A8
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Truckers deal with snowy roads, restrictions during storm
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Driving a car in the ice and
snow can be nerve-wracking, so
imagine driving an 18-wheeler in
the stuff.
Dozens of truck drivers hang-
ing out at the Arrowhead Travel
Plaza on Monday morning didn’t
have to imagine. Some had just
come down Cabbage Hill. Oth-
ers prepared to ascend the steep,
curvy stretch of mountain high-
way on their way east.
Long-haul trucker Dan Mac-
Intyre chatted with four other
drivers on the way from the park-
ing lot to main building near Inter-
state 84’s exit 216. Big, wet flakes
swirled around the men as they
shared information about chain
restrictions and weather fore-
casts. MacIntyre, a Canadian
from Toronto, had steered his
18-wheeler filled with instrumen-
tal equipment down Cabbage on
Sunday night and needed to get to
Portland.
“They were telling me the roads
were insane. You have to put your
chains on,” he said, after leaving
the knot of other drivers. “I don’t
expect I’m going anywhere.”
At the moment, a chain restric-
tion for trucks was in effect both
directions. MacIntyre prepared to
settle in for the day. The 27-year
veteran said if conditions require
chains, then you shouldn’t be driv-
ing. He owns a set, but they sit
inside his truck, clean and unused
in the original box.
MacIntyre lives in his truck
and logs between 15,000 and
17,000 miles each month. The for-
mer truck driver trainer ticked off
some principles he drilled into his
students.
“The speed limit is not the
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Charles Nulph of Burley, Idaho, reaches between tires while putting chains on the wheels his trailer while haul-
ing a load of frozen French fries on Monday at the Arrowhead Travel Plaza in Mission.
number posted on the sign,” he
said. “It is the speed you can safely
go down the highway and not lose
your load. Drive to the conditions.”
He urged his students to check
mirrors often, learn to read the
roads, refrain from rushing, rest
when tired and to be wary in snow,
ice, fog and high winds.
MacIntyre’s phone has doz-
ens of photos of truck accidents
the trucker has come upon or seen
happen right in front of him. He
looks at the pictures to remind
himself to take it slow and easy.
One shot shows the aftermath of
an 18-wheeler gone airborne over
the edge of an overpass and land-
ing on the freeway below.
According to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Adminis-
tration, 4,761 people died in col-
lisions involving large trucks in
2017 (the latest year reported).
About 1,300 of the deaths were
truckers, while the remaining vic-
tims died in other vehicles or were
pedestrians.
So far, MacIntyre has only had
one minor accident himself. It hap-
pened when he hydroplaned into
the back of a car after hitting his
brakes. He aims to make that his
last and only.
Many of the truckers at Arrow-
head on Monday rested up for the
trek ahead. In the truck parking
area, Yakima driver Travis Mos-
ley waited it out in the cab of his
18-wheeler. During his drive from
Tacoma, he’d encountered blow-
ing snow, but hadn’t been required
to don chains until Pendleton. He
had decided to take a pause to see
if that changed before hauling his
load of Polaris side by sides east to
Baker City, and then to John Day.
He listened carefully to his
CB as a fellow trucker gave an
update. Chaining restrictions had
been lifted going to the west, he
reported. Restrictions remained
for eastbound truckers like Mosley.
“That’s all we’re doing right
now is listening,” Mosley said.
“I’m going to wait it out for a cou-
ple of hours to see if it gets better.”
Mosley has learned to be
patient.
“I watch TV and Youtube,” he
said. “I catch up on my sleep.”
A few trucks away, Idaho truck
driver Charles Nulph knelt in the
slush and chained up five wheels of
his Freightliner truck and trailer.
He chained each tire with gloved
hands and used a chain tighter
to cinch them snug. Shortly he
planned to climb Cabbage Hill
with a load of frozen french fries.
The trucker seemed undaunted
at the prospect.
“I’ve done it so many times,”
Nulph said.
Cabbage is nothing, he said,
compared with some of the other
steeper mountains he has driven.
He remembers going over snowy
White Bird Summit (in north cen-
tral Idaho), carrying thousands
of pounds of grain in a double
trailer. The grade there, he said, is
between 7 and 8 percent.
MacIntyre weighed his own
plans for getting back onto the
snowy freeway, saying the priv-
ilege of driving an 18-wheeler is
something he doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s a big responsibility,” he
said. “If I collide with you in your
car, I’ll walk away. You may not.”
He said driving trucks can be
risky business.
“We all have our horror sto-
ries,” MacIntyre said.
However, he has come to trust
his instincts and the procedures
he has developed over the years.
One habit is never driving when
fatigued, whatever the weather.
In doing so, he tunes out the inner
pressure to hurry on.
“If you’re not moving, you’re
not making money,” he said. “But,
if I’m tired, I pull over. Whether
it’s been one hour or 10 hours, my
life is worth it.”
Lodge: New owners plan concerts
Continued from Page A1
Baird and Adam Mack as
partners.
Both of the new part-
ners have connections to the
local music scene.
Baird and Mack both
play in the Pendleton band
James Dean Kindle and the
Eastern Oregon Playboys,
while Mack also organizes
and promotes local concerts
like the Wednesdays in the
Park concert series.
On a Feb. 6 tour of the
building, Mack seemed par-
ticularly excited by the audi-
torium’s potential.
Mack pointed to the
room’s wavy ceiling and
the raised tiles on the walls
as features that should cre-
ate a unique acoustic experi-
ence. Additionally, the audi-
torium’s long, hardwood
floor should provide con-
cert goers plenty of room to
dance
“We need more danc-
ing (in Pendleton),” Mack
said. “People need to dance
more.”
The owners hope to
make concerts in the audi-
torium a monthly feature
of the lodge, dubbing the
series Live from the Leslie.
The auditorium isn’t the
only part of the building The
Lodge partners plan to fix
up. Immediately outside the
auditorium is a second-floor
foyer where the owners tore
out a drop ceiling and a wall
that was blocking an array
of window panels.
The sun streaming into
the foyer made it much
warmer than the frigid
temperatures outside, and
Baird said they would have
to install a giant curtain to
keep the room from getting
hot in the summer.
While the second floor
will be one the few spaces
that will be open to the
public April 5, there’s
much more to The Lodge’s
footprint.
The facility spans more
than 24,000 square feet and
features five bars, a cafete-
ria-style kitchen, a massive
dining room, a patio, and a
basement floor.
Baird called the facility a
“big, rambling experience”
similar to the McMenamins
chain of breweries and ven-
ues in the Portland area.
The sheer size of the
property is evocative of a
time when the Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks
Lodge No. 288 was the one
of the hottest spots in town.
The owners are also
looking to restore The Stag
Bar, a ground-floor space
that includes a bar, a pool
table, and a stage.
Mack has looked through
old photos of the Elks Lodge
at its height and thinks The
Stag Bar could also serve
as another venue in the
building.
“Every other page was
a band performing down
there,” he said.
Eventually, the partners
would like to turn The Stag
Bar into a spot with regu-
lar hours, although it may
undergo a name change.
At this point, renovat-
ing The Lodge is a nights
and weekends task for the
partners because of their
day jobs. Mack is an office
Snow: Many caught in highway delays
Continued from Page A1
10 p.m.,” she said.
Colgan said one of
her best friends, Destiny
George, turned out to also
be stranded less than half a
mile ahead, so they stayed
on the phone most of the
time to keep each other
company. Luckily, both of
them had enough gas in
their tanks to keep their cars
idling and their heaters on
through the whole ordeal,
but Colgan said she did get
hungry.
“I was thinking, my dad
is going to be mad at me
because I didn’t have any
food or water with me,” she
said. “But I did have blan-
kets and my snow boots and
a heavy coat.”
She also said she learned
her lesson about always
checking to see if the roads
are closed before setting out.
While all the stranded
travelers were off the inter-
state before midnight, the
road did not open again until
Sunday afternoon.
Oregon State Police Sgt.
Seth Cooney said he was
busy that day with crashes
on Interstate 84 west of
Boardman and stopped
into the Love’s Travel Stop
in town. People there inun-
dated him with questions
on how to get to where they
wanted to.
“The first thing I tell
everybody is look up Trip
Check,” he said, referring to
www.tripcheck.com, which
the Oregon Department of
Transportation uses to pro-
vide information about road
conditions and closures.
“They really need to take a
look at that, because ODOT
is very good about keeping
it up to date.”
Cooney also suggested
drivers plan for alternate
routes. With I-82 shut down,
he said, you could take
Highway 730 east to High-
way 12 to Pasco. He said
road crews do a good job of
keeping that route open.
The National Weather
Service issued a winter
storm warning this week for
a swath from outside Fossil
to Pendleton and covering
the rest of northeast Oregon.
That warning means
“severe winter weather con-
ditions will make travel very
hazardous or impossible.”
Forecaster Rob Brooks,
with the federal agency in
Pendleton, said back-to-
back winter storms are cov-
ering the region, with one
heading north toward the
Tri-Cities. That could pro-
vide a break in snowfall
on Thursday, but the next
weather system moves in
Friday with more snow.
“This could possibly last
all the way up to Wednes-
day,” he said.
That would be Feb. 20,
more than a week away.
Snowfall at the NWS
office was at 5 inches Mon-
day at 7 a.m., but Brooks said
the snow piled “way past
that” before noon. Locals
on social media reported as
much as 10 inches in Pendle-
ton, 11 inches in Pilot Rock
and a foot of snow in Elgin.
Most reported the snow still
was falling when they made
the measurements.
High temperatures this
week will be stay in the
lower 30s, and overnight
lows will dip to near 20.
The Weather Service also
warned about avalanches
for the Blue Mountains, the
Elkhorns and the southern
Wallowa Mountains.
The InterMountain Edu-
cation Service District at
about 5:30 a.m. reported
weather
prompted
the
school districts in Pendle-
ton and Pilot Rock to close
their schools while other
districts were opening late.
The more the snow fell, the
more schools closed. By
9 a.m., the school districts
of Morrow County, Ione,
Athena-Weston, Helix and
Stanfield shut the doors for
the day.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Business partners, from left, Brian Baird, Lance Leonnig and Adam Mack discuss the renova-
tion work at The Lodge on Saturday in Pendleton.
manager at the RBH Group
and Baird is an installer
for Wtechlink while Leon-
nig splits his time between
Pendleton and his business
in Portland.
Leonnig, Baird and Mack
are looking for more part-
ners, but that doesn’t mean
they’ll immediately restore
every part of the building.
Mack said the owners
will likely leave the dining
area alone for now because
of their lack of restaurant
management experience.
But the owners still have
plans to make themselves
known for Round-Up.
While the property has
mostly served as a parking
space for recreational vehi-
cles during rodeo week,
Mack said the owners are
interested in renting out
space at The Lodge to Port-
land bars so they can set
up shop in Pendleton for
the town’s busiest week for
drinking.