News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Heavy snowfall in the early hours of Thursday, February 18, triggered a slide at Hogg Rock on Highway 20 west of Sisters and closed the highway for the second time in 10 days.
Dave Davis, an Oregon Department of Transportation spokesman, reported that the slide hit the roadway a little before 9 a.m., about a mile east of the Santiam Junction.
The onrushing snow left a log truck buried to mid-door level and its driver unhurt but trapped.
Several following drivers "saw the avalanche developing and stopped," Davis said. Though they avoided being buried, they too were stuck.
Road crews responded and got the cars out in about two hours, Davis said. A snowblower cleared path to the log truck and a snowplow hauled the truck out.
"Actually the snow was cleared in about three hours," Davis said.
However, highway officials decided that it would be safest to bring down the snow remaining on the slope to prevent further slides. According to Davis, Jack Robinson and Sons of Bend placed charges and set off two blasts between 6-6:30 p.m. to bring down the snow. Road crews cleared the highway and re-opened it at about 10:30 p.m.
According to Davis, the stretch of highway passing Hogg Rock is especially vulnerable to avalanche this year.
"There's about a quarter-mile there (where) there's not a lot of trees, there's not a lot to hold the snow," Davis said. "There's an awful lot of snow up there this years; it's also very heavy."
Avalanche wasn't the only danger on the highway on that stormy morning. Sheriff's deputies out of the Sisters station responded at about 8:30 a.m. to a jack-knifed semi-truck at the junction of Highway 20 and Jack Lake Road.
Deputies helped free the semi, dug out cars stuck in the snow, assisted with chain-ups and got traffic moving again just in time to receive word of the Hogg Rock slide.
According to Deputy Todd Williver, the weather contributed to more than one traffic mess. There was "not a lot of damage, but lots of slipping and sliding," Williver said.
For some, slipping and sliding meant fun in the heavy white blanket that covered the Sisters country. Cross-country skiers had only to strap on the slats at the front door to ski through their neighborhoods.
The storm worked quickly, dropping 10 inches of snow at the Sisters Ranger District station in town by 8:15 a.m. Black Butte Ranch and Camp Sherman reported 14-1/2 inches of the white stuff.
Gary Frazee, Lee Christensen and Andy Duran rolled out at 4:15 a.m. and had the city streets cleared by 7:30 a.m. Frazee noted that he had to pump water by city hall and along Cascade Avenue. He said that as soon as the weather gets better, the public works department will clean out the city's storm drains.
Frazee cautioned businesses who are having their parking areas along the streets plowed not to allow big berms to develop where they block traffic visibility. He also noted that city ordinances require sidewalks to be shoveled within two hours of a snowfall.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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