Oregon Public Broadcasting

Ice and snow on roads all over the Portland area will keep school children at home Monday. And as Rob Manning reports, officials hope adults will stay off the roads.

By Sunday evening, there wasn’t a public school in Multnomah County planning to have classes Monday.

Most Clackamas and Washington county schools are closed today too.

State transportation officials decided to require chains on all major highways as well as surface streets like Powell, Martin Luther King, and Barbur Boulevards, and Lombard and 82nd Avenues.

Portland transportation commissioner – and mayor-elect – Sam Adams, said that crews are working round-the-clock, but can only do so much when the temperatures are in the low 20s. Adams urged people to stay off the roads.

Sam Adams: “Whether it’s a quarter inch of ice, or three-inches of ice – it’s ice. And it doesn’t matter whether if you’re four-wheel drive, even chains don’t even take care of the ice conditions. So please, if you don’t have to drive, and you have to get somewhere, take transit.”

Tri-Met officials say they’re running MAX trains and buses on regular schedules, though officials said buses, especially, would probably run late. Weather forecasters predict more freezing temperatures today, and for most of this week.