Snow storm wallops Portland region

PORTLAND, Ore. — It only snowed for about four hours in Portland Thursday morning, but that was enough wreak havoc across the metro area with dozens of flights cancelled, hundreds of school districts closed and a series of transit delays, as well as a miles-long traffic jam and later a full closure on southbound Interstate 5 near Hazel Dell.

Other areas to the east were hit even harder; ongoing snow and high winds led to a series of crashes on Interstate 84 in the Columbia River Gorge, culminating in an early afternoon pileup that ensnared as many as 30 cars amid whiteout conditions. 

Portland itself got a bit of a reprieve in the afternoon, with snow tapering off by around 1 p.m. and giving way to partly cloudy skies and slowly climbing temperatures. But the storm isn’t over; another band of precipitation is expected to arrive, starting at around 4 p.m. in Salem and then work its way north, bringing some sort of mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain.

The freezing rain is expected to continue through the night, potentially creating a layer of ice that could set up even worse road conditions Friday morning. A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for Portland through Friday morning, with an Ice Storm Warning in place from Wilsonville southward, and KGW has issued a Weather Impact Alert that extends to Friday.

Multnomah County has been operating an expanding number of emergency overnight warming shelters all week, with a total of eight shelters set to open for Thursday night, though the county put out an urgent call for more volunteers later in the afternoon, warning that it needed another 50 people lined up to get through the night.

Another two overnight shelters are set up in Washington County, and at least one each in Clackamas and Clark counties.

A total of 489 people sought shelter Wednesday night, according to Multnomah County, and nearly 200 more stayed at seasonal Salvation Army shelters or overflow beds at year-round shelters.

Widespread snow quickly began causing slick road conditions around Salem and Portland in the morning, and crash reports started piling up on TripCheck.com despite extensive de-icer pre-treatment work by the Portland Bureau of Transportation and other agencies.

I-5 saw a series of on-and-off lane closures in both directions as trucks fishtailed and jackknifed on the hilly stretches to the north of Vancouver, at times becoming full closures. In Marion County, a disabled vehicle caused a temporary southbound closure near Battle Creek Road.

Northeast 238th Drive near Fairview and Troutdale became a hotspot for crashes Thursday morning, with county officials reporting more than 20 cars involved in various accidents along the corridor. 

There were also a series of crashes on I-84 in the Gorge through the morning, followed by a massive pileup near Multnomah Falls that included as many as 30 cars, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. One SUV in the pileup caught fire, though all of the passengers were able to safely exit.

Oregon State Police later announced that troopers had responded to eight separate crashes along that stretch over the course of the day, but added that other law enforcement agencies had responded to an “unknown number” of additional crashes.

OSP attributed the accidents to a combination of slick roads and near-white-out conditions. Four people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said many drivers remained stuck in their vehicles after the large pile-up.

Most of the westbound segment between Cascade Locks and Troutdale was closed for much of the afternoon, and OSP said that it still wasn’t completely open as of around 4:45 p.m., although traffic had started to flow through the area. The agency urged that drivers continue to avoid traveling through the area if possible.

TriMet urged riders to prepare for delays and minute-to-minute schedule changes and recommended that people avoid traveling at all if possible. The agency suspended some bus service on lines at higher elevations, such as Line 63 through Washington Park. Most routes were able to keep operating with buses equipped with heavy chains, which limit speeds to 25 mph.

The MAX system also continued running, although there were delays and disruptions caused by specific spot incidents including a small tree that fell on an overhead wire in North Portland and temporarily halted Orange and Yellow Line trains in the morning.

One bus slid off the edge of Electric Street near Oregon City, though it was unclear if it had been occupied at the time, and TriMet told KGW that no one had been hurt.

Multiple Amtrak trains heading south from Seattle to Portland were also delayed, although none were canceled.

Portland Public Schools, the Beaverton School District and the Salem-Keizer School district all canceled classes Thursday, and they were joined by more than 200 smaller districts and schools across northwest Oregon. The cancellation announcements began at around 5 a.m., about an hour before the first snow arrived in Salem.

Several school districts canceled classes for Friday, including Beaverton, Reynolds, Gaston, Hillsboro, Sherwood, Tigard-Tualatin, Northwest Regional East and Forest Grove school districts; some simply delayed their start time by two hours, such as with Clark County, Knappa and Vancouver school districts. A few private schools and colleges also announced closures. 

See latest closures in Oregon here. 

More than 80 flights in and out of Portland International Airport were canceled over the course of the morning, including 28 Alaska Airlines flights. Total flight cancellations for the day had exceeded 100 by around 3 p.m., with the list of cancellations already stretching out to the end of the day and into the early morning hours of Friday.

The airport continued to operate through the morning despite the weather, though things became especially strained once the snow began; PDX departure records show that the vast majority of flights that left between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. departed late.

A Port of Portland spokesperson said the runways and taxiways had been pre-treated, with additional de-icer vehicles on standby to keep things moving.

There were some downed trees and power issues amid the snow and high wind Thursday morning, but they remained relatively limited. The worst incident reported by Portland General Electric was a downed tree that hit a power line near Southwest Vermont Street and 62nd Avenue, knocking out power for about 900 customers.

PGE’s outage map showed about 850 customers without power as of around 3 p.m., and Pacific Power’s outage map showed almost none. PGE’s total had dropped to about 130 an hour later, having resolved a major outage in Southwest Portland.

In a news release about an hour later, the agency said most of its Thursday outages had been concentrated in Gresham and the West Hills, and that it had restored power to a total of about 5,000 customers over the course of the morning.