Snowden, where she was trapped without power.
“We spent two days in 30 to 35 degree bedrooms until they brought us here,” she said. “We called 911 finally after two days of suffering and they picked us up.”
While the weather cleared up on Sunday and Monday, winter storms returned in full force on Tuesday, with several inches of snow expected to drop in White Salmon along with a half inch of ice forming as a result of freezing rain. Also on Tuesday, both the WSVD and the Hood River Valley School Districts released their students early due to another snow storm arriving in the Gorge.
