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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 2019)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • MARCH 6, 2019 • 3A What Now? Cottage Grove area emerges from once-in-a-century snowstorm By Damien Sherwood dsherwood@cgsentinel.com Snowfall in the Willamette Valley is often greeted with a certain affec- tion. Children may get to skip some school days, families bond while cre- ating snowmen and winter sports en- thusiasts rub their hands together at a chance to make their mark on fresh slopes. The evening of Feb. 24 likely sparked such sentiments as weather forecasts made good on their promise and the first snowflakes lazily floated to the valley’s floor. To the surprise of many, however, the snowflakes didn’t stop. And soon they weren’t falling so lazily. By 8 p.m. that night, the first re- ports of power outages had begun to surface in Cottage Grove and the snow had risen to eight inches in some areas. Through the night, the storm battered the valley and, by Monday morning, the National Weather Service reported 14 inches had fallen in Cottage Grove while residents in outlying areas posted through social media snowfall closer to two feet or more. Sporadic snowfall followed as people tried to dig their way out, but many became stuck on the slushy roads. Finally, late afternoon Wednes- day, the first sun rays began peeking through overcast gray into a snow- caked Willamette Valley. Though the clouds parted, darkness had fully set inside thousands of electricity-de- prived homes in and around Cottage Grove. Many roads were still impass- able, blockaded by fallen trees and barriers of snow. Fuel stations and grocery stores were understaffed and overwhelmed by throngs of custom- ers stocking up for a wait that many expected to be long, dark and cold. DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL A deep layer of snow covers Bohemia Park, hiding park attactions such as the walking trails, fountain and amphi- theater under a blanket of white. declared for both Cottage Grove and Lane County Tuesday, Feb. 26. Be- fore long, Gov. Kate Brown issued an emergency declaration for 10 Oregon counties, including Lane, last Thurs- day. The governor’s declaration pro- vided access to additional resources and the potential for federal highway system funds in the future while di- recting Oregon’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to coordinate responses with the Oregon Depart- ment of Transportation (ODOT), Oregon State Police and the Oregon National Guard to ensure cities and small communities received support A State of Emergency The situation was nothing short of as needed. With a Lane County state of a crisis and states of emergency were Special Deal! emergency declared, local spend- ing limits were lifted and the need to go through the County Board of Commissioners for approval was re- moved, expediting the response pro- cess and allowing the county and its local partners to request additional state support from OEM and other partners if needed. “It frees up resources that wouldn’t otherwise be available to us,” said Lane County Commission- er Heather Buch. “Getting those ad- ditional resources is critical because people are not as available to help when they’re stuck in their own lo- cations. We have several other folks from different counties in our office helping with us.” Lane County’s own OEM staff of five swelled to about 15 or 20, Buch said. The accelerated access to funding is also expected to come with possi- ble reimbursement. “When smaller cities are expend- ing large amounts of money to get services out to their communities to put things back together, that’s very expensive and our small cities have a really hard time being able to afford those kinds of services,” said Buch The county can now document those expenses and later request some reimbursement of those funds from FEMA and state sources. Distributed resources around the county included fuel, food, water, 25% SENIOR DISCOUNT NATHAN FUGATE Nathan hax worked at Brad’x xince 2008, he hax 6 yearx experience diagnoxing and repairing vehiclex. Nathan ix a graduate of Cottage Grove High School and a graduated of WYO Tech. Nathan ix ASE Maxter Tech Certifi ed. Nathan ix a life long rexident of Cottage Grove Valid for One-Year New & Renewal Subscriptions! 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Years ago, an ice storm quali- fied Lane County for emergency aid funding. “I think we got close to 80 percent of our expenses from that storm reimbursed,” Stewart said. All clean up and spending must be done during the window that the state of emergency is declared and reimbursements in the form of state or federal funding may come later, though it is not clear how much can be reimbursed. “So, it was best for us to take the action and be in position to be able to take advantage if it happens,” said Stewart. The city’s state of emergency is ex- pected to last at least a month or two as extensive coordination efforts are needed to respond to damage caused by the storm. “We will probably keep this decla- ration of emergency active for awhile because there’s lots of clean-up that needs to be done,” said City Manager Richard Meyers. Cottage Grove and its surround- ing communities still need plenty of attention. 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