Having grown up in both New York and Hawaii, I’m used to a wide array of weather patterns depending on the season. New York is too frigging hot during summer and too freaking cold during winter (with the snowy season stretching into April one time I can remember). Hawaii usually has a late spring/early summer feeling year-round (albeit with five minutes of light rain a day), though it gets really hot in October and rains a lot in winter. Still, even though I’ve pretty much spent my entire adult life in Oregon, I still find myself caught off guard by the intense weather that changes every instant. This is the state where I’ve encountered snow, rain, sunshine, and snow again all in the span of 90 minutes. Therefore, I shouldn’t be surprised that a freak snowstorm hit Tillamook County and most of the Portland area last week. What got me this time was the chaos that resulted.
It all started innocently enough: it had been snowing for most of late February on and off at various levels. Given that it had also hailed and rained in intense bursts, snow was the least of anyone’s concern. Yet, as I drove home Wednesday night after a long day of work and at the movies, I noticed that the snow was a lot thicker than usual and was sticking to the ground. I figured that there would be a nice coating of frost dust in the morning and thought little of it as I wound down for the night, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons and reading about the Boston Massacre. I went to bed blissfully…and then woke up to this:
As you can see, we got about a foot of snow. Not thinking too much about it, I suited up for the day and hopped into my car…only to realize that my windshield was covered by multiple layers of snow and that my wheels couldn’t move at all. What should have been a typical Thursday with a few court hearings was now a “work from home” day. Fortunately, I didn’t miss too much; the court was closed for business, so the entire Tillamook legal world was working from home. It’s been years, possibly a decade, since I last remember having a snow day from school/work. While it’s always a little relief to be able to do my job without having to wear a suit, it gets a little aggravating when you realize that it’s keeping you from accomplishing vital goals for vulnerable clients. Still, it could have been worse: some areas around Tillamook lost electricity or running water for hours or days. Thankfully, my utilities stayed on even when my suit stayed off.
While the snow did let up a little that night, Tillamook remained frozen the following day. My driveway was cleared by a passing good Samaritan, but the court remained closed all Friday. While the streets were icy and the temperature made me want to hibernate, I completed an honest day of work as best I could by sending out emails and visiting clients at jail. As luck would have it, the highways around this time had mostly been cleared, meaning I had a path out of here. Knowing that Salem had been hit by far less snow, I got out of Dodge after clocking out for the week and spent the weekend in the tentacles of Cthulhu and cuddled up with Cthulhu’s cats.
When I came back to Tillamook, a lot of the snow had cleared up. There were still some closures and delays around town, but work trickled back to normal. Although there have still been some bursts of snow and rain, the weather has stabilized in time for March. Since spring should be rolling around this month, I don’t expect any snowstorms soon. Still, there’s nothing like a massive show of nature to show just how easily order can be torn asunder. I’ll just need to be ready for the next disaster, be it a blizzard, hurricane, inferno, or anything else Oregon has up its sleeves!
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| How Tillamook looked for most of this week throughout recovery. |
