Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home area joined the rest of the Willamette Valley late for a dose of snowy weather Monday morning.
Snow didn’t start falling in the area until about 7 a.m.
“I got here at 7 a.m.” Public Works Director Mike Adams said. “It was just starting by 8 o’clock, we had our sander out going to work.”
Public Works mostly sanded the hills and side streets it normally follows if school buses are running, Adams said. This included areas like Oak Terrace, 18th Avenue, Mountain View and Ames Creek Drive. Oregon Department of Transportation handles Highway 20.
Aside from a single car reportedly slipping off into a river near Sweet Home, public safety officials were unaware of any accidents Monday morning. That accident was handled by Oregon State Police, but the officer on the call was unavailable at press time.
“We’re busy,” Fire Chief Mike Beaver said early Monday afternoon, but it had nothing to do with the weather. “We’ve had four to five medical calls already.”
Sweet Home Police Department and dispatch reported no accidents at all.
“Fine,” Police Chief Bob Burford said of the day. “Piece of cake. No problem, other than mid-morning. It was a little difficult for some patrol cars to get up some hills.”
As far as traffic, the worst problems were a few cars spun out in the roadway, Chief Burford said.
One patrol car has studded tires, Chief Burford said, but the department was waiting to see how the weather turned before changing tires on additional patrol cars.
The Weather Channel’s forecast for the area, based on Eugene data and matching Corvallis data, predicted a temperature of 25 degrees Monday night making icy roads likely. The weather was supposed to clear Monday night and remain sunny through Tuesday before turning to rain or snow again on Wednesday.
That’s why the fire department chained up a couple of engines in anticipation of freezing temperatures making roads slick, Chief Beaver said.
“It’s going good,” Les Schwab Tire Center Manager Mitch Johnson said. “People are getting snow chains for traveling on the passes, and people are switching tires.”
As snow started falling Monday morning, “we got real, real busy,” Johnson said. “Phones were ringing off the hook, and they just came in, in swarms.”
He heard a few stories about drivers spinning off the roads into ditches but not as many as usual, Johnson said. He thought that might be because many persons had the day off for the holidays and decided to wait and see what happens before venturing out.
Pacific Power spokesman Jon Coney said Pacific Power was dealing with power outages around the valley.
He reported that Sweet Home had no power outages, but Lebanon had 43 without power.
One resident of Whiskey Butte Road said her power was out.
Wet heavy snow caused trees to fall on power lines knocking out power to a number of customers, Coney said. Albany had 3,500 without power; Corvallis, 2,200; Dallas and Independence, 3,457; and Junction City and Monroe, 400.