A winter storm that began on Friday night started slow but delivered bitter-cold temperatures and heavy winds, toppling trees and damaging utility lines. As of Sunday night, many residents suffering from an outage have regained power, but trees continue to fall as the frozen ground shows no signs of thawing and winds pick up again. Meteorologists predicted up to eight inches of snow on Saturday. However, the winds and cold did more to disrupt travel than the few inches of precipitation that fell. Whole trees and falling limbs snapped power lines and uprooted gas lines, sending repair crews across the Portland Metro area.

On Saturday, a downed tree by Ascension Catholic Church at 743 SE 76th Avenue damaged power lines, cutting service to homes and traffic lights. The traffic signals for SE Stark and Washington Streets at SE 76th Avenue fell dark, and crews closed SE 76th from SE Washington to Yamhill Street. This tree fell across the road, landing on a Portland Police vehicle and the church’s fence. Officers were not inside this patrol car when the tree fell, and no injuries were reported, according to Portland Police. Crews worked on this repair overnight, returning service to most affected customers on Sunday.

Also, on Saturday, crews with NW Natural closed part of NE 74th Avenue due to a downed tree that uprooted a gas line. Like the SE 76th Avenue tree, the rootball broke free of the frozen ground, sending the tree across the roadway. People saw similar damage throughout Portland, with some Montavilla residents suffering damage to their homes by falling trees.

Currently, the Fred Meyer Grocery store at 6615 NE Glisan Street is without utility power but operating on standby generators. Customers can still shop but with limited departments open and dim light. Most Montavilla Pacific Power Customers have power restored, but over 100 PGE customers in the neighborhood still show a lack of power on the outage map. Utility workers have managed to reconnect thousands of customers. However, winds are returning, and the prolonged low temperatures are freezing pipes. More winter weather is coming, but forecasting models show a warming coming in the latter half of the week. Until then, people should remain prepared for future outages. 

Some images in this article were taken by readers and given to Montavilla News to use with their permission.

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