{"id":20629,"date":"2024-02-13T20:14:54","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T04:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=20629"},"modified":"2024-02-13T20:15:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T04:15:32","slug":"oregons-ice-storm-hits-western-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/oregons-ice-storm-hits-western-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon’s ice storm hits Western hard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Hannah Field | News Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Western was swept by an ice storm during the week of Jan. 8 \u2014 resulting in three classless days and one late start. While students might have relaxed or studied when class got canceled, especially due to the three-day weekend, Campus Safety remained on high alert.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest concerns were the unknown stuff,\u201d said Associate Director of Campus Safety, Mike Hanson. \u201cAre we going to have power outages? Where can we take students to have heat if we lose it? We were trying to plan ahead for what we didn\u2019t know was coming up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A few minor rescues were conducted during the ice storm, with car trouble being a common denominator. Campus Safety generally assists with anything and everything on campus, the only service offered 24\/7 at Western.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re very lucky to be unscathed. We had a few slips and falls \u2014 we followed up with those folks \u2014 had a few pipes break, but those, ultimately, were pretty minor,\u201d said Hanson.<\/span><\/p>\n

Past winter seasons haven\u2019t been as forgiving. Years prior, a destructive ice storm downed trees and severed the power for different parts of the community. Campus Safety spent a month working on the damage, even calling in other crews to assist in the clean-up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ice, unlike snow, cannot be easily removed or shoveled. It has to melt or break, leading to times when the best option is to wait patiently until temperatures rise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMother nature leads us down \u2014 we have to gamble for what she leads us to,\u201d Hanson said.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Hanson, students behaved safely and followed instructions during the storm, which Campus Safety was thankful for.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are multiple ways to reach Campus Safety if a student is in need of assistance: call or text Campus Safety\u2019s phone line at (503) 838-8481 or email at <\/span>safety@wou.edu<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":20630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}