How to get by without power for 12 days in Oregon: Help from neighbors, a wood stove and meatloaf
Updated Feb 25, 2021;
Posted Feb 23, 2021
Beavercreek residents Karen and Bill Johns pose for a photo in front of the wood stove in their living room, the lone source of heat amid a power outage that has lasted nearly two weeks following a winter storm. (Sean Meagher/The Oregonian)Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
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Bill and Karen Johns haven’t been able to shower for 12 days.
The two have gone without electricity since the snow and ice storm two weekends ago knocked out power to more than 420,000 Portland General Electric customers in northwest Oregon at various points nearly half of the company’s customers.
Photo by Liz Copan / Studio Copan
The most wonderful time of the year has turned into the most trying time of their lives for many people in Summit County as an increasing number are seeking out resources as the novel coronavirus pandemic rages on.
Local nonprofit organizations like the Family & Intercultural Resource Center are seeing that most acutely with demand for food and requests for financial help to pay the rent continuing to be high. Since Dec. 3 the nonprofit has seen 608 people requesting rental assistance via the organization’s online application, said Executive Director Brianne Snow on Friday, Dec. 18.
Snow said 77% of the people who have applied report working in the restaurant or food service industry, 89% of the applicants have lived or worked in Summit County for longer than a year and 50% of them have worked or lived in Summit County for five years or more. She added that the resource center has already paid out $375,000 in rental relief over the last three we
Photo from Jim Howard
As a chaplain at St. Anthony Summit Medical Center, Karen Johns is one of a few Summit County residents who received a novel coronavirus vaccine this week.
To Johns, a member of Lord of the Mountains Lutheran Church, the vaccine is a blessing. It’s the kind of thing that will help the county return to normal life, save jobs and improve current mental health and isolation struggles for many. However, in Johns’ mind that time is still a ways away even for churches amid a traditional time of celebration.
Though she’d love to have in-person Christmas services and household gatherings this coming week, her view is for people of faith that the decision to hold such gatherings comes down to “the admonition that we love one another.”