I live in the SE Portland Oregon area between Milwaukie and Gladstone up on a hill. It’s an urban –rural translon suburb of Portland. Last Friday we were hit hard with about 4 inches of snow and then several days of freezing rain on top of that. Portland doesn’t normally get snow, but occasionally we will or the occasional freak cold storm that comes out of the Columbia River gorge. The recent storm was a Polar Vortex out of the arctic and took us down below the normal winter temps of high 30s to upper40s into the low 20-degree range combined with our winter rain and made for a lot of ice. Every leaf on plats was coated with up to 2 inches of ice. The ice built up on everything collapse patios, roofs, and with all of our large trees many came down or dropped big branches everywhere taking out electrical and cable internet.

It’s a mess and a national disaster has been declared. I have been without power for 4 days now and no expected repair date and most of the infrastructure is on the ground under debris. I’m not sure when internet will return either. Much of the cellular towers are down or overloaded as a result, perhaps people searching for help or watching videos online of warm tropical beaches to distract themselves.

I’m so grateful for a fellow Autodesk employee who reached out to me and loaned me power generator so that I can power my fridge and not lose food and also power a heater to keep me and my pipes from freezing. I have known Danny Hubbard for probably 20 years and can’t thank him enough for his kind gesture. He also put up with a stinky me picking it up complete with a cut on my head from a large chunk of ice hitting me. I’m sure I looked a bit disheveled.

Thank You Danny!

My home and property have damage, but luckily nothing major and most just the loss of my trees and plants. My uphill neighbors’ large trees did much of the damage dropping branches and blocks of ice on my garden, house, car, and my head. Hopefully this neighbor finally takes appropriate corrective maintenance since these 100 feet plus trees hang over my home. Luckily the loud noises of falling trees and ice are over and I can get some sleep tonight.

Some photos.

Portland, being Portland. Love this quirky fun place.This was a warning sign to drive carefully on the ice in Milwaukie. For the record, our town was spelled correctly, Milwaukee was not due to a printer running our of “i”.

Many lost not only power,but homes and autos.

My ice covered home.

Ice covered leaves

My car. It took almost an hour to get the door open. This was the one time that remote start and set heater to on was a feature that  I used.