PORTLAND, Ore. — After 31 hours, Interstate 84 is now open. The interstate had been closed through the western Columbia River Gorge and was set to remain closed throughout Wednesday, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
ODOT had shut down the freeway from Troutdale to Hood River Tuesday afternoon as an ice storm moved in, saying it wanted to make sure no drivers became stranded.
Chains are required from milepost 37 to 63 for "all vehicles over 10,000 gross vehicle weight or vehicles towing," according to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). ODOT warned that conditions in the Gorge may change quickly and that some areas remain slick. Plows will work through the night to treat the road, ODOT said.
State Route 14 was also closed through roughly the same stretch on the Washington side of the Gorge, the Washington State Department of Transportation announced late Wednesday morning. A subsequent tweet Wednesday afternoon appeared to indicate that the highway was back open, but the agency's road closure map showed it closed again as of 4:11 p.m.
ODOT's TripCheck map showed the I-84 stretch still closed Wednesday morning with no estimated time to reopen, and agency spokesman Don Hamilton confirmed that the freeway likely wouldn't reopen any time Wednesday because freezing and icy conditions are expected to continue through the day in the Gorge, even as the rest of the Portland area thaws out.
"Solid ice is challenging to combat, and many of our tools don't work well in these conditions," ODOT wrote in a Tuesday news release. "Liquid deicer and salt are diluted, and sand is quickly buried. That being said, our crews will continue to work this closed stretch of highway throughout the storm to keep it in the best shape possible and ready to open when it's safe."
Snow plows could be seen along parts of the route Wednesday morning working to clear lanes.
Other transportation agencies like TriMet and the Portland Bureau of Transportation urged residents to stay home and avoid travel until the region thaws out Wednesday morning or afternoon.
TriMet said most bus routes were up and running Wednesday morning, but all buses were still equipped with heavy chains, limiting their speed to 25 mph, and some routes were still closed down or altered due to bad road conditions in certain spots. The entire MAX system remained suspended Wednesday morning. TriMet said riders should check trimet.org/alerts before heading out.
Temperatures remained in the low 20s or colder at ground level for most of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington on Tuesday, but the air warmed up at higher altitudes, KGW meteorologist Rod Hill explained. A band of moisture worked its way north through the Willamette Valley, and the different air temperatures caused freezing rain; precipitation that becomes rain as it falls but then freezes upon contact with the ground, creating ice on every surface.
Freezing rain can make road travel extremely hazardous very quickly, Hill warned, and it carries the possibility of bringing down trees or tree limbs, potentially exacerbating power outages even as the Portland metro area tries to recover from the damage wrought by Saturday's winter storm.