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Regional Journalism

Winter Weather Makes Holidays Travels A Challenge Over Passes

Tessa Shaw
Interstate 90 eastbound before Snoqualmie Pass was closed Monday afternoon.

Heavy rains in the lowlands and heavy snow in the mountains are making holiday travel tricky.

Interstate 90 eastbound before Snoqualmie Pass closed for a time Monday afternoon. Tessa Shaw was headed to Leavenworth for the holidays along with her husband and kids were. They made it just past North Bend only to find the interstate temporarily closed.

“We are stuck,” Shaw said. “I saw it coming though. Closed. We could have got off, but whatever.”

But spirits were high. They weren’t stuck in a ditch like some other drivers.

“We’re stocked with water and got our kids watching a movie, watching some ‘Christmas with the Kranks’ and hanging out,” she said.

Farther east, state Trooper Darren Wright said he and his fellow troopers have been earning their pay responding to spinouts and wrecks.

“I don’t have the number,” Wright said. “But I’m going to put a rough guess around 50 incidents.”

Wright said it’s usually a case of drivers going too fast for conditions.

“I still have people out here today doing at or near the speed limit and that’s just not acceptable in these conditions,” he said.

His advice in two words: “slow down.”

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy, as well as the Washington State Legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia."