sequoia found a walking stick DSC02251

Sets

snowed-in 2008-12 [157 photos] we were snowed into our little hillside house for fourteen days, dec 14-27.

this would be normal if we lived in canada or minnesota or new york. but not portland. the home is not built, insulated, or heated for this type of weather, and we're not well-stocked with snow gear - no chains for the cars, no boots or jackets intended for snow, not even a snow shovel or sled :-(.

our hill is really steep and icy the garbage truck can't make it up the hill, nor can FedEx, UPS, and a neighbor told me the normal police cruisers can't make it up here either.

groceries are a 45 minute hike (without kids), or an all afternoon expedition (with kids).

thankfully we still have power, because its an all-electric house. the weather is starting to screw up our schedule of relatives visiting for the holidays :-(

as of saturday night dec 20 2008:

1. lots of flights into and out of PDX were canceled

2. 40,000 PGE customers lost power

3. chains were required on all portland area highways. some local roads were closed

10-day weather/temperature forecast

the portland office of the national weather service described the weekend snowfall (11-13 inches from saturday through monday morning) as the biggest snowfall seen in portland since 1968 - 40 years.

on the afternoon of day 10, the temperature stayed above freezing long enough for some serious meltdown, hopefully it can stay in the mid-high 30s long enough for everything to melt!

xmas was day 12, we celebrated anyway despite the absence of scheduled relatives & gifts. the air temperature is warmer and there's obviously some melting going on (rachel's first observation this morning was that the layer of ice on our bedroom windows had melted off) -- but the roads are still deep and there are cars stranded left and right.

day 14 brought a snowplow. actually its a construction loader that looks like it was drafted into snow duty, and instead of plowing snow into the side of the road and burying our driveway, they scooped up buckets of snow and backed down the hill with them.