January 31, 2008

Winter weather forces school, road closures

SNOW BLANKETS REGION

Journal photo by Stephen McFadden

SNOW PUSHER. Ritzville’s public works crew spent countless hours this week plowing the city streets and working to remove excess snow.

By Jennifer Larsen

News editor

Old man winter is making himself at home, plaguing Eastern Washington first with chilly temperatures and then with inches of snow.

Road closures were partnered with school closures as area residents tried to navigate the white landscape.

Area businesses felt the strain of reduced manpower, as employees were stuck at home Monday and Tuesday.

A total of 7.3-inches of snow has accumulated since Sunday, according to the official local weather.

Law enforcement agencies have worked non-stop since the snow started last week. City, county and state officers responded to several accidents as well as helped dig people out or get them unstuck.

According to the Washington State Patrol, District 4 troopers responded to 648 collisions from noon on Saturday to 1 p.m. on Tuesday.

Troopers from the Ritzville detachment responded to 146 collisions in Adams County and part of Lincoln County. The Davenport detachment responded to the other eight collisions in Lincoln County.

Colfax responded to 55 collisions; Pend Orielle 7; Stevens County 6; and Ferry County 2.

Nine of the total collisions resulted in injuries from noon on Saturday to 2 p.m. on Monday, with only one reported in Lincoln County and two in Adams County.

Schools

Four schools in Adams County were closed Monday and Tuesday after a weekend of snow, freezing rain and wind.

The Benge, LaCrosse, Lind, Ritzville and Washtucna School Districts were closed Monday and Tuesday, with drifting snow the main cause of closure on Tuesday.

Ritzville School District closed Wednesday’s session of school Tuesday evening due to drifting snow and power outages. The rescheduled basketball game with Northwest Christian in Ritzville has been cancelled and will not be rescheduled.

Washtucna and Lind schools were delayed two-hours on Wednesday, with buses only traveling on paved roads in Washtucna and on plowed roads for Lind.

The Lind High School drama production slated for Wednesday night is postponed.

Transportation supervisors in Lind, Ritzville and Washtucna are the first to assess whether school should close.

Each is charged with driving the school bus routes early in the morning, advising the school superintendent of the conditions and discussing whether closure is necessary.

Ritzville Transportation Superintendent Jerry Talley and Superintendent Dwight Remick checked the routes Tuesday evening and discovered that some roads were impassable.

Tuesday morning, Talley was checking routes around 4 a.m. before he and Remick went out about 5:30 a.m. About halfway through the route, Talley’s previous tracks were gone.

“We were worried about getting buses stuck,” Remick said. “For Monday, it was snow on the ground. (Tuesday) it was blowing snow.”

The Ritzville School District school calendar doesn’t have any days available for snow closures, according to Remick.

Ritzville schools have closed three times for snow. On Monday, Remick considered having school on March 14, which is listed as a teacher-only day on the calendar.

But when school closed on Tuesday, the first choice would be to extend school in June. With the closure on Wednesday, Remick will recommend to the school board to hold school on June 9.

“It’s very real we could be out all week,” Remick said.

The dilemma for administrators is how the closures and extending school will affect graduation and how much earlier the seniors are released before the end of school.

Journal photo by Jennifer Larsen

Wipeout. Despite balance and skill, Lara Tice-York (left) falls off the sled, yet keeps up with Randi York, as they both careen down Jackson Street Tuesday.

In Lind, Transportation Superintendent Lynn Sackmann drives the roads before talking with Superintendent Dave Thomas.

Using contacts with the county and road crews, the duo makes a determination. When the school decided to close on Monday, “The county had already told us they couldn’t get to the back roads,” Thomas said.

On Tuesday, it was ‘iffy,’ so Sackmann went back out and drove farther and it looked like more snow with blowing and drifting.

Thomas debated with delaying school for two hours, but that wouldn’t help in the afternoon, he said.

The school district has two days in the school calendar that could be used as snow days – March 7, which was set aside as a teacher Learning Improvement Day/snow day, and June 6, the day after school was set to dismiss.

Thomas said he would recommend those two days be used to makeup Monday and Tuesday to the school board, which met Wednesday afternoon after being rescheduled from Monday. The board would probably also discuss what to do if more snow days happen.

The Washtucna School District relies on multiple sources when deciding whether to close school.

It starts with Transportation Superintendent Tom Hays physically checking all bus routes. Then he makes a recommendation to Superintendent Chris Gregory.

Gregory debates Hays’ recommendation and gathers additional information. He checks with the state and county road departments as well as the LaCrosse School District to coordinate joint activities.

He checks the state Department of Transportation’s Web site, reviewing the Travel Alerts and Slowdowns for Colfax, Washtucna and a couple of other centrally-located areas, the National Weather Forecast for projected wind speeds, snowfall and ice problems as well as the satellite images.

On Tuesday, Hays checked the routes at 6 a.m. and found that there was too much drifting and the decision was to close school rather than start two hours late.

Gregory will recommend to the school board to hold school on a no school day in March and extend school one day to Friday, June 6.

“But who knows, based on the weather,” he said, referring to planning for makeup days. “We don’t normally have snow days.”

If a basketball game rescheduled from Tuesday to Wednesday is cancelled, Gregory said the Washtucna and LaCrosse School Boards have authorized scheduling the game on Sunday before the county tournament starts next week.

Journal photo by Stephen McFadden

SNOW STREET. Main Avenue was covered in a blanket of snow by Monday morning, with several inches of fresh snow on the ground from a winter storm that passed through on Saturday and Sunday. Snow and gusty winds arrived on Tuesday morning.

Roads

County road crews were out in force for most of the day Sunday, working until dark in the Othello, Lind and Ritzville districts.

“Our supervisors spent most of the day making tracks. That’s why they’re in four-wheel drives. That’s so snowplows can follow the tracks and stay in the middle of the road,” Adams County Public Works Director Todd O’Brien told county commissioners Monday morning.

“We’re plowing with graders in tandem right now so if a plow gets stuck, there’s another one right there to pull it out.”

Those efforts opened up most of the pavement in the county, and crews focused their attention on clearing bus and mail routes on Monday.

“Conditions aren’t that good on gravel (roads). It’s mainly a visibility issue,” O’Brien said.

He explained that because of the large amount of accumulation, its difficult to find the edge of the road. O’Brien hoped to get most of the gravel roads opened Monday before more snow hit that night, which puts county crews working on pavement again.

According to O’Brien, it would take most of the week for crews to plow the roads and widening the plowed portions of the roads without more snow falling.

County crews noted ‘pretty good drifting on Wellsandt Road’ Tuesday morning. Snow on the roadway and drifting snow was reported on I-90 from Grant County line to Sprague Tuesday morning in addition to drifting snow on U.S. 395 from S.R. 26 to I-90 on Monday.

State Route 261 was closed Tuesday afternoon between Washtucna and Ritzville due to stuck vehicles and drifting snow.

Last week, Rosenoff and Paha-Packard Roads were closed on Jan. 20 due to drifting while the temperature continued to plummet into the single digit range. Rosenoff wasn’t completely opened until the following day.

Three county road crew members in the Ritzville area were out that day making their way through the county roads, including pulling out an Adams County Sheriff’s Deputy that was stuck on Rosenoff Road in the afternoon.

O’Brien explained the county’s policy for dealing with slick gravel roads. “We very rarely sand a gravel road,” he said.

In certain instances – such as a school bus sliding on a hill or not stopping at a stop sign – the county may take exception. The determination would be on a case-by-case basis.

Power

Avista Utilities spent most of Sunday night and early Monday morning working in the area, including a maple tree at the St. Agnes Catholic Church on Fifth Avenue and Chelan Street.

The tree branches were so heavy with snow that the tree was arcing with the power lines. Once crews were done there, they responded to 302 South Columbia Street where another tree was sparking against the power lines in the alley.

The Ritzville Volunteer Fire Department responded at 8:52 p.m. and stood by until the Avista crew arrived around 11:30 p.m. According to Ron Kimble of Avista, crews were out until 6:30 a.m. Monday.

Kimble also said that this area hasn’t been hit as hard as the surrounding area because of fewer trees. But some customers in Washtucna were without power Sunday night and some customers in the Sprague area were without on Tuesday.

Within the last couple of weeks, customers serviced by a line at Roxboro were without power for a total of about 36 hours when an owl caused a short and four miles of wire burned, melting the plastic insulators.

Customers were initially without power for 24 hours, followed by another 12 hours while crews replaced the wire.

Big Bend Electric Cooperative crews have been patrolling the area, getting snow off the lines and watching for other weather-related problems.

The accumulation of snow on Monday and the snow combined with drifting on Tuesday made it difficult for the trucks to traverse the roads.

“That’s what we’ve been facing is drifting snow,” Dave Barden, BBEC, said.

He reported that not more than 100 to 150 customers have been without power at once, and the power was out for the most part around two hours at the maximum.

Two lines from a substation at Marengo and one south of Ritzville left several hundred customers without power for short periods of time, ranging from 30 minutes to a couple hours.

Weather

According to the National Weather Service Forecast for snow through the weekend (Upper Columbia Basin) on the state Department of Transportation’s Web site:

Thursday – snow likely in the morning and a chance of show showers in the afternoon, accumulation one- to four-inches, southwest wind 10-20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph in the afternoon, 70 percent chance precipitation; 20 percent chance of snow showers Thursday night, southwest wind 10-15 mph.

Saturday – 40 percent chance of snow; 30 percent chance of snow showers Saturday night.