In late December of 2022, a winter ice storm swept through the Portland Metropolitan area causing lots of damage to vehicles and private and public property. Snow mixed with freezing rain made it extremely difficult for citizens to get to work, drive to the store, or even get up their driveways. Many stores such as Starbucks locations ended up closing down due to the danger that would be implemented on workers trying to get to work, as well as the fact that there were no customers due to the road conditions. Mother nature dropped more than an inch of ice in Southwest Washington neighborhoods Many citizens chose to wait the ice out and did not leave their house until most of the ice had melted. 

 Oregonians and Washingtonians also had trouble with air travel at SeaTac and PDX. The SeaTac airport reported 436 delays and 214 cancellations.  Thousands of airline passengers were scrambling to rebook flights after the ice storm forced the closure of all runways for a time on Friday morning.

Air travel was not the only form of long distance transportation that was disturbed in the ice storm.  Parts of the I-84, the freeway that takes navigates the gorge was closed on Friday and Saturday due to many spin outs.  Gavin Dykes, a Battle ground resident states, “I almost got into a car accident because of how bad the roads were. We took Friday off of work because of how bad the weather was. I was not even able to go anywhere on my birthday which was a real bummer.” Gavin also states “ I wasn’t even able to get my free Starbucks drink for my birthday.”  Another Citizen, Mitch Roan stated “ One of my neighbors was going down our hill and took out our gate. He is going to have to get the gate fixed because it is no longer working. Tom’s truck was also damaged pretty badly”

Power companies were dealing with outages that were leaving thousands of Oregonians and hundreds of Washingtonians without power. Utility companies blamed many of the outages on heavy winds that were reportedly blowing down trees and powerlines. PGE’s outage map showed that there were approximately 5,559 households in the dark as of 4 p.m.

Natural disasters are impossible to stop, but there are many different ways to prepare for these events. One of which is preparing your car to drive on the treacherous roads. To help remain safe on the roads you can replace windshield wiper fluid with a wintertime mixture to prevent ice from forming after using the wiper fluid to clean off the windshield. You can also make sure the tires on your car have enough tread and the correct air pressure. To get more traction on the slippery roads a lower air pressure in the tires is recommended. Carrying tire chains can also help the traction of the tires on ice. 

Inside the house it would be very wise to make sure that all portable phone chargers are at full capacity before the predicted storm. It would also be very beneficial to go to the grocery store and stock up on food and water, especially food that does not need to be heated up or refrigerated. Keeping new batteries in flashlights is a great idea as well. A flashlight running out of batteries would be very unfortunate in the evening when the power is out. 

Moments like the ice storm are reminders of the importance of being prepared for events that are beyond our control, so that we all can minimize the impact they play in our lives.