Before the Ice Came, They Already Knew Their Neighbors

A storm that kept adding damage

In January 2024, a succession of winter storms turned ordinary routines across Oregon into difficult decisions about warmth, travel, food, and communication.

Oregon’s emergency-management review describes overlapping severe weather beginning January 10, with extreme cold and winter precipitation followed by thawing and flooding. Statewide, it reported more than 238,900 people without power at the peak and outages exceeding 13 days in some areas. Those are statewide figures, not a count for Veneta. [1]

Veneta, west of Eugene in Lane County, was part of that wider emergency. Freezing rain and fallen trees disrupted roads and electricity. Repairing one break did not mean the trouble was over: another round of ice could undo the progress.

Getting home became a rescue operation

An Oregon Department of Transportation account illustrates the conditions around Veneta. On January 13, transportation maintenance coordinator Jake Jensen encountered blocked traffic near Knowles Creek Tunnel on the Highway 126 West corridor.

With power saws, spare chains, and fuel, Jensen and people from stranded vehicles began clearing fallen trees. The agency described 18-degree temperatures, freezing rain, darkness, and trees continuing to fall around them. One struck his work truck.

Other road crews joined the effort. Jensen kept dispatch informed by radio as they worked a narrow route through the debris. More than a dozen vehicles and their passengers made it back to Veneta around 9 p.m., after roughly six and a half hours. [2]

This was a separate response by road workers and stranded travelers, not an operation attributed to Thompson. It shows why a routine shopping trip or drive home could become so difficult during the storm.

The wait extended beyond the weather

By January 17, Emerald People’s Utility District was warning some customers to prepare for a week or more without electricity. KLCC reported that additional ice had set back restoration and made fieldwork dangerous. Across the region, limbs could fall as they thawed, adding fresh damage after the freezing rain stopped.

KLCC also described the human cost elsewhere in Lane County: a Creswell mother had moved her children to a motel, was running through her savings, and faced spoiled food at home. That account was not in Veneta, but it explains the pressure extended outages placed on households nearby. [3]

A January 19 utility update listed Jeans Road in Veneta among locations restored the previous day, while warning customers in unlisted areas to plan for a week or more without power. Recovery was happening circuit by circuit, rather than everywhere at once. [4]

The everyday bulletin board became useful in a new way

In a January 22 OPB interview, Veneta Community Network administrator Stacy Thompson described a page normally used for local announcements, businesses, restaurant specials, and school information. During the storm, people used it to seek checks on relatives they could not contact. Residents offered grocery runs and help clearing trees; OPB also reported offers to tow stranded vehicles.

Thompson said her own household had lost power for about 12 hours in total, and nearby cul-de-sac neighbors helped one another. Some others were still without electricity at the time of her interview.

She also described an existing radio backup through her neighborhood watch organization. Members had radios ready and were checking in, preserving another way to communicate if phones became unusable. Her interest in providing for family and neighbors grew from an outdoors-oriented background. [5]

Those are the documented actions and preparations. The reporting does not establish that Thompson personally made every delivery, cleared every driveway, or directed the wider emergency response. Her contribution was part of a community effort.

Keeping the town functioning

Veneta’s February city newsletter described public works employees keeping water and wastewater treatment operating through freezing conditions and power-related computer problems. The city reported that its infrastructure escaped major damage, although repairs and cleanup were still needed.

Crews moved downed limbs out of roadways and helped clear the Veneta Elementary parking lot so people without electricity could come to warm up and charge devices. [6]

Neighbors, utility workers, public works staff, and road crews were solving different parts of the same problem. A working network helped people find assistance; restored roads and public services helped make that assistance possible.

Preparation can reach beyond its original purpose

The community page did not need to begin as an elaborate disaster system to become useful during one. Everyday conversations had already given residents somewhere familiar to look and people they could ask.

That is a practical form of readiness: a tool or relationship developed for one purpose becomes useful when circumstances change.

The radio backup addressed another weakness. An online group depends on working devices, power, and a connection. Agreeing on an alternative beforehand gives people another option. The OPB interview did not identify the radio service or equipment, so this story does not assign a particular technology or claim tested coverage for every household.

For Everyday Ready readers, a starting point might be exchanging contact details with permission, agreeing on check-in times, and identifying neighbors who may need assistance. Include people who do not use the same apps. Practice the equipment and keep written instructions.

Offers of help should fit the helper’s abilities and conditions. Downed wires, unstable trees, and ice-covered roads require caution and sometimes professional crews.

Veneta’s experience shows how ordinary acts—asking about a neighbor, collecting groceries, sharing information—can help carry a community through a difficult week.

J. Carter

Based on the published interviews and records below. Everyday Ready has not interviewed Thompson. Regional events are identified separately from her own account.