Winter Preparedness in the Gorge: Traveling after the storm

If possible, stay off the roads, check on your neighbors, and know the signs of hypothermia and frostbite.

When traveling, try following this advice from Skamania Emergency Management, and from Wasco County Sheriff (WCSO) Lane Magill, whose deputies sometimes help fish stranded vehicles out of the snow on Mount Hood. Columbia Gorge News interviewed Magill in early 2024.

Sign up for your county’s community warning system or check in with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio.

Stay home if possible. If you can’t, prepare, Oregon Health Authority’s (OHA’s) online checklist advises, starting with the vehicle:

Servicing the radiator; or checking the antifreeze yourself with an antifreeze tester, and refilling as needed.

Replacing windshield wiper fluid with wintertime mixture.

Replacing any worn tires and checking tire pressure.

If possible, keeping the fuel tank almost full, to help avoid ice in the tank or the fuel lines.

Bring an emergency kit: Jumper cables, blankets, bottled water, nonperishable food, and shovel.

Bring personal necessities like medication, food, water, blankets and warm clothing. A stormy-weather outfit should include a scarf or knit mask over the face and mouth, hat, mittens or gloves, several layers of loose-fitting clothing under a water-resistant coat and insulated, water-resistant boots, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Keep your cellphone charged. If there’s more than one phone in the car, keep one turned completely off and plugged in, so that you’ve got a reserve for emergency, Magill advised.

Finally, don’t let an AI navigator steer you in snowy weather, Magill said. Most locals don’t, but now and then, “people want to use their GPS unit. And they’ll say, ‘Oh, go this way. And the next you know, they’re buried in a snowbank somewhere.”

If you do get trapped in your car, OHA’s webpage advises you stay inside where it’s warm. If you get irretrievably stuck, you could call 911 so county deputies or search and rescue can be dispatched to extract you from the mountain’s maw.

Magill noted WCSO have also helped transport people to emergency appointments, got necessary medication when driving became impossible and dug the elderly out of stormed-over residences when they needed medical attention.

Sign up for weather and emergency alerts on winter weather at tinyurl.com/Skamania-Emergency-Alerts (Skamania), flashalert.net/id/HRSO (Hood River), www.klickitatcounty.org/249/Emergency-Management (Klickitat), member.everbridge.net/453003085612392/login (Wasco).