The snowstorm that ravaged much of Oregon on Wednesday took many people by surprise, including Reb Huggins, who on Wednesday was driving her usual commute between Newberg and Northeast Portland.
The certified nurse midwife was on her way home from work when the sudden snow and ice halted traffic on Interstate 5, so she opted to take side roads. Her GPS brought her to the top of a steep hill.
“Going down that hill at 0 to 2 mph, I lost traction and did an involuntary 180-degree turn and floated towards the guard rail,” Huggins said. “Luckily, I was able to gain enough traction to safely brake on that shoulder. Out of the way of traffic. And facing completely the wrong way.”
Huggins tried to call a ride service, to no avail, so she opted to hitchhike.
“As the gusts of wind were picking up, I tied my hood tight around my face, zipped my coat up all the way, turned one of my phone’s flashlights on,” she said. “I waved down the next SUV that was crawling by.”
The two people in the SUV were able to give Huggins a ride home.
Huggins is among a few hundred people who abandoned their cars on roadsides during the storm, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.
When preparing to clear roads, ODOT attaches tags to abandoned vehicles to mark them for towing by private companies. Road workers prioritize clearing vehicles that are blocking roads, then vehicles that could block snow plows that are clearing road shoulders, then vehicles that are sitting farther out on roadsides.
A three car pile-up on Newberry Road in Portland on Saturday.
Lillian Mongeau Hughes / OPB
ODOT spokesperson Michelle Godrey said towing companies had trouble keeping up.
“The snow and ice over the last few days made it difficult to judge which cars were a hazard, so some may have been left where they were,” Godfrey said in a statement Sunday morning.
Drivers are responsible for paying towing fees, since abandoning a vehicle is considered a traffic violation by state law. The city of Portland has a contract with local tow companies that establishes set fees on what tows cost. Those fees range based on vehicle size and how long a removed vehicle sits in the tow lot.
Huggins’s car is among the vehicles sitting in a tow lot, and she has to pay $287 to get it back.
Figuring out where a car was towed to could be tricky, as there are about 75 towing companies in Portland alone. Huggins was able to find her car using a website called AutoReturn.
ODOT also tracks all tagged abandoned vehicles and records which companies towed which cars. To find your car, call ODOT’s Portland-area dispatch center at (503) 283-5859. You’ll need to provide the make, model and plate number of the vehicle.