SEATTLE — First came snow, then bitter cold. Now more snow is expected across Washington state, as much as 2 more feet in the mountains by Thursday, and the National Weather Service says another snowstorm could hit over the weekend.
Amid concern over shelter space for the homeless, temperatures fell to 3 below zero this morning at Spokane and Yakima and 1 below in the Tri-Cities of Kennewick, Richland and Pasco. West of the Cascade Mountains, where subfreezing weather is uncommon, the temperature shortly after sunrise was 19 degrees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
In Bellingham, nearly 30 people at a seafood business were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning today. Bellingham Fire Chief Bill Boyd said they were overcome by fumes at the Homeport Seafoods cold storage business. Firefighters found everyone conscious, but some people were showing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Investigators suspect warehouse doors — closed due to freezing temperatures — trapped carbon monoxide emissions from forklifts, Boyd said. A Homeport Seafoods manager declined comment.
Temperatures across Western Washington will likely remain mostly below freezing through Christmas, Dennis D’Amico, a weather service meteorologist in Seattle, told The Associated Press.
The weather service issued winter storm watches for the frozen state as a powerful weather system swirled southward from British Columbia.
D’Amico said snowfall likely would amount to a trace to 5 inches in the Seattle area by late Wednesday night and 3 to 8 inches north of Seattle to the Canadian border. To the south, the forecast was for 2 to 4 inches in the Interstate 5 corridor north of Portland, Ore.
One to 2 feet of new snow was forecast in the Cascades, 14 inches at higher elevations to the east and as much as 7 inches in Spokane, Wenatchee and other low-lying areas of Eastern Washington by early Thursday.
Warmer air aloft overrunning a more stationary cold airmass is expected to produce more snow, but probably not a major storm, starting late Sunday, D’Amico said.
Emergency shelters have been open under contract with the Salvation Army in Seattle, including at City Hall, since the first snow hit and temperatures began plummeting Friday and have been able to meet demand so far, David Takami, a spokesman for the city’s Human Services Department, told The Seattle Times.
Kitsap County officials decided for the first time to open Presidents Hall at the county fairgrounds for shelter with coffee, some food and sleeping space for hundreds starting tonight for anyone who is cold, hungry or worried about heating costs.
The shelter will remain open for the duration of the cold snap, said Phyllis Mann, director of the county’s Department of Emergency Management, adding that no reservations are required.
“Anybody can come,” Mann told the Kitsap Sun. “If it’s cold, it’s going to be open.”
Residents were urged by Janet Heath, Red Cross director in Bremerton, to offer a blanket or bowl of hot soup to those in need, especially the elderly.
“The best our community can do for itself is help its neighbors,” Heath said. Especially if they are seniors, invite them over for soup or take them a blanket, she advised.
A second building at the Spokane County fairgrounds was rented by the Christmas Bureau, a multi-agency charitable group, for those waiting in line for toys and food vouchers at a nearby building.
“I talked with Catholic Charities in Chicago, where the cold is a huge problem,” bureau director Rob McCann told The Spokesman-Review. “They have a similar Christmas charity and they’ve had children in line with frostbitten feet and babies lose consciousness from hypothermia. That’s not going to happen here.”
No one was being turned away from the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s shelter, and Associated Ministries of Pierce County was offering vouchers for motel rooms for distressed families, Yvonne Eden, housing and shelter coordinator for the association, told The News Tribune.
At Meridian High School north of Bellingham, two 60-year-old boilers were inadequate to keep some classrooms warm and at least one math class was moving into the auditorium, Meridian Superintendent Tim Yeomans said.
“Our maintenance guys are working really, really hard,” Yeomans told The Bellingham Herald. “We’re doing the best we can with the facilities we have.”
Fire from overworked electrical circuits was a hazard, especially in Eastern Washington.
In Spokane, a space heater that was being used to keep water pipes in a basement from freezing was blamed for a fire that left a couple and their daughter homeless.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
