The ice storm that first hit Philomath six days ago will likely be remembered for different reasons.
A bad slip on the ice that caused an injury … a water meter that busted in the bitter-cold temperatures … a tree that came down on a house or vehicle. … Dangerous road conditions that kept people home. … And south of town, a multi-day power outage in an area that one person described visually as though a “bomb went off.”
Through it all, folks who serve in a public safety capacity have been on the job. Philomath Police reported an eerily quiet stretch but Philomath Fire and Rescue has seen triple the number of calls. Meanwhile, the city’s Public Works employees have been dealing with a multitude of issues.
“Surprisingly, the calls for service, as far as traffic-related calls, have been pretty low,” Philomath Police Lt. Dave Gurski said. “Overall, I think it was a little bit slower response times for calls just because of snow and ice but I think we were fairly well prepared for it.”
Philomath Fire and Rescue has seen three times as many calls over the past week, a stretch that included a structure fire Sunday morning at the BeVille Manor Apartments.
“Since then, up until last night (Wednesday), we’ve had 31 calls of service,” Deputy Fire Chief Rich Saalsaa said. “We would normally get somewhere between 10 and 12.”
Both the police and fire departments reported fewer crashes than anticipated, likely because most drivers are simply staying off the roads.
“We haven’t had any crashes — that actually boggles my mind,” Saalsaa said. “Normally, we get something at least in the curves on Highway 34 but yeah, I don’t think people ventured out so much.”
Out of the 31 calls that Saalsaa mentioned, seven were related to people falling on ice. Firefighters also responded to a tree fire on Fern Road just north of Aurora Lane that had ignited because of a downed power line.
“Between ourselves, Corvallis and Monroe, we have the lion’s share of all calls,” Saalsaa said. “It was actually very quiet in Alsea, Blodgett, Kings Valley and Adair — relatively. I’m not quite sure if it was the way the weather pattern ended up coming off Marys Peak and coming down into the valley … but it’s been kind of weird.”
The storm led to the cancellation of classes on all campuses within the Philomath School District Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (the students already had Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day). As of Thursday afternoon, Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said the decision had been made to return students to school on Friday at the regular start time.
“After much conversation and review, this afternoon, Philomath schools will be open at the regular time tomorrow (Friday),” Halliday said. “All buses will run on snow routes.”
Kings Valley Charter School had not yet made a determination on its status as of 4 p.m. Thursday.
The public safety agencies were prepared for what the ice storm might bring with winter tires going on a couple of police vehicles and Fire and Rescue putting chains on the tires of its rigs, including duty officer vehicles.
“We also had a meeting with Public Works and they had their sander loaded, chained up and ready to go. They were looking for direction from us on when to call out,” Gurski said.
Philomath Public Works started sanding streets this past Saturday with 15 to 20 yards of sand going down on designated routes in 4-1/2 hours. Another 15 to 20 yards followed Monday over a 5-1/2-hour period. The city has a street-sanding priority plan in place (the map is available online).
The Oregon Department of Transportation is responsible for Main Street and Applegate Street as part of the state highway system. Black said the most problematic roads in the city’s jurisdiction are in the Neabeack Hill and Starlight Village areas.
“As far as calls for service, Public Works does a really good job of sanding the streets to help assist with getting us in and out of some of those areas that can be a little bit more tricky,” Gurski said.
The cold temperatures, which got down to as low as the mid-teens earlier in the week, had an effect in different ways.
“We started dealing with broken water services for people’s residences,” Black added. “We’ve had quite a few freezing meters … a lot of them are on the property owner side but you know, a lot of people don’t know how to shut the water off and so they call us and we come out and typically give them a hand.”
Older, brass-type meters are the ones that have been freezing, especially in residences where water might not be running on a regular basis.
“We don’t use that type of meter anymore,” Black mentioned. “Now we use a composite that we’re switching over to but the old brass ones will freeze, especially if they’re exposed to the elements. We are in the process of changing them over as needed.”
Public Works has also been dealing with 10 or so city trees that have fallen as a result of the ice storm. Clearing trees off roads and paths was a focus Thursday, including along Hunsaker Bike Path where a tree came down on a house. A couple of others along the path are also down going Newton Creek Park.
Several trees on private property that residents are forced to deal with have also fallen, including a large one that fell on a vehicle.
On the roads, Fire and Rescue’s Saalsaa said a lot of orange cones have been placed because of lines down.
“What we’ll do is if the road is blocked or the lines are on the road, we’ll basically cone the area off, notify dispatch to let the power company know and let (Benton) County Public Works know and then we move on,” Saalsaa said. “Because at one point, we were running about three or four calls simultaneously on Wednesday.”
In weather events such as an ice storm, staffing can be a challenge, especially for personnel that live out of town.
“We did have some officers that couldn’t make it in for their shift and so they ended up having to get a ride in from the person that was on duty,” Gurski said. “And then we had one officer that lives a fair distance away in kind of a rural setting that ended up bringing one of his vehicles here and actually stayed in the police department parking lot for six days while he worked his shift and then also covered another shift for one of our officers that couldn’t make it.”
Philomath Fire and Rescue’s seven paid staff have all been able to work, including the district’s three duty officers — Chief Chancy Ferguson, Saalsaa and Capt. Viktor Bovbjerg. Volunteer personnel have also been working, among them are those stationed at the Inavale station to handle calls south of town, a particular area hit hard by the storm.
“And then we’ve had quite a few that were here (Station 201 on Main Street) that helped,” Saalsaa added. “The volunteers played a huge part in it.”
Public Works has seen its share of staffing challenges related to the conditions.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) was really bad — I had two guys come in late; they just couldn’t get in,” Black said. “One guy, he lives out on Fern and his power’s been out for days and there’s roadblocks and the whole bit.”
Besides icy roads, Gurski said flooding often creates challenges when it comes to patrolling the city. And speaking of flooding, melting ice and snow could potentially cause problems as temperatures warm up and more rain falls.
“That’s the next thing we’re looking for,” Gurski said. “I was just watching the level of the Marys River and seeing what’s going to happen with the snowmelt and with the additional rain coming in.”
According to the National Weather Service’s Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, the Marys River will get up to 18 feet Friday before the levels begin to go back down. Black, who has been through this type of situation many times before, anticipates flooding to occur at some point.
“I don’t know if we’re going to flood today or tomorrow but I definitely would think if we get heavy rain this weekend, it’s in our future,” he said.
