Cold snap to stick around until Friday
Southwest Washington shivered through a third consecutive day of bone-chilling temperatures Wednesday, each day colder than the last.
Firefighters scrambled to numerous reports of burst pipes. While electrical use spiked to an all-time high in Clark County, the cold weather overloaded a natural gas compressor south of Chehalis — disrupting gas service on the coldest day of the year.
Forecasters say the arctic grip won’t relent until late Friday.
At that point, warmer marine air will begin to erode a stubborn ridge of high pressure that’s allowed cold interior air from Canada to settle over much of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, forecasters say, the transition is likely to arrive in the form of freezing rain.
“The system’s not very strong, so it’s not going to scour that (cold air) out,” said Wanda Likens, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Portland.
Dense cold air will linger at the surface, causing rain to freeze on contact.
The weather service calls for the high temperatures to climb into the 40s by Saturday, with overnight lows in the mid-30s. That may feel tropical for many residents, at least compared with Wednesday’s early morning low of 10 degrees.
Area firefighters spent a second day bounding from one burst pipe to another, prompting a general appeal from Fire Marshal Jim Crawford for property managers to improve their maintenance of sprinkler systems. Burst pipes will trigger automated alarms at schools, apartments, offices and commercial structures.
“We are the leanest fire department in the state and must rely on these built-in systems to be maintained correctly,” Crawford said in a prepared statement. “Others can be put at risk if fire crews are standing by at the site of system failures.”
In Yacolt, three inches of water pooled on the floor of the elementary school after a sprinkler pipe burst for the second day in a row. Two pipes burst at Battle Ground High School on Wednesday, one that drenched the office of school Principal Tim Lexow.
“This is only December,” Vancouver firefighter Jim Flaherty said. “We potentially have two more months of this.”
Meanwhile, several Vancouver schools were plagued by the disruption in natural gas supply.
Walnut Grove Elementary School was closed, following a two-hour late start, for lack of gas-fired heat. Students were bused to the Gaiser Middle School gym while parents were contacted. To pass the time, they sang holiday songs and were entertained by the Gaiser orchestra.
Columbia River and Fort Vancouver high schools also had temporary gas interruptions. One gas boiler at Gaiser failed while an electric boiler continued to operate, district spokeswoman Kris Sork said.
Energy use surges
With the mercury plummeting, energy usage spiked to an all-time high.
Clark Public Utilities reported a record for peak demand between 7 and 8 a.m. Wednesday as people cranked up their thermostats. At 1,115 megawatts, Clark County devoured the equivalent of the entire output of Bonneville Dam running full out.
The arctic air also played a role in at least two school closures.
Wy’east Middle School students stayed home a second straight day after the school’s 30-year-old electric boiler failed under the stress of fighting frigid temperatures. Reg Martinson, Evergreen district facilities manager, said repair crews were still waiting on critical replacement parts. The failure in a heat-transfer system became evident Monday, when temperatures in some areas of the school dipped into the 50-degree range, he said.
That’s far below acceptable levels of 65 degrees to start the school day, before leveling at 68 degrees, Martinson said. On Wednesday afternoon, spotty heating remained a problem. There’s a chance Wy’east could reopen today with one classroom wing closed off to its 843 students until repairs are complete, he said.
Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.
