Washington state paralyzed by snow, shutdown of Interstate 90

Snowfall in Washington in January was relentless, Gov. Chris Gregoire noted.

The Associated Press

2/1/2008

SPOKANE, Wash. — Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a state of emergency Thursday for 15 counties, mostly in snowbound Eastern Washington, which has been nearly cut off from the state's west side by mountain avalanches and paralyzed by inability to get all the snow off streets and highways.

"The snowfall this month has been relentless and this proclamation will help counties with response efforts," Gregoire said in a statement.

Long shutdowns of Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, the main east-west route across the Cascade Mountains, have increasingly disrupted the state's economy, the governor said. Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said 7,000 trucks cross the pass each day, about one quarter of total traffic on the pass.

The pass remained closed a second day with no estimated time for reopening after an avalanche about 150 feet wide buried the eastbound lanes about 2 a.m. Friday, department spokeswoman Erin Bogenschutz said.

More than five feet of snow has fallen this week and the National Weather Service predicted another 4 to 10 inches by 4 p.m.

The pass was closed for 28 hours ending Wednesday morning because of heavy snow and avalanches. Less than six hours later, another slide hit two cars and the freeway was closed again. No one was injured.

The governor's announcement, after briefings by municipal and county officials in Spokane, allows local governments and the state Transportation Department to bypass normal bidding requirements so they can quickly hire private companies to help with snow removal.

The emergency proclamation includes Spokane, Adams, Clark, Columbia, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, Yakima and King counties.

The governor noted that several Western Washington counties adjoining mountain passes are covered under her proclamation but added the emergency was not severe enough to justify an application for federal disaster aid.

U.S. 2 over Stevens Pass was closed for seven hours Thursday as crews cleared the wreckage of several tractor-trailer rigs. The other main winter route across the Cascades, White Pass, remained open with traction tires required on cars and chains on trucks.

Windblown snow closed more roads and schools Thursday in Eastern Washington.

Washington State University in Pullman joined a long list of colleges, universities and school districts in the eastern half of the state that suspended operations and canceled classes because of treacherous driving conditions. Classes were canceled again Friday and the University of Idaho in Moscow, just across the state line, also was closed.

Near Fairchild Air Force Base, outside Spokane, a 20-mile section of U.S. 2 was reopened Thursday afternoon after being closed for about 10 hours by blowing and drifting snow, the Transportation Department said.

A new storm that passed through the region early Thursday dumped as much as 7 inches of new snow on Spokane, with outlying areas reporting as much as a foot. Occasionally heavy snow continued falling overnight but some respite was predicted by midday Friday.

In the southeast corner of the state, heavily traveled U.S. 195 was closed for more than six hours Thursday from south of Pullman, home of WSU, to the Idaho border.

Schools in Spokane were closed for a fourth consecutive day Thursday and will not reopen this week because of snowy and icy roads. The snow days in Spokane, which has one of the largest public school systems in the state with 30,000 students, were the first since 1996.

Among those digging out in Spokane was Orie Bowsher, whose driveway was lined with 8-foot-tall piles of snow. "It's real high, like the pyramids," Bowsher said Thursday of his snowbanks, after he dealt with the area's third snowfall since Saturday.

And all of it has been piled without the assistance of a snow blower. Bowsher and his wife use shovels.

"I had double back operations, but I get along," he said. "The wife and I get out there and get at it."