In January 1973, Becca and I, two cats and our dog Isaac piled into a 1959 white Pontiac station wagon and left North Carolina for New England. For some reason that I cannot remember, we ended up in Cabot, Vermont, a small community in the northeastern part of the state. We moved into a poorly heated apartment in a19th century building next to the Cabot Creamery and spent two months huddled next to an ancient radiator as the temperatures plunged to -30 below and snow accumulated on our door step. We were not well prepared for a Vermont winter. Our next door neighbor, obviously a Vermont native and used to dark frigid winters, kept busy by playing and singing (off key) “Over the Rainbow” on her piano for much of day. We soon learned that you needed to bring your car battery inside so it joined the five of us near the radiator. During one particularly cold morning drive, the Pontiac’s odometer (with a high pitched squeal) gave out after the needle swung wildly between 20-110 mph and froze. Nearly all New England towns regardless of size had libraries and Cabot was no exception so Becca and I spent our evenings reading while wearing our stocking caps and long underwear. We soon moved to Prickly Mountain near Warren, Vermont and shared a unique house designed by a group of architecture students. Prickly Mountain evolved into a community of houses designed and built by disaffected architects. In 2006, Bloomberg Businessweek described the product of all this unconstrained creative energy as “wedges sticking this way and that, cantilevered bridges to nowhere…and oddly positioned window, skylights and decks.” The Vermont frigid winter of 1973 with abundant ice and snow soon led to a chaotic spring where the aptly named Mad River in the nearby Sugerbush Valley ran wild and flooded communities nestled along its banks. The following Fall, Becca and I and the animals soon left for the coast of Maine to start a different chapter in our lives.
The snows that fell in the mid-Willamette Valley on December 6th, 2013 accompanied by single or below zero temperatures for 4 days has led to an interesting adaptation in my community of Corvallis. We (Corvallis residents) don’t usually think of snow as something that persists much after it initially falls. Typical Corvallis snowfalls are very transitory and, if we get some accumulation by lunch, it is usually gone by dinner. This snowfall was different. I look outside my office window and, by gosh, 5 days after the snow event much of the white stuff is still on the ground. Initially many in the community were confused and did not know the proper behavior. Many seemed to be determined to act as if nothing happened so continued to drive, bicycle and walk as if the snow and ice were not present. This behavior led to some chaos. I watched numerous drivers rush past stop signs, regardless of on-coming traffic, for fear that their vehicles might get stuck at intersections. I held my breath as bicyclists wobbled through snow drifts and dodged sliding vehicles, and pedestrians with headphones crossed streets directly in front of trucks that slipped and slid to avoid hitting them. However after this initial chaos, the community seemed to adapt and drivers displayed much more caution, pedestrians waited patiently before crossing streets, and some avid bicyclists decided to walk instead of riding their bikes through roadside snow banks. On Saturday, Becca and I strapped on our skis and spent several hours on the trails around Bald Hill. For the first time in my memory, I observed more cross country skiers than hikers on these trails.
November 1861 was a month of abundant rain in the Willamette Valley. The moisture created heavy snow packs in the high Cascade and Coast Ranges. A warm spell accompanied by heavy rain in early December melted much of the snow and resulted in a massive flood that swept away many emerging communities along the Willamette River and its tributaries. Following this momentous flood, the winter of 1862 was notable for severe cold weather. By mid-January 1862, Seattle and Olympia were covered in two feet of snow for weeks and temperatures plunged below zero. The lower Columbia River and the Willamette River between Oregon City and Portland were closed by ice and skaters were reported on the frozen river. Newspaper accounts remarked on the loss of human life and the economic damage related to livestock that perished in the cold and floods, the loss of wheat and other grain swept away in warehouses, and the lack of communications as navigation along rivers and roads became difficult. It was also reported that during and after the severe weather events, the communities and people in Oregon came together in mutual support and, that because of this cooperation, these communities became stronger and achieved a measure of self-reliance and a more distinctive identity. We are expecting rain and warmer temperatures later this week and the snow will be gone, but what I hope that our community will become slightly stronger because we adapted to changing conditions and became a little more self-reliant.
