Snowpocalypse imminent

This has been the buzz in Portland all week:

How bad will this winter storm be?

Stung by the surprise snowstorms of the past two years, Portland’s official bodies are trying to get ahead of the game, not least by releasing school three hours early (During last year’s Snowpocalypse — which arrived early afternoon — I spent 3 hours driving about 10 miles across Southeast Portland collecting the kids from school)

Sort of related: for the past year, PGE has been aggressively trimming trees that impinge on power lines.

As at the official level, so at the personal. I’m spending my morning battening down the hatches. Mainly with the memory of having gone the better part of a week in 2021 without electricity

• Charging all the rechargeable things
• Doing every last bit of laundry
• Replacing batteries in smoke alarms
• Testing the gas fireplace
• Last minute run to the hardware store for matches, and, yes, batteries

Luckily we made our grocery runs early in the week, and we tend to have many weeks of food on hand anyway.

(The actual snow, FWIW, is due to arrive tomorrow. But freezing temps beginning today & that’s usually when the power lines start going down…)

Do you doubt that we live in an era of climate chaos? If it isn’t record heat in the summer, it’s record snow in the winter. We are slowly — too slowly — adjusting to the reality of the Anthropocene

Photo at top from last year’s snowstorm, Feb. 23, 2023

Addendum

Hot take (lol 🥶): Winter weather in the Pacific NW is actually worse than other wintry places for driving and general daily life

the snowy-rainy-icy stuff we get here is just worse to live in than deep-snow-all-winter

ALSO those places shut down during shit weather too…it’s just more regular so they don’t talk about it as much