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Neighbors helped an oil truck driver get out of a snowy spot. Photo by Brian Edwards.

Snow and ice strike hard
By Virginia Bruce

From the beginning of December, Cedar Mill was hit by a series of snow and ice storms. Aside from the impacts on families from weeks of school closures, on landscapes and buildings from falling trees and branches, businesses were impacted, and service providers struggled to serve their customers.

Roads

In addition to immediate impacts that our weather has had on driving conditions, the cycle of wet and freezing weather has created a plethora of potholes. As the roads freeze and then warm up, road surfaces expand and contract. Water gets into cracks, and when when it freezes, it expands. In addition, snow tires and chains, especially on larger heavier vehicles, cause additional road damage.

We asked Dave Schamp, Washington County’s Road Operations and Maintenance Manager, about the ongoing impact that our wintry blast would have on the county roads.

Many potholes have appeared on our roads. What is the county’s plan to start repairing them? Is it going to be hard to find resources? What will be the impact on the budget and other plans?

ANSWER: We are working to repair all roads as quickly as we can—that's always our plan, particularly after a weather event.  It is always challenging to manage resources when we have weather events of this magnitude. We are prioritizing based on location and degree of hazard.  We still have over 30 locations that need clean-up from the December wind and ice events.  Keep in mind that we have had five significant weather events since early December and had folks who worked four weekends in a row through the holidays.

Going into this winter we had at least four sets of tire chains (each set is three pair) for each large truck, that’s 72 pairs of chains.  Each pair costs an average of $200.  During the latest storm we acquired an additional 10 pairs so that equates to over $16,000 in chains for the large sand/plow trucks.  Chains are rebuilt as they break—during the latest series of storms we repaired over 100 individual chains using over $3,000 in parts.

Some of that road repair can’t be done in continued cold weather, right?

ANSWER:  That is correct.  Paving work requires dry warm weather in order to get a quality product.  In some instances we will make emergency repairs anticipating that it will be a throw-away, and we'll need to come back and make long-term repairs when conditions improve.

Is there an effort to sweep up the gravel? If so, is there a schedule for that?

ANSWER: We've had street sweepers out on the roads since the last major storm, as is our usual practice.  Until recently the County did not have its own vacuum sweeper available and we relied on contracted services, Clean Water Services (CWS) and the cities to handle the sweeping.  About five years ago CWS gave us a sweeper that they had surplused and we have managed to pamper it along and keep it serviceable.  It is scheduled for replacement next fiscal year.  In addition we have another sweeper in this year’s budget, so service should improve going forward.

The county's sand storage facility was full on December 1!

We do run our sweeper during both our day (8 hrs.) and night (10 hrs.) shifts so it’s out there as much as possible.  We also coordinate with the other agencies to get the work done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Anything else we should know?

ANSWER: Our current estimate of overtime and added equipment cost responding just to the January 11th storm (Jan 11th – Jan 16th) is right at $250,000.  That number does not include materials or clean-up and will likely go up as our cost accounting system catches up.

Garbage collection

Walker Garbage, which services most of our area, kept its trucks in the garage during the worst of the snowy and icy weather. It took several weeks for them to catch up with collections to some of our hard-hit steep and curvy roads, but they are caught up now. They were able to pick up extra garbage for locations that weren’t serviced on their regular days. Fortunately, frozen garbage doesn’t stink!

Mail and package delivery

Many residents reported several days with no postal delivery. Areas hardest hit were those in our hilly neighborhoods like Forest Heights and parts of Bonny Slope. Delayed UPS and FedEx packages were a common complaint on NextDoor.

Beaverton School District to make up snow days

The Beaverton School District has announced a plan to make up classroom time lost to the nine snow days that forced schools to close. After listening to suggestions from students, staff, parents and the community, the district will be restoring six school days and extending the first semester one week. The first semester will end Feb. 10 instead of Feb. 3.

Additionally, report cards will be sent home later than normal and elementary and middle schools will not provide parent-teacher conference times. High school students will have full days during finals weeks, as these days will be student contact days for the remainder of the school year.

The district pointed out that since winter isn’t over, it’s possible there will be more school closure days due to weather. If there are more than two additional closure days, it will re-evaluate available options.

Stores and restaurants

Bales’ manager Tom Evans noted that his business was alternately slammed and empty: people would pack the store when a storm was imminent, and then during the weather event, it was hard for employees to make it in, so he and other manager filled in at the checkout.

Grand Central Bakery managed to stay open throughout the worst weather, providing welcome warmth and comfort along with their baked goods and beverages. Many shops and restaurants closed early to avoid trapping employees without snow-ready vehicles.

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