Snow and Ice Get the Better of Portland Again

Students (and their parents) get a five-day weekend thanks to an inch of snow.

Sledding at Grant High School (Jake Nelson)
By Aaron Mesh

Portland-area schools and government offices will close Friday for a second consecutive day, as an inch of morning snow sent the city into hibernation. A glaze of ice could follow tonight, potentially making streets impassable Friday morning.

Portland transportation officials asked commuters to stay off the roads Friday. “If possible, delay travel until conditions are safer or consider using public transit,” wrote Portland Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dylan Rivera.

As if to prove his point, east county saw two massive traffic pileups on Thursday: a crash on Northeast 238th Drive near Wood Village involving 20 cars, and a 30-vehicle wreck on Interstate 84 near Multnomah Falls that sent four people to the hospital.

Between dawn and 1 pm Thursday, most of Portland received between 0.5 and 1.5 inches of snow, closing schools, restaurants and government offices, including City Hall. Shortly after 6 pm, officials at Portland Public Schools announced schools would be closed Friday as well. “As a reminder,” PPS officials wrote, “there is no school on Monday in observance of Presidents Day”—suggesting students (and their distraught parents) will get a five-day weekend.

Nearby, both the Parkrose and David Douglas school districts sent similar messages about Friday closures.

National Weather Service meteorologists remained uncertain Thursday evening whether the next band of winter weather, expected to move in from the coast overnight, would come in the form of snow, sleet or freezing rain. The answer to that question is of no small significance: A few hours of freezing rain overnight would turn sidewalks into an ice rink Friday morning, and forestall a quick weekend melt.

Multnomah County officials asked for volunteers to help staff six of the eight emergency warming shelters operating Thursday night. Those shelters served 489 people overnight Wednesday. Public libraries, which had provided daytime respite during much of the cold snap, closed Thursday.

“We need to take care of each other,” County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement. “Multnomah County will continue to do everything in our power to keep people safe, supported and out of this weather.”

Here’s where people can find shelter through at least noon Friday:

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