Weekend ice storm brings down more than 5,000 power lines across Pacific Northwest

SEATTLE — A winter storm that blanketed the Pacific Northwest caused lingering problems Monday, with hundreds of thousands of people in Oregon still in the dark after heavy snow and ice brought down tree branches this weekend and blocked storm drains in Washington state and Idaho, raising concerns about flooding.

Portland General Electric's map of power outages listed about 270,000 customers without electricity Monday afternoon, most in Clackamas County. Nearly 5,000 power lines were brought down by ice and tree limbs and multiple transmission lines were severely damaged by the storm that swept through.

The storm didn't impact the Eugene-Springfield area, which had temperatures in the 40s and less than 0.70 inches of rain Saturday and Sunday, as recorded at Mahlon Sweet Field by the National Weather Service. A similar rainy weather pattern is expected through Friday for the Eugene area, according to NWS. 

Interstate 84 in Portland was closed for several hours so crews could repair powerlines and prevent them from falling onto the freeway.

In Troutdale, snow and ice caused a section of a roof to collapse into a grocery store. Authorities said one minor injury was reported.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who over the weekend declared a state of emergency for the greater Portland area, urged people to avoid roads because of treacherous conditions as crews scrambled to restore electricity.

"Utilities in our region have never experienced such widespread outages, including during the September 2020 wildfires,' Brown said in a statement. "Check on your neighbors and loved ones when you can do so safely. Please help our first responders by staying home when you can."

Elizabeth Lattaner, a spokesperson for PGE, told Oregonian/OregonLive.com the damage to the utility’s equipment was extensive.

Some people could experience multiple outages or prolonged outages, said PGE spokesperson Steve Corson.

"Our hope would be that most would be restored sooner than that, but some customers will be affected for several days," he said.

The utility brought in crews from Nevada and Montana to help restore power, he said. 

Meanwhile, snow-packed roads, downed trees and power lines made travel in the Portland area treacherous. 

Officials canceled all service on the Portland Streetcar and only a few light rail routes were operating. Bus routes throughout the city were delayed, detoured or canceled.

Historic ice storm

Temperatures are expected to warm into the upper 30s and 40s and while rain is forecast most days this week, and that doesn't include the freezing kind. 

The ice storm that hit was a historic one — producing around 1.25 inches of ice in Salem.

“A system like this comes through about once every 20 or 25 years,” National Weather Service meteorologist Clinton Rockey said.

The reason for the ice storm was multiple factors all lining up at once, he said.

The first was extremely cold air coming in from the eastern Rocky Mountains, through the Columbia River Gorge and into the Mid-Willamette Valley on Thursday and Friday.

The second ingredient was precipitation, rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, that hit the cold air mass and turned into a foot of snow in the Portland Metro Area, where the cold air mass was deepest.

In the Mid-Valley, however, the cold air mass wasn’t deep enough to keep the precipitation as snow all the way to the ground. 

“In Salem and the Mid-Valley, the precipitation started out falling as snow but hit a slightly warmer layer that turned it back into rain,” he said. “But the temperature on the ground was below freezing so the water froze almost as soon as it hit the ground.”

“Trees really can’t support very much ice,” Rockey said. “The weaker trees go first, but when you’re talking about that much ice, it will impact every very large ones.”

Previous examples of freezing rain bringing this much ice included, most recently, 2016 in the south Willamette Valley, which also resulted in prolonged power outages. Rockey said it also happened at one point in 1996 — the same year as the historic floods.

“It’s not that unusual to get freezing rain in the Willamette Valley,” Rockey said. “It’s actually fairly common. But normally we get maybe a quarter inch of ice. What was exceptional this time was how much ice accumulated. That’s why you saw this level of impact.”

Ice, outages causes closures

All official work of the Oregon Legislature was canceled Monday and Tuesday due to dangerous conditions in Salem, the House Speaker’s office announced over the weekend.

This included the Tuesday floor session of the House of Representatives where representatives were expected to act on a resolution to expel Rep. Diego Hernandez, D-Portland, for harassment and creating a hostile workplace.

The next scheduled floor session is Feb. 23.

Committee hearings scheduled for Monday and Tuesday will be rescheduled at the discretion of committee chairs, though no meeting days will be added.

All committee hearings are virtual, but some committee and building staff still need to be present in the Capitol to run the technical side of the hearings.

Schools from Salem to Portland were closed Monday due to power outages. 

Crews worked from Saturday into Sunday evening to reopen Highway 18 corridor between Rose Lodge and Grand Ronde. Oregon Department of Transportation officials cleared more than 400 downed trees from the highway.

Drivers are asked to continue to use caution in areas where crews continued work. Anyone traveling a state highway is encouraged to check TripCheck.com for conditions before heading out.

Washington, Idaho fear flooding

Officials in Washington state and Idaho were concerned about thousands of storm drains that could be clogged by snow and ice, causing flooding.

"I'm sure you've driven through an area with a huge puddle," Nicole DuBois, chief communication officer for the Ada County Highway District told Boise, Idaho, TV station KTVB.

"The reason that is happening is because the storm drain in the area is clogged with something and preventing that water from draining through."

Flooding was also a concern in western Washington as milder Pacific air arrived early Monday, with snow melting, storm drains clogged and rain expected.

"We suggest getting out shovels or finding a way to clear that out so that when it does rain and all the snow melts, the water will have a place to go," said Courtney Carpenter, a senior meteorologist with National Weather Service in Seattle.

Extreme cold covers West

In Seattle, which got more than a foot of snow by Sunday morning, more precipitation expected to fall as sleet or rain could cause snow-covered tree limbs to break, causing outages there, The Seattle Times reported.

Winter storms and extreme cold affected much of the U.S. West over the weekend, particularly endangering homeless communities. Volunteers and shelter staffers worked to ensure homeless residents in Casper, Wyoming, while authorities in western Washington and western Oregon opened warming shelters in an effort to protect homeless residents from the wet and cold.

Arctic air caused temperatures to plunge to the negative 30s in parts of Montana and high temperatures were not expected to rise above zero or get much higher in eastern Wyoming or Colorado.

The highest parts of the Cascades were expected to get snow measured in feet while over a foot of snow is likely in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, the Teton Range in Wyoming and the central Rockies, the National Weather Service said. 

The winter weather wasn't giving up its grip in the Cascade Range, where heavy snowfall was expected at times all week and into the weekend. Washington transportation officials closed the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass early Monday to do avalanche control work. Mountain passes could see 15 to 30 inches of new snow through Tuesday night.

The Statesman Journal contributed to this report.