Kraig Scattarella/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Just a little less than 10 years ago today, it started to snow in the Willamette Valley.

And then it kept snowing. Then it snowed harder, followed closely by more than a half inch of ice, followed of course, by more snow.

The trio of storms that smacked northwest Oregon in December 2008 broke records, shuttered entire icy freeways and brought Portland to a grinding halt. It also brought the metro area its first white Christmas in decades, but, overall, the pounding snows, which came on the last shopping weekend of the holiday season, did more harm than good.

In the intervening 10 years, Portland has seen its share of winter storms and the city has learned valuable lessons about how to respond to snow, even if it happened later than sooner.

Don't Edit

When winter came

Don't Edit

On Dec. 14, 2008, a low pressure system slid down the Pacific coast and allowed a mass of frigid Arctic air to filter into the Columbia River Basin that pushed through the gorge and over the Cascades to roil life in Portland. Temps in the Willamette Valley plummeted to the high teens and stayed there.

Many schools closed their doors as temperatures dropped and some districts were forced to contemplate how to make up for the lost time, either by extending the school day or adding days at the end of the school year.

Don't Edit

Courtesy/NOAA

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

The first flakes began to fall soon after. They were wispy and light, not a huge cause for concern, but they were just the beginning. By Dec. 16, most of the Willamette Valley was white, but the worst was yet to come.

Don't Edit

A statue of a child is encased in snow and ice at Rossman Park in downtown Lake Oswego. Randy L Rasmussen/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Despite low rates of accumulation, the snow fell steady and light through Dec. 20. That's when the skies opened up and the real action started. For three days, a storm birthed in the Gulf of Alaska dropped more than a foot on the valley floor and significantly more than that at higher elevations.

Don't Edit

Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Some spots in Portland's west hills reported up to 30 inches of snow and drifts piled 6-feet high in some places. About halfway through the deluge, precipitation turned from snow to ice, adding a treacherous slippery layer to an already fraught situation.

Don't Edit

Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Torsten Kjellstrand/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Stephanie Yao/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

"It's sort of looking like a glacier out there with the layers," Clinton Rockey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said at the time. "Now you can't see the ice out there when you're driving. When you bury it under snow, holy cow, you just made a really slippery situation get worse."

The Oregon Department of Transportation closed Interstate 84 from Troutdale to Hood River as more than 100 big rigs stacked up waiting to transit east. U.S. 26 was shut down between western Washington County and the coast after numerous trees collapsed across the ice-glazed roadway.

Don't Edit

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Snow chains or traction tires were required on all state highways running through Portland, including Powell Boulevard, Sandy Boulevard in outer east Portland and 82nd Avenue.

Ice-coated limbs, buffeted by howling winds from the east, broke loose from tree trunks and knocked out power to at least 60,000 households from Hillsboro to Sandy and up onto the flanks of Mount Hood.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

The airport stayed open, but that meant little to the hundreds of travelers stuck there because of canceled flights.

Don't Edit

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Measurable snow fell for 11 straight days and, with about 19 inches recorded, it was the snowiest December in Portland since records began in 1940. It was also the second snowiest month ever in Portland, though it was well behind January 1950, when the National Weather Service recorded more than 40 inches of snow.

While some people made the most of it, cross-country skiing around town and having snowball fights, the succession of storms on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year took a heavy toll on Portland businesses, already hurting from the start of the great recession.

Don't Edit

Jamie Francis/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

Many stores closed for the duration of the storm. Those that remained open, like Thinker Toys in Multnomah Village, saw sales drop dramatically.

"We've dodged the weather bullet mostly for 15 holiday seasons ... usually it comes in January or February," owner Tye Steinbach said at the time. Thinker Toys saw business down by roughly 80 percent he said.

Don't Edit

Stephanie Yao/The Oregonian

Don't Edit

"The collective response in Portland is to shut down and wait until the weather goes away," Steinbach said.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Lessons learned, eventually

Don't Edit

It would take a few more paralyzing storms, but Portland would eventually change the way it responds to extreme snow events.

After the debilitating deluge of January 2017, the city added six new salt spreaders to its arsenal of snow-abatement machines. Road salt had long been decried as an environmental hazard, despite its widespread use elsewhere.

Don't Edit

Courtesy/ODOT

Don't Edit

Portland will still try to limit its use of road salt to a handful of roads that are routinely rendered impassable in snow, and where runoff won't send salt into rivers and streams. But in severe storms, the city said it would consider more widespread use.

Despite its increased capacity, the city will still operate with some limitations when the next big snow storm comes. The city will still only plow roughly a third of its roadways, with a focus on public transit and emergency routes. Starting in 2017, however, the city began to include key school routes and the central business district -- where heavy traffic was previously thought sufficient to keep roads clear -- in an effort to avoid a citywide shutdown like those of 2017 and 2008.

It remains to be seen how much of that beefed-up snow-fighting force we'll need this winter. The Farmer's Almanac has forecast a warmer, but wetter, cold season for the Pacific Northwest, with the best chances for snow coming in January and February.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Oregonian reporter Elliot Njus contributed to this report.

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048