![]() ![]() “When you have a call out every single night, and every single day you’re out in the weather, and it goes on and on and on, it really is exhausting,” she said. She also said she and her five employees are exhausted. Now Linden is thinking about how to be more prepared with an office homebase, with heat and electricity from generators for the staff. What’s really different about this one is the length of the storm, she said. Linden said they were also sometimes trucking water to livestock and residents through the heavy snow and ice. “We had two different control valves that feed our reservoirs freeze – and they froze and thawed and froze and thawed.” “We had two trucks stuck at one point at our treatment plant, which is 1,600 feet above sea level up in the woods by our intakes,” Linden said. Several valves that were frozen were up high in elevation. The telemetry system went down in the first days, which meant that she couldn’t see what was happening on the system. Valves froze shut and had to be heat gunned. Residents’ busted pipes drained one of the system’s reservoirs. “A couple of our vehicles got stuck in the really powdery snow.” “Getting around the district has just been a nightmare,” she said. She and two other employees have been trying to keep the water on for Corbett residents. She said she couldn’t have imagined a more harrowing time than this. Just keeping the water running has been like something out of a winter survivor-type television show.Īna Linden manages the Corbett Water District. With trees falling over, heavy snows and icy conditions over the past several days, utility workers, like Alivia Pence, struggled to keep the taps on in Corbett, Oregon.Ĭourtesy of Steve Young Keeping the water running The food bank usually serves more than 100 families a week. ![]() Meanwhile there’s an elderly population that could use that food.” “That never happened in the 17 to 19-year history of it. “We haven’t been able to pick up any food for seven days,” Jordan said. He said it’s been near-impossible to get food to residents at this time from the Columbia Gorge Helping Hands Food Salvage. Jordan also helps run a local food bank in the basement of the Columbia Grange Hall in Corbett. I had cocooned in my bedroom with an electric blanket and a Little Buddy propane heater.”Ĭorbett is an unincorporated area on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. At one point I think my house was less than like 20 degrees. “I think for five days I had power for like four hours,” he said. He said at times he was huddled with a heated blanket that runs on batteries. ![]() That became seven days of one storm after the other with whipping winds. Jordan said before the storm hit, he thought this would be a typical one. So she hauled in, found a couple of big ol’ carboys and brought in enough water for the mule for two days.” “They needed water to flush the toilets, wash their face,” Jordan said of his neighbors. Jordan said many residents of Corbett have organized through Facebook and come to each other’s aid, including helping his neighbor’s livestock. He said there’s been downed trees and powerlines, impassable roads, school flooding, and the city’s water system froze in the last several days. John Jordan lives there, on the blustery cusp of the Columbia Gorge.
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