Snow buried Jay County

The first half of January 1996 was about one thing — snow.

The Jan. 9, 1996, edition of The Commercial Review, like most of the others during the first two weeks of that year, featured snow. “Every time Jay County plowing crews think they’re making progress fighting the snow that’s plagued the area of the last week, Mother Nature has a different idea,” read the first paragraph of that day’s story.

Two new inches of snow had been added to the tally overnight. That combined with a return of high winds to shut down county roads and lead to school closings and travel delays.

While the City of Portland had returned to relatively normal travel, rural roads were impassable because of drifting snow. The county remained under a snow emergency.

“The drifts they had before are now twice as high,” said Jay County engineer Dan Watson. “There’s just some people who can’t get out.

“I’d say we have 10 percent of the roads that we’re not going to get opened until we get a loader.”

While the county was hopeful to have most roads opened to at least a single lane by the end of that day, the forecast included more snow later in the week.

“It’s going to be a tough process to get things back to some resemblance of order,” Watson said. “I don’t see things getting real better for a day or two.

“If we get a wind from any direction we’re going to be messed up again. The wind’s just killing us.”