On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the Portland-Vancouver area was brought to a standstill as an unexpectedly heavy snowfall coated roads with icy slush. Commuters and truckers alike found themselves unable to move after several motorists abandoned their stuck cars amid worsening conditions. It became apparent that this wild winter storm meant business when even the busiest freeways began filling up with stalled vehicles.
“What’s ultimately the issue here?” said one truck driver who had been stuck since 12:30 a.m. Thursday. “Nobody was prepared for it.”
Amid the heavy Oregon snowfall, drivers found themselves not only stuck on the road, but also met with an inadequate response to their plight from state authorities. As a result of the slow action taken by the ODOT, these individuals faced significant disruptions in navigating through inclement conditions.
“You know, in different states, they’re a little bit more coordinated,” said Roy Skinner, speaking from the cab of his truck on the Interstate 5 ramp to Interstate 84 East.
Traffic chaos ensued near the Lloyd District when the I-84 ramp become blocked by a pair of semis that become wedged together on the narrow, icy passage. Traffic was blocked in this area for the entirety of the night.
“If there was anybody on I-5, I-84, or 205 that had any type of life-threatening emergency … they probably would have died,” said one motorist who got caught in the backup. “There was no getting through that traffic, at all.”
Staffing Shortages at ODOT
ODOT is hampered by a shortage of manpower, according to spokesman Don Hamilton. This has caused their snow removal efforts across the state to be slowed down significantly.
“We were hoping to do better than we did on that,” he said. “We are down in staff right now, we can’t get the roads cleared as quickly as we hoped to because we’re not at full staff.”
In the rapid-onset snowstorm, ODOT was taken by surprise as the roads quickly filled up with stranded vehicles in record time. In some cases, this rapid accumulation of abandoned cars prevented crews from moving through to clear out snow.
This issue continued into Thursday and eventually prompted a full shutdown of southbound I-205 across the Glenn Jackson Bridge for several hours as ODOT crews worked to clear and de-ice the roads for traffic to resume later that day.
“Mother Nature hits us hard sometimes and we go with the tools we best we can, and sometimes Mother Nature wins, and in this case, Mother Nature won,” Hamilton said.
Source: KGW8
