January 2017 has turned out to be a month to remember as wind, snow, ice and rain buffeted the region, disrupting daily life to a degree not seen here in many years. And it’s only the 22nd!
The roads were bad. The schools were closed. So was the doctor’s office and the bank. No one picked up the garbage or brought the newspaper.
As things slowly returned to normal toward the end of the last week, The Columbian’s news staff worked the phones and their sources to try to get some perspective on what has generally been three weeks of inconvenience or worse.
The daily disruptions
Accidents: The Washington State Patrol reported 296 collisions between Jan. 1 and Jan. 19, 107 more than at the same time in 2016. Trooper Will Finn said that working the back-to-back storms was exhausting. Troopers dealt with the closure of state Highway 14 due to a snow slide and shut down traffic on Interstate 5 because of a jackknifed tractor-trailer.
“It’s situations like those that are just overwhelming,” Finn said. “It’s the storm that keeps on giving.”
Power: Wind and heavy snow downed trees, which blocked roadways, damaged property and landed on power lines. Clark Public Utilities reported 278 outages that affected 72,949 customers. some twice.
Insurance: Kenton Brine, president of the Northwest Insurance Council, estimated the storms will result in 1,000 insurance claims regionally, but some adjusters still haven’t been able to physically get to where they need to be because of the roads.
Along with reports of damage to houses and cars by falling tree limbs, Brine said that there has been a high number of damage claims from ice damming.
Medical: PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center emergency room staff treated several injuries related to car crashes and falls and a homeless person for frostbite.
Thousands of medical appointments were canceled as local clinics, including Kaiser Permanente, were closed. When primary care offices closed, people turned to the hospital emergency departments for care, said Kelly Espinoza, Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center’s chief nursing officer.
Search-and-rescue organizations provided rides for employees at both hospitals. Silver Star Search and Rescue provided 220 rides to and from PeaceHealth during the inclement weather.
Garbage: Jeff Smith, Waste Connections assistant district manager, said the five-day gap in collection was the longest in recent memory. The winter of 2008 had a worse storm, but garbage service stopped only for four days.
Smith said typically crews usually haul 500 tons of trash per day, but since resuming service on Jan. 17, crews have been hauling close to 900 tons. It’s not clear when service will return to normal. “We anticipate as each day goes forward it’ll get a little bit better,” he said.
Justice: Treacherous driving conditions closed or delayed Clark County courts for nearly a week. A state rule requires the presiding judges for both Superior Court and District Court — in this case, Judge James Rulli and Judge Kelli Osler, respectively — to make the decision, which they do in conjunction with County Manager Mark McCauley. The same rule mandates that some hearings must go forward, even if the courts are closed.
Homelessness: Unlike Portland, no one has died from hypothermia or other weather-related causes in Clark County so far this year.
“That’s a miracle and that’s great that hasn’t happened. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” said Andy Silver, executive director of the Council for the Homeless.
Severe weather shelters opened to house people who couldn’t get into the county’s already-full permanent shelters and winter shelters. The Council for the Homeless sent out notifications and people were shuttled to those places.
Rough roads
Even before a foot of snow fell on Jan. 10, roads were messy. On Jan. 7, snow and freezing rain led to 91 car crashes on Clark County’s highways.
During the worst events, some people abandoned their cars along the shoulder of the road and near freeway onramps. Even after metro area freeways improved, ice and a small avalanche closed state Highway 14.
With the exception of La Center, cities prioritized and plowed only major arterials and emergency routes, and ignored residential streets, leading to some angry calls.
Vancouver: Streets were treated with salt, and major intersections and high-priority routes that contained hills, overpasses and trouble spots were treated with extra care. But the region was pummelled.
The city has 12 large dump trucks with plows at its disposal; six of them can also de-ice. There are also five smaller vehicles equipped with plows and one road grader.
City Manager Eric Holmes said the public works staff worked incredibly hard.
“I think city employees have done a good job given the varying factors that contributed to the different conditions around the city,” he said.
County roads: Crews spent 1,491 hours plowing 9,220 lane miles of county roads, concentrating on arterials and thoroughfares that get the most traffic, and applied 629 tons of gravel to steep spots. Then they turned to hauling sandbags to ward off flooding.
The Clark County council seemed pleased with the response.
“The roads are wonderful, especially compared to the roads across the river,” said Council Chair Marc Boldt, referring to Portland.
As the snow and ice melted, it revealed a new problem: potholes. To limit damage, weight restrictions are in place on some roads. Filling all of the potholes could take weeks. Report new ones to the county by calling 360-397-2446.
Small cities: This year’s storm response was different in Ridgefield than in 2008: The city now owns two snowplows.
“Now we have equipment and staff to be able to respond to these events,” said Bryan Kast, the city’s public works director. “A lot of work that got done in 2008 was farmers out there with tractors. We didn’t have any plows.”
In Battle Ground, the city cleared Highway 502 while WSDOT worked on Highway 503.
“With 8 inches of snow, you can put all the de-icer down in the world, you’re not going to keep up,” said Scott Sawyer, public works director. “You just plow as much snow as you can, and then apply gravel and salt to the more dicey areas, like intersections and curves.”
La Center is small enough to plow every street in town. “It’s much different than the county or Vancouver,” said Jeff Sarvis, public works director. “We can go to residential areas and get them all.”
Camas and Washougal suffered differently due to their proximity to the Columbia River Gorge. When the snow fell Jan. 10, there was still ice on the roads.
School’s out (again)
“Did we get another referral?” calls Peggy Carlson to a fellow staffer in Evergreen Public Schools’ office serving homeless students.
It’s early Wednesday, the first day back after a week of snow days, and Carlson has already responded to “six or seven” families requesting services because they’ve become homeless or were homeless and had to move due to the weather. While on the phone with The Columbian, yet another dropped.
By the end of the day, she’d responded to 10 referrals.
School district officials say schools are increasingly a central provider of services for many families. For many of Clark County’s poorest children, a snow day means lack of access to as many as three meals.
And tensions run high in homes where families are doubled up with friends or relatives. “The first day might be kind of fun, but after four, or five, or six days when you’re staying with relatives, the stress of everybody there and being stuck, not being able to leave, it just gets to be too much sometimes,” Carlson said.
Not everything went smoothly when school resumed. Vancouver, for example, initiated snow routes on Wednesday but some buses struggled through the slush and ice. Two got stuck and had to be rescued with tire chains and sand.
“In our history, we’ve never dealt with the challenges on the roads we have (Wednesday),” said Mick Hoffman, facilities director.
Makeup days: Some schools have already had as many as 10 snow days this year. Because Washington sets minimums for attendance days and hours, the missed time will have to be made up.
Districts are already canceling semester breaks and in-service days, and most districts are likely to add days to the end of the school year, too.
Camas Superintendent Jeff Snell said Saturday classes have been discussed for seniors so that graduation doesn’t have to be postponed.
Washougal plans to apply for a state waiver of the minimum attendance requirement.
School sports: Last week’s snowstorm led to at least 65 athletic events being postponed Wednesday through Friday. Tuesday’s events were also postponed due to freezing rain.
“It’s unprecedented, having to make up all these games,” said Cale Piland, athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools. “We were already making up games as it was.”
Juggling gym availability, local ADs reworked basketball schedules to make sure each team could play its full slate of league games before the postseason next month.
Profits and losses
Call it the winter trade wind. January’s pushed businesses into some very noticeable corners.
Tire dealers, hardware stores, ride-hailing services and auto body shops were among those benefiting from cold, snow and ice.
“It’s crazy,” said Phil Schubert, owner of Five Star Auto. He’s booked through March fixing numerous cars that fell victim to icy roads.
He’s been in the business since 1977, and said winter is always busy. “But this is the busiest I’ve seen it. Last year was pretty crazy, but this one takes the cake, for sure.”
Other businesses were hit as customer traffic ground to a halt. Alan O’Hara, co-owner of When The Shoe Fits, said people might buy tires when it snows, but not shoes.
“It’s bad. Snow is bad for retail. Period,” O’Hara said. He closed Monday and cut hours other days.
Vancouver furniture and decor retailer Divine Consign, a portion of whose sales are donated to local nonprofits, saw sales drop 50 percent compared with last January.
“It will cut back some of the donations,” said executive director Linda Glover. “The whole month has been slower because of the weather.”
What about bars and restaurants? Were people as interested in drinking a cold one during cold weather? Loowit Brewing bar manager Jakob Swan said sales fell slightly, noticeably from out-of-towners.
Business at Shanahan’s Pub & Grill is up, according to bar manager Nathan Merritt. Regulars made the trek to the bar, and others stopped by when their own jobs called off work.
The snow must go on!
This month’s heavy weather has made last-moment mayhem with performances, presentations, volunteer outings and other live events.
“To be honest, I’m having a little panic meltdown,” said Francine Raften, who markets downtown Vancouver’s Magenta Theater and also appears in its upcoming show, “Waiting in the Wings” by Noel Coward, which will open Feb. 10 — no matter the weather, Raften vowed.
Magenta canceled a night of improv comedy on Jan. 14, she said, and now plans to make the night of Jan. 28 a double-feature.
Dicier still was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s 23rd annual Young Artists competition, which was postponed until Jan. 15, went ahead as scheduled.
But the planned debut of the Oregon Symphony in Vancouver, featuring world-renowned violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg as special guest, was canceled on Jan. 8. Tight schedules of international music superstars being what they are, it won’t be rescheduled.
Martin Luther King Day: A few day of service projects were rescheduled for this weekend. Others will just wait for their regular outing.
Clark College’s seventh annual Martin Luther King Breakfast, canceled on Jan. 14, has been rescheduled to 8:30 a.m. Feb. 4. Keynote speaker Erin Jones, Black Lives Matter Vancouver organizer Cecilia Townes and music by LaRhonda Steele and the Community AME Choir are still on the menu.
Washington State University Vancouver’s huge day of social-justice seminars and workshops, long set for Jan. 16 and featuring many special guests and expert speakers, cannot be rescheduled in one big block. Look for a series of workshops in March and April.
