Frozen

5/10/2022 (Permalink)

When a sudden freeze happens the earth becomes covered by a thick sheet of ice, this can cause trees to fall, and traveling to become near impossible.

During a freeze Oregon experienced in 2021 customers described hearing the storm outside and inside their homes. They described the experience of listening to the historic storm as hearing a “cracking” “breaking” or “rumbling” noise. This was due mostly to trees, but also to gutters on their house, pipes within their home, fixtures on the exterior of their home, and the rumbling noises were mostly trees falling or being uprooted throughout the community.

Some of our customers were awakened in the night to the sound of a scary force and noise crashing onto their roof…or through their roof. This of course was due to fallen trees.

We had a historic power outage as well during the freeze, and many people in the valley saw their basements flood due to their sump pumps not functioning. This caused a record number of flooded basements and water pumps needed when responding to these losses. Many of the homes affected had their power out for over a week, some even went 10-14 days without power.

People bought out every single generator at stores throughout the valley. And hotel rooms were booked up due to people not wanting to go a week without power. Insurance claims skyrocketed, and power companies worked around the clock to fix all the downed lines throughout the valley.

When power goes out in modern day America everything gets placed on-hold. Without electricity there is no “screen time” and the average American spends over 7 hours in front of a screen each and every single day.  Much more if they have to sit in front of a computer screen at work as well. Kids ages 8-18 also spend 7.5 hours every single day in front of a screen.

Many Oregonians missed work and took time off during the freeze to visit friends of family that still had power. Many of our neighbors took in family and friends that had no power for days at a time. Once the power was finally restored, SERVPRO was able to start tackling jobs quickly and efficiently. SERVPRO helped a record number of people in the Willamette valley in the winter of 2021, we are proud to be trusted nationwide.