Snow storm smashes into Salem 04:32 PM PST on Monday, December 29, 2003
By ABE ESTIMADA, kgw.com Staff
SALEM -- Roger Kuhlman put his truck into four-wheel drive early Monday morning as he prepared to go through his west Salem neighborhood to work.
He got to the street. The truck didn’t move.
“I could hardly get out,” Kuhlman said.
Kuhlman, the engineering and operations manager for Salem Electric utility, felt first-hand what impact a surprise snow storm had on Salem, Oregon’s capital city.
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A snow-laden tree fell into the backyard of this west Salem home. (kgw.com photo by Jim and Eva Collins) |
The storm packed its fiercest wintry punch for Salem, which saw up to a foot of snow in some areas. The Pacific storm system that brought the snow was aimed almost directly at the Salem area, said KGW meteorologist Bruce Sussman.
“Salem got a more direct blow from the storm than (Portland) did,” Sussman said.
Kuhlman said about six inches of snow fell on his west Salem neighborhood. The bad weather caused power to wink out for some neighborhoods in west Salem, Keizer and north Salem where Salem Electric serves its customers, Kuhlman said. Crews were working as fast as possible to pull fallen trees from Salem Electric’s lines.
But that wasn’t the worst that the snow storm left in its wake.
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Snow blankets this west Salem neighborhood street. (kgw.com photo by Jim and Eva Collins) |
Trees laden with heavy snow broke, crashing onto roadways. Tree limbs fell into power lines, causing power to arc in some areas. Between midnight and 10 a.m., when the snow fell, the Salem Fire Department responded to about 108 calls for help, said deputy fire marshal Sean Mansfield.
Mansfield said he wasn’t sure how many people may have been injured from storm-related accidents.
“We’re running crazy right now,” Mansfield said.
Most of PGE’s power outages were in the Salem area, where as many as 34,000 customers were affected, said Mark Fryburg, a utility spokesman. By late Monday afternoon, about 15,000 customers were still without electricity in the Salem area and the Highway 18 corridor.
The toughest outage was between Grand Ronde and Willamina west of Salem, where tree limbs crashed into a 57,000-volt line there, Fryburg said. Crews ventured into the countryside and using chainsaws to cut the branches away.
The largest power outages were being reported throughout south Salem, Fryburg said.
All available crews that were finished dealing with Portland area electricity problems were scrambled immediately to Salem, he said. Contractors for PGE were also called in to help deal with Salem’s electricity emergency.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Fryburg said.
“By this evening, the majority of customers will probably be back up,” he said. “I’m only optimistic because the weather’s improved, but we wont’ know how bad some of this is until we get there.”
The storm closed schools throughout the Salem metro area, including Chemeketa Community College, Western Baptist College, the Christian Center Academy and Daycare, and the Sonshine School daycare. The Community Action Head Start center started two hours late due to inclement weather.
