Snowpocalypse: Weeklong Snow and Ice Storms Bring School to Standstill

Just as students were meant to be returning to campus for Paideia, snow fell in Portland –  followed by a week of sub-freezing temperatures and ice storms that hurt the school and the city. While the weather was originally predicted to start much earlier, Community Safety Director Gary Granger explained that forecasts can often be unreliable in the area, and so he, along with many others on campus, monitored the situation through the National Weather Service, which according to Granger has “three levels of cautions: there's a watch, an advisory, and a warning.” Granger said, “When we reach the advisory level, we tend to think, ‘oh, we should probably start doing some planning for whatever the weather event is going to be,’ and when they issue a warning, and the event is within 24 hours, we consider it pretty likely that there's going to be serious weather,” after which point a decision is made and a notice is sent out to the community. 

Such a moment came on January 9, 2024, when the first of 17 schoolwide emails about the weather was sent. This email was sent from Granger, as the Chair of the Emergency Response Team, and it read “The National Weather Service is indicating the potential for inclement weather this week that may include snow, sleet, ice, and other winter weather events that make getting to, around, and from Reed challenging. We take this opportunity to share with you information on how we decide and communicate whether the college will open, delay, or close during inclement weather. Please read the information carefully, and prepare for inclement weather accordingly.” This information would soon become common knowledge for all students on or around campus.

While the weather was initially predicted to hit on Thursday, January 11, the snow did not begin until well into Friday, January 12, and the worst of the weather, the ice storms, did not begin until January 16, the Tuesday of Paideia week. 

Throughout the storm, the Emergency Response Team continued communications with the student body, including announcing campus shutdowns on January 16, part of 17, 18, and 19, with the campus returning to somewhat normal operations as the ice and snow melted the following weekend, just in time for classes to begin as scheduled on January 22.

During the storm walkways around Reed were severely impacted, and large reductions in food service took place, with Commons serving almost nothing but brunch for the week. Granger explained the challenges that come with a weather event such as this, saying on the food situation that it was a question of  “can the food service workers, can Bon Appetit staff, get to campus to make and serve the food?” and “at a certain point, the vendors who deliver food can't get here. So we start to run out of certain kinds of food. So that was a challenge that took place. That's why Bon Appetit kept changing their hours, because it was based on how many people they could get to campus, and what food they had available to serve.” Granger said there were issues across campus with staff being unable to get to and from campus, with some Community Safety Officers having to sleep on campus in order to ensure the office was staffed 24/7.  

During the storm, the Reed community faced issues of decreased food options, difficult terrain, and of course below-freezing temperatures, with some days’ high being a meager 19 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, heating in residence halls was maintained, and students were able to entertain themselves with careful walks in the snow. However, after the ice, conditions became much more treacherous, on January 16 the Canyon had to be closed because at the time “Some trees already have fallen due to this past weekend’s weather, and others appear to be at imminent risk of falling. The trees on campus are not conditioned to handle ice loads, and they are at high risk of falling when ice builds up,” according to the email sent out by the Emergency Response Team on that date. Warning signs were also erected at Canyon entrances, and stayed up until the ice began to melt. Students were also seen out on the frozen-over Reed Lake, which prompted most of the Emergency Response Team emails to include a warning that read “Please stay off of Reed Lake, as it is not as frozen as it appears and poses serious risks for falling through thin ice and hypothermia.”

Paideia still took place during the week of snow and ice, though to less effect than previous years as both class leaders and potential attendees navigated the hazardous weather. Josh Ogawa ‘25 has run a class titled “Lightsaber Academy” since his Freshman year, but in this third iteration he said, “Attendance was very poor this year compared to last, where I had somewhere around 60 people attend, compared to this year’s 8.” Lightsaber Academy ran for multiple days, and on its second day, Wednesday, January 17, Ogawa said that no one showed up to take the class. 

Bailey Galt ‘25 also attempted to run Paideia classes through the Association of Reed Gamers (ARG) club, including a class “focusing on teaching various aspects of playing TTRPGs,” however as they were scheduled for Thursday through Saturday, January 18-20, the ice was an incredible challenge. Galt said, “I live a mile off campus, so the first problem on the first day was that I was ten minutes late because I had to walk slowly to avoid falling.” While Bailey was able to make it on time to the second day, only one person showed up, which prompted the decision to move the “class online, because despite my determination to go in person it was clear that no one was going to come if I did it in person. Thankfully, since the Paideia was an official ARG Paideia, it was pretty easy to move it to the ARG Discord, and six people showed up.”

As the ice began to melt, more problems that the ice storm caused began to reveal themselves, most noticeably in the freezing of pipes. Granger noted the sprinkler system in the Bio-Physics Breezeway as one place where water was found. The Emergency Response Team noted in their last email about the weather that “Facilities still has a lot of work to do. Our attention has been focused on campus safety, accessibility, and emergency response. We currently have about 50 existing, weather-related issues that we could not immediately correct or we had to band-aid together to keep the community and property as safe and as functional as possible. Action items range from heating, electrical, frozen pipes, and roof leaks, among many other things.” TheQuestcontacted Facilities for comment, but did not get a response in time for publication. 

Now that campus has thawed, life for most at Reed has returned to normal, however, Granger warned that “Winter is not over,” emphasizing that February “tends to be at least as wintery as January here. The gym collapsed in February. The giant snowball that crashed through the RCA apartment was in February.” In order to prepare for this, Granger asked that everyone be “individually prepared to sort of survive for a couple of days. So everybody's got a little food tucked away, water, and a flashlight – we didn't lose power on campus, but we could.” He also recommended that people get “traction devices for their shoes, that makes getting around relatively easy and safe.” Granger mentioned the Reed Community Pantry as a resource to go to in order to help with these emergency stores. The Pantry’s hours and more information about it can be found on the Reed website, and it is located in the basement of the GCC. While the storm was rough and caused serious damage to the wider Portland community, its effects on Reed have been all but erased since the thaw, with no catastrophic damage being reported such as the gym collapse of February 22, 2021. With Granger’s reminder to be prepared, the second semester can now begin on a colder, stranger note than usual.