The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., March 25, 1949, page 1
Includes photograph titled: There were frozen jets of water protruding from
the Pacific Power & Light company's pipeline along Hood River, but this
shot wasn't taken this last winter. It was taken in January of 1916 when
Mrs. Arlene Whinchell Moore recalls, in an accompanying article, that a section
of pipeline was swept away. There was five feet of snow that winter and the
Mt. Hood Railroad company could not open its tracks until March.
HISTORY OF WINTERS THAT WERE "REALLY" SEVERE
By Arline Whinchell Moore.
Ed. Note: This is the third and concluding article on a series of recollections by Mrs. Moore on winters in Hood River county, of which she has records or that she has personally known.)
There was another winter in the 90's which I cannot fix
as to exact date. There were days and days of alternate snow and rain finally
settling into a steady fall of the beautiful white that topped off with an
ice storm. When clear, freezing weather took over, the snow was above our
cabin windowsills and everything was coated with thick ice. Believe it or
not, the horses and cattle could walk on the crusted snow without any danger
of breaking through. For some reason, the animals had all been released from
their stalls and finding that the corral gates blocked open, wandered out
onto the crusted snow. Weeks of standing in stalls had filled them with a
wild desire to run and play. Standing on a big box with my nose a flat against
a window, I was scandalized to see our usually staid old nags chasing each
other here and there, skidding around on the ice-covered snow with all the
abandon of playing youngsters. Soon, in trying to avoid the nipping teeth
of a little bay gelding, a big gray mare lost her footing and skidded into
a deep, narrow path that had been cleared from the house to the barn, where
she landed on her back, unable to shift their feet under her. Not the highstrung,
nervous type, after one or two futile attempts to extricate herself, she
simply lay still and waited to be helped out. It took a fancy bit of engineering
to get her out of that narrow place. It seemed to my eagerly watching eyes
that ropes were stretched from nearly every tree in sight and attached at
angles to the downed animal. There was a long rope leading from her to a
team of horses near the barn yard fence, when the snow had been kept clear,
so the animals could get to water. When they were started up for the pull
she eased out of her tight quarters on to the open snow with no difficulty.
She lost all desire to run and play over its treacherous surface. In fact,
she simply refused to stand on her own feet and had to slide over the snow
to the safety of the barn yard, where she arrived minus a few patches of
hide, but otherwise unhurt by her mishap.
My Uncle Clarence Knapp, did a great deal of hauling
with four and six horse teams in those days. As soon as the weather cleared
the calls were coming in from the outlying districts for food and other
necessities to aid the marooned settlers. I remember listening to him describe
taking a four-horse load of provisions out into the Trout Lake country. To
get there he had driven over the frozen Columbia. Our Uncle Clarence had
a particularly delightful way of detailing his doings and we children enjoyed
him to an nth degree. No matter how dangerous or difficult his mission, his
happy temperament always found something in it to laugh and joke about.
The winter of 1915-16 was very similar to the one we
have just experienced. There was one noticeable difference. The ground froze
before the snowfall as in this winter, perhaps not as much, however. When
the snow melted there was no sheet of ice left on the ground as has been
the case this winter. That winter, winter began early in November with a
little snow and a lot of rain and kept up more or less precipitation every
day throughout the month of November. Soon after the first of December the
fall increased to flood proportions. The old wooden bridge structure over
Hood river, east of town, was washed out about the middle of December and
the traffic into town had to be routed by way of Tucker bridge. Soon after
this mishap, a large section of the Pacific Power & Light company pipeline
was swept away. Crews set about replacing this loss at once. On New Year's
Day, while they were completing their job the temperature, which had been
below freezing several days, began to drop rapidly. There had been no
interruption in the electrical service due to the plant tie in or synchronization
of all P.P. & L. owned plants and the local plant had been out less than
two weeks.
Cold east winds and below freezing temperatures prevailed
the entire month of January. The last few days of the month the weather warmed
sufficiently to permit snowfall. When the snow was over there was a five-foot
blanket of snow in the open fields and drifted places where much deeper than
that.
My husband was relief operator at the old power plant
that winter, and we lived in one of the company's construction camp buildings,
which were being held until war conditions settled in Europe and they could
continue with the construction of the present power plant. The Mt. Hood Railroad
was the only way into the power plant in those days. They were unable to
clear their tracts for operation until sometime in March of 1916.
The winter of 1919-20 was the granddaddy of all winters
in this county. My youngest daughter was born on October 20, 1919. There
had been snow to show on the ground three times before her birth. An east
wind was blowing and the ground was freezing when I went to the hospital
on the evening of the 19th. Snow was just beginning to sift down. By morning
there was six inches of snow, which turned to rain during the day and soon
disappeared. Snow fell several times between October 20 and Thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving Day a real blizzards set in. When the skies cleared there
was between three and four feet of snow, then we had about ten days of below
zero weather. The temperature on our east porch registered 37 below zero
on the coldest night. Nearly all water service in town froze. We had no water
at our place for more than six weeks. The windows were a sheet of ice that
never melted off during the day. I thought my baby would surely freeze to
death. As is always the case when a hard winter hits, fuel was short and
was rationed to us. One day I looked at my baby and found her little hands
blue. Frantically checking, I thought she seemed cold all over. Scared nearly
out of my wits I called Max and insisted something had to be done about the
fuel situation at our house. In a short while he showed up with a couple
of those old-time coal-oil heaters, a little electric heater, two hot water
bottles and a sack of coal, and a strong opinion that we should be able to
manage with that. We did. We were reasonably comfortable thereafter. That
winter nearly ruined the fruit industry in our valley. Many orchards showed
the effects of the freeze for many years later.
The winter of 1921 was another most people living here
at that time will remember. The Columbia river highway was blocked from
Thanksgiving into early spring. Road equipment of those days wasn't what
we have these days. Mother Nature had to clean up most of the bad messes
she made when she went into one of her temperamental rampages.
My brother had just been discharged from six years of
Marine Corp service, the last four of which had been spent in the islands
of the Pacific. He had come to Hood River with a nostalgic yearning for the
green hills, apple blossoms, swimming holes, fishing, etc. Clad in the light
clothing of the tropics, which he stubbornly refused to change, and with
his blood thinned by four years in warm climates, he was just about the most
miserable man in the whole valley. He was so disgusted that we never have
been able to get him back to this land of his birth, except for a couple
of duty calls.
There are probably other winters in the past of the equal
severity which no particular incident has tied to my memory, or ones earlier
than my time of which I have never heard the story. It seems to me, as I
review the winters of my youth, that we always had some snow, and there was
always water running at full speed brim to the top of every creek and otherwise
"dry runs" whenever the spring "runoff" came. We did often have earlier springs.
Many times we, as children, have gathered the bluebells in January and February.
I think that most old-timers will agree that the very mild winters of these
later years are the unusual rather than the rule for this Northwest country.
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