REGION
A6 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022
ODOT cautions drivers to obey road closures
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
MILTON-FREEWATER
— Vaun Miller had been
dodging winter weather for
four days, trying to make
it home Jan. 2 to Milton-
Freewater following a trip to
San Diego.
But an early January
snowstorm spelled trouble
for the 72-year-old Miller,
bringing his drive to an end
about 2 miles short of his
home.
“I stopped — and the
next thing I know a gust of
wind hit me and it swirled
and took me off the side of
the road,” he said.
While the highway
had been closed for hours
before, Miller said he didn’t
encounter a barricade when
leaving Pendleton and a few
gas station employees he
had talked to were unaware
of a closure at the time.
Miller said he recalls seeing
a barricade parallel to the
highway at the road’s usual
closure point — the inter-
section with Highway 331
— but thought the sign
referred to a closure of
Highway 331 based on the
way it was positioned.
“So on I went,” he said.
“And within 3 miles it was
getting crazy, crazy, crazy
winds — I would guessti-
mate at least 60 (mph).”
Despite the inclement
weather, Miller pushed on.
He said he encountered sev-
eral other vehicles and was
traveling about 20-25 mph
for most of the distance. As
he was approaching mile-
post 24, the wind kicked
up higher, and Miller said
he slowed to a stop as he
was no longer able to see
the road. The next thing he
knew, the wind pushed his
car into the gully.
“I had a few people stop
and ask me if I was OK,” he
said. “And then it was about
an hour before (Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion) got there.”
Robin Berheim, district
operations coordinator for
ODOT in Pendleton, was
responding to a stuck snow-
plow in the area when she
came across Miller and
gave him a ride home to
Milton-Freewater.
“I was real surprised
when she said, ‘Oh, you
know it’s closed,’” he said.
The next morning, snow
had buried Miller’s car to its
roofl ine.
“It was buried for four
days and we couldn’t fi nd
it,” Miller said.
Conditions among
worst in 28 years
While Miller returned
a week later to dig out his
belongings from the car, it
was not until Wednesday,
Jan. 26, that he was able to
free his vehicle. Miller said
he spent several days digging
and received some help from
passing motorists as he tried
to free the car in the weeks
since.
“I hate even thinking
about what we would’ve
found the following day had
she not gotten to that car,”
said Robert Cash, ODOT
transportation maintenance
manager in Pendleton.
Berheim said road con-
ditions the night of Jan. 2-3,
were among the worst she
had seen in her 28 years with
the department. High winds
and heavy snowfall resulted
in snowdrifts several feet
high and obscured visibility.
“It was almost the whole
length of Highway 11,” she
said. “I’ve seen it probably
that bad around the Athena
area, but I’ve never seen it go
from one end to the other.”
According to Tom Strand-
berg, ODOT Region 5 public
information offi cer, the
department reported more
than 20 abandoned or stuck
vehicles and tow trucks were
brought in the following day
to help clear the road so snow
removal could resume.
“We were worried sick
about what we would fi nd
the following day with all of
those vehicles that weren’t
following the road closure,”
Cash said.
Cash said the high wind
speeds meant plow operators
were forced to plow into the
wind, putting them against
the road’s direction of travel.
He added this practice is
usually not a problem when
the roads are closed, but the
number of people ignoring
the closure meant plows
would have to stop and back
up to allow for oncoming
traffi c.
“Generally speaking in
Photos by Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
An abandoned vehicle sits in a roadside snowdrift on Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, near milepost 24 on Highway 11. Oregon Department of
Transportation staff picked up the vehicle’s driver, Vaun Miller, 72, of Milton-Freewater, after the car became stuck in the snow Jan. 2.
An Oregon Department of Transportation truck on Monday, Jan.
3, 2022, blocks Highway 11 near its intersection with Highway 331.
Roads were closed in much of Eastern Oregon due to winter weather.
A road closed sign on Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, blocks access to Spring
Hollow Road at its intersection with Highway 11 in Adams.
the evenings and wee hours
of the night we don’t have a
lot of traffi c and most of the
traffi c we do have is locals
who understand the closures
— that night it just seemed
like we had a nonstop parade
of vehicles,” Cash said.
The road closure, which
began at roughly 4:45 p.m.
and lasted 24 hours, came
about as high winds and
heavy snowfall made it
too dangerous for ODOT
employees to maintain the
road to safe conditions,
according to the department.
“We closed the highway
and started putting signs
the highway any quicker,
but rather equipment limita-
tions were a more prominent
concern.
“Our resources are so
thin,” he said. “We have 450
lane miles to take care of
with fi ve snowplows.”
In addition to plow con-
cerns, Cash said the depth
of some of the snowdrifts
necessitated bringing in
snowblowers from Elgin,
Meacham and Bend to
help clear the highway
completely.
“Just being able to get
enough equipment in to
open up the highway as
out,” Cash said. “Once we
got the closures put up, I told
my crew that we were going
to get off of that section of
road.”
Follow signs, stay safe
Cash urged people to
obey road closure signs
where posted and check
tripcheck.com frequently
when inclement weather
arrives.
While ODOT was strug-
gling with staffi ng short-
ages heading into the winter
months, Cash said more
people would not neces-
sarily have helped reopen
quick as possible was a chal-
lenge,” he said. “That all
took time.”
ODOT encouraged
drivers to be cognizant of
road conditions and be pre-
pared for inclement weather
when traveling in the winter
months.
Berheim advised drivers
thinking of going past road
closures to think about
the consequences of their
actions on their safety and
the safety of those working.
“They’re putting them-
selves at risk,” she said.
“And anyone who has to go
retrieve them.”
Project to protect watershed from fi re proceeds
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY —
The Wallowa-Whitman
National Forest continues
to plan a project designed
to reduce the risk of a wild-
fi re spreading through
Baker City’s watershed.
“This is an important
project for the people of
Baker City,” said Kendall
Cikanek, Whitman Dis-
trict ranger. “Protecting
people’s drinking water is
right at the top when you’re
defi ning high-value areas.”
The 10,000-acre water-
shed is on the east slopes
of the Elkhorn Mountains
west of Baker City. Almost
the entire area is managed
by the Wallowa-Whitman.
The watershed is closed
to public entry to protect
water quality, although
the city allows big game
hunting, with a permit,
when the fi re danger isn’t
high.
In addition, one road
open to the public — Forest
Road 6510, which climbs
to Marble Creek Pass —
bisects the watershed.
Both Forest Service and
Baker City offi cials have for
more than a quarter century
Sue Holtz/Contributed Photo, File
Smoke rises from a lightning-sparked fi re in the Baker City water-
shed in August 2019.
sought to reduce the risk of
wildfi re in the heavily for-
ested watershed.
City offi cials worry that
a large blaze could cause
ash and mud to pollute the
streams and springs that
the city diverts into its
water supply pipeline. The
watershed supplies almost
all of the city’s drinking
water. The city has one
supplementary well —
which is fortifi ed with
water from the watershed
— and a second well is
scheduled to come online
later in 2022.
A fi re, in addition to
forcing the city to rely on
other water sources for a
period, could also lead to
the city needing to build a
water fi ltration plant, which
would likely cost more than
$10 million.
(The city doesn’t
mechanically fi lter its
drinking water. The water
is disinfected with chlorine
and with ultraviolet light to
protect against bacteria and
parasites such as giardia
and cryptosporidium.)
“The Baker City water-
shed is a major asset to the
city of Baker City and our
community,” said Michelle
Owen, the city’s public
works director. “We are
partnering with the U.S.
Forest Service to make
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the watershed less sus-
ceptible to a catastrophic
wildfi re. Removing exces-
sive fuels and providing
for fi re breaks along the
pipeline road are really the
city’s top priorities and in
line with the city coun-
cil’s goals. This type of a
project has been discussed
for many years and it’s
great that there is fi nally
some real progress being
made.”
There hasn’t been a
large fi re in the watershed
for more than a century,
but such a blaze likely is
overdue, based on a study
of fi re scars on old trees in
the watershed conducted by
researchers from the Uni-
versity of Washington in
the mid-1990s.
In the late 1990s the
Wallowa-Whitman spent
more than $2.2 million
to cut trees and light pre-
scribed fi res to create
fuelbreaks on the fringes
of the watershed. Most of
the work was on the south
end and along the road
under which is buried
the city’s water pipeline,
with a goal of giving fi re
crews a place to head off a
blaze moving toward the
watershed.
The project the Wal-
lowa-Whitman is working
on now would expand on
those efforts, Cikanek
said.
He hopes to distribute
to the public what’s known
as a “scoping letter” by the
end of February.
That letter in eff ect
introduces the watershed
project and gives its basic
outline.
Cikanek said the fi eld
studies for the project
have been done, and the
next major step for the
Wallowa-Whitman is to
write an environmental
assessment, a document
that examines the project
in detail and studies its
potential environmental
eff ects.
A 1969 federal law, the
National Environmental
Policy Act, requires fed-
eral agencies to con-
duct such environmental
studies.
Cikanek said his goal is
to fi nish the environmental
assessment for the water-
shed project in early 2023.
Once Wallowa-Whitman
offi cials have approved that,
work could get started, bar-
ring legal challenges.
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