Snow, Ice Hammer Northwest With Its Worst Storm in Years

Much of the Pacific Northwest spent Wednesday coping with the aftermath of the worst snowstorm to hit the region in years, as heavy snowfall turned to freezing rain and slush -- causing power outages, flight cancellations, school closures and hundreds of traffic accidents.

Forecasters for the National Weather Service predicted the freezing rain in western Washington would turn wet late Wednesday as a warm front moved in, prompting fears of flooding. The weather service issued an urban flood advisory in Seattle, while six western Washington counties were put on flood watch.

On Wednesday morning, 119,000 households in the Puget Sound region were without electricity. And Portland, Ore., reported outages in more than 40,000 homes.

“The problems we’re seeing are related to the rain and ice, as opposed to the initial snow,” said Dan Williams of Seattle City Light. “The ice adds to the weight on the tree limbs, and when they come down we have power outages.”

Tuesday’s snowstorm dumped as much as 9 inches in western Washington and Oregon, and more than 2 feet of snow in the nearby Cascade Mountains and Coast Range.

At Seattle-Tacoma International and Portland International airports, hundreds of flights canceled because of ice on the runways and insufficient deicing fluid left thousands of travelers stranded. The Portland airport was closed again Wednesday.

Most schools in Seattle and Portland were closed Wednesday for a second day. And a stretch of Interstate 90, between North Bend, Wash., and Ellensburg, Wash., remained closed because of treacherous driving conditions.

The Washington State Patrol investigated 968 collisions between 5 a.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday. More than half occurred on Interstate 5 between Thurston County and the Canadian border. Puget Sound-area police departments reported many more crashes and fender-benders than usual. There were no traffic fatalities.

Seattle police, however, reported that a woman believed to be homeless was found dead in a downtown parking garage, a victim of the cold.

In Oregon, forecasters expect the below-freezing temperatures to remain until Friday, meaning that much of Portland and the Willamette Valley south to Eugene would likely remain “a sheet of ice,” meteorologist Paul Tolleson said.

Seven inches of snow in Portland nearly brought the state’s largest city to a halt Tuesday. Even the city’s light-rail commuter train skidded to a stop on icy rails on some routes.

“The city ... is just paralyzed. We are asking people, as we did yesterday, just to stay home,” Dave Thompson, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, said Wednesday. “Our crews are out there nonstop, plowing, standing, deicing. But you know, this is an ice storm -- it’s Mother Nature; when she plays, she wins.”

Interstate 84, which runs along the Columbia River, was closed east of Troutdale, and U.S. 101 was closed north of Rockaway due to mudslides.

In eastern Washington, a winter storm warning was in effect as a blizzard-like storm moved over the Cascade Mountains, shutting down roads and prompting Spokane city plow teams to go into “code red.”

Snow accumulations from Tuesday’s storm were the largest since 1996 in western Washington, which typically has mild weather. Accumulations ranged from 3 inches in Everett, north of Seattle, to 11 inches at Hoodsport on the Olympic Peninsula.

Three deaths were linked to the snow and cold. In addition to the homeless woman found in Seattle, a 3-year-old boy died of hypothermia after sneaking out to play in the snow early Tuesday in Union, Ore., authorities said. In British Columbia, the cold was cited as a factor in the death of a woman who wandered away from a care center for the mentally ill.

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Times staff writer Tomas Alex Tizon contributed to this report.