6A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2021
STATE/NORTHWEST
Northwest storm leaves at least 200,000 without power
OTEC sends crew
to help in the
Willamette Valley
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
and REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
LAKE OSWEGO —
At least 200,000 people
remained without power in
the Portland area Sunday,
Feb. 14, after a winter storm
blanketed the Paciﬁ c North-
west with ice and snow and
made travel treacherous.
With a number of trans-
mission lines and substa-
tions knocked out of service
and additional tree limbs
at risk of falling on power
lines amid more expected
freezing rain and wind,
some people could expe-
rience multiple outages or
prolonged outages, said
Steve Corson, a spokes-
person for PGE, one of
the area’s major electricity
providers.
“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, which had
about 250,000 customers
without power on Sat-
urday, is bringing in crews
from Nevada and Montana
to help restore power, he
said. Other utilities, which
reported about another
25,000 outages Saturday,
were also working to bring
electricity to homes and
businesses.
Just as in the massive
wildﬁ re season that left
many in Western Oregon
without power, Oregon Trail
Electric Cooperative is pro-
viding some help.
Joe Hathaway, the
co-op’s communications
manager, said Consumers
Power Inc. in Philomath
requested assistance, and
OTEC sent a four-member
crew there Saturday. The
outage map for Consumers
Power shows about 2,000
of its customers in areas
surrounding Salem were
without power Monday
morning,
“Our guys are there
already,” Hathaway said.
“They are working on get-
ting CPI’s transmission back
up.”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
praised utility crews as well
as state and local workers
and ﬁ rst responders for
working to restore power,
clear roads and help those in
need because of the extreme
conditions, which prompted
her to declare a state of
emergency for the greater
Portland area on Saturday.
She urged everyone else to
remain at home as much as
possible.
“Check on your neigh-
bors and loved ones when
you can do so safely,” she
said.
Forecasters warned of
more hazardous weather
through Monday.
An ice storm warning
was in effect for the Port-
land area until Monday eve-
ning. In Seattle, which got
more than a foot of snow by
Sunday morning, more pre-
cipitation 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 com-
munities. Volunteers and
shelter staffers worked to
ensure homeless residents
in Casper, Wyoming, while
authorities in western Wash-
ington and western Oregon
opened warming shelters in
an effort to protect home-
less residents from the wet
and cold.
Arctic air caused tem-
peratures to plunge to the
negative 30s in parts of
Montana and high tempera-
tures were not expected to
rise above zero or get much
higher in eastern Wyoming
or Colorado.
In the Portland area,
many trees snapped under
the weight of ice, falling
on power lines and causing
transformers to blow out in
showers of blue and orange
sparks.
Brian Zevenbergen
watched Saturday as a crew
sawed up two large, ice-cov-
Northwest ﬂ ooding to
worsen in next ﬁ ve
years, OSU study ﬁ nds
By KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian/OregonLive
Flooding in the
Columbia River Basin is
expected to increase dramat-
ically in scale over the next
half decade as the climate
warms, according to new
research from Oregon State
University.
The severity of ﬂ oods
large and small — on the
Columbia, Willamette and
Snake rivers, along with
hundreds of smaller tribu-
taries — will increase and,
in some places, the ﬂ ooding
season will grow longer.
That’s according to a
new study from researchers
at the university, published
last month in the journal
Hydrology and Earth
System Science.
“The ﬂ ood you’re used
to seeing out your window
once every 10 years will
likely be larger than it has
been in the past,” the study’s
lead author, Laura Queen, a
research assistant at OSU’s
Oregon Climate Change
Research Institute, said in a
statement.
Queen ran simulations
using streamﬂ ow data col-
lected from nearly 400 sites
throughout the Columbia
River Basin and western
Washington. The simula-
tions included data from
1950-99 and expected
streamﬂ ow from 2050-99.
“This was the best and
most complete set of data,”
said co-author Philip Mote,
a professor in the College
of Earth, Ocean, and Atmo-
spheric Sciences and dean of
the Graduate School at OSU.
“It shows that the magni-
tude of one-, 10- and 100-
year ﬂ oods is likely to go
up nearly everywhere in the
region. These are profound
shifts.”
The Willamette River
saw the biggest bumps in
ﬂ ood severity in simulations,
with 50-60% increases in
100-year ﬂ ood scenarios.
Parts of the Snake River
could see a 40% increase in
10-year ﬂ oods and a 60%
increase in 100-year ﬂ oods.
The season for ﬂ ooding
on the Snake, now primarily
conﬁ ned to the spring, could
start as early as December
or January.
The Columbia River
Basin and much of the
Northwest have seen fre-
quent ﬂ ooding. The Vanport
ﬂ ood in 1948 wiped out one
of Portland’s largest Afri-
can-American communities
at the time. Floods on the
Chehalis River in Wash-
ington have forced the clo-
sure of Interstate 5 twice
in the past 15 years.
ered trees that had crashed
across his driveway over-
night, narrowly missing two
cars parked there. His house
in Lake Owego had also
lost power overnight. Just
around the corner, another
massive tree blocked the
street in the suburb south of
Portland and had taken out a
city street light.
“Last night, every-
thing was standing, and
this morning the two trees
had me blocked in the
driveway and were blocking
at least half the street,” he
said. “Friends on the lower
levels have power, so I
have invites to go hang out
there.”
The ice and snowfall
caused treacherous driving
conditions, forcing Oregon
transportation ofﬁ cials to
close Interstate 84 in the
Columbia River Gorge,
and the regional transit
agency TriMet suspended
all bus and train service
in the region on Saturday.
Eastbound lanes remained
closed and limited buses
and trains were running
Sunday although TriMet
urged people to delay travel
until conditions improve.
The latest storm system
was expected to bring
snow to the mountains
of the Northwest and
the Intermountain West
through Monday night.
The highest parts of the
Cascades were expected
to get snow measured in
feet while over a foot of
snow is likely in the Bit-
terroot Mountains of
Idaho, the Teton Range
in Wyoming and the cen-
tral Rockies, the National
Weather Service said.
— Observer editor
Phil Wright contributed
to this report.
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