Ursula Evans: People ran out of water due to well pumps being electric, meaning toilets wouldn’t flush and water was unavailable for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. We had to fill our bathtub as soon as the electricity went out because our well is on a pump.
Zoey Ralston: My friends – like many others– lost all of their venison and, therefore, their main meat supply for the year when their freezers lost electricity for so many days. A lot of people rely on venizon for their family’s meat for the year.
Taytam Trauthwein: Due to road blockages, people were unable to get immediate emergency care. Emergency services were unable to get to a Myrtle Creek residence where a man fell out of his wheelchair and was left lying on the ground for two days before help could reach him. Some people had to use melted snow for washing dishes and bathing. Overtime became a major difficulty for workers such as electrical crews and tree cutting crews. My dad had to work a lot of extra hours that week to help get Fred Meyer completly restocked. Butch Mchargue head of grocery price changing at Fred Meyer worked almost 50 hours total to help the entire store restock refrigerators and freezers. “It was huge and was a lot of work with few employees to help. We had to restock almost all of the fridge and freezers. It took almost a week and a half to get everything back to normal,” Mchargue said.
Julius Benson: My truck was snowed in for a week, and I couldn’t get out of my driveway. I tried once to dig a path out because my truck was parked under a tree which was leaning seriously from all of the snow, but I couldn’t even move the truck five inches. All I had was a garden shovel, and the snow was falling quicker than I could shovel it. The city didn’t clear the road from either the snow and ice or the branches. I ate a lot of cereal, but I was prepared with batteries. It got disheartening that the power kept coming in and going out, but thankfully I didn’t lose access to water.
Dustin Cosby: Adviser Dustin Cosby’s storm experience was both cold and frightening. With only one small, old kerosene lantern for heat or light, he sat stranded in his house at the base of a steep, tree-covered hill in Drain. As he sat in his house, he could hear trees falling around him. One was so close that he says it “shook the ground.”
When his power went out Saturday, he immediately contacted his own college professor as he is going back to school to receive his Masters. He had an assignment due Monday and got an extension, but just for 24 hours. When Thursday came around, he still had no power, and to make matters worse, he now didn’t have water. With no power in Drain, their water system stopped working. Cosby said he started to get ill from how cold the air was in his house, but he regained power and was able to turn in his assignment.
Jayden Dukes: I was dog sitting at someone else’s house with the added stress of having to make sure their home didn’t get damaged due to storm issues. Also, the dogs had special diets which required refrigerated meat and cottage cheese, but the refrigerator wasn’t working. And, we didn’t have any running water.