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The big bad weather in the Pacific Northwest is first. Almost 14 inches of snow and ice hit the area over the weekend, the second storm in four days. The first storm left a majority of residents without electricity and brought all modes of transportation to a standstill. This weekend's storm brought another round of problems, including flooding, property damage, and hazardous road conditions, making it difficult for emergency vehicles. To update us on the situation is the governor of the state of Washington, Mike Lowry.

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GOV. MIKE LOWRY, Washington: (Olympia, Washington) Good evening, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Governor, just for perspective purposes, how bad is this just from a historical standpoint for you folks in the Pacific Northwest?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Well, I believe this is the most snowfall we've had in 70 years. It is--and it is statewide, and it's mostly across the entire Northwest. In the middle of this snowfall we had a very unique ice storm that did much damage to our utility lines and all the things related to that, and so that's been pretty serious that way. And now it's been followed up by much warmer weather and rain and is greatly increasing the danger of flood.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the snow and the ice--whoop--we just had a storm with your picture, but you're okay now--the snow and the ice, I mean, it just stopped transportation East-West, did it not, for the first time throughout your state?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: The first time--every pass--every pass between the East and the West is closed, including the railroads. And they're all closed now. One of the things we're very concerned about and are trying to control is the danger of avalanche and landslides and mud slides, which come with this situation. We hope that the passes will be opened in maybe the next two to three days, but, again, I think this is the most snow that we've received in 70 years.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the utilities, electricity, telephones, natural gas, and those sort of--what's the situation been on those?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Well, we've had up to 300,000 houses out of--out of electricity and other utilities. Crews have been working 12-hour shifts constantly to repair that. The uniqueness of the ice storm set a lot of branches and trees across power lines, and that really did a tremendous amount of damage. We actually have a chance of the existing about 70,000 houses still out, utilities might actually go up because we're worried that there are some outlying areas now in which again branches are doing damage to the power lines.

JIM LEHRER: Also, the weight of the storm--

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Right.

JIM LEHRER: I mean, the weight of it caused buildings to fall.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Roofs to cave in.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: We have some pictures here I'm not sure you can see. I wanted to show our audience.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Right.

JIM LEHRER: It's a marina in another area and just the weight of the snow has--those pictures were taken yesterday.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Right.

JIM LEHRER: Now you designated 15 of your counties disaster areas. Now they're basically in the western part of your state, right?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: That is true because of the effect of the very wet snow, but in Central--in Eastern Washington, we also have a tremendous accumulation of snow and now still cold weather. And I believe we're going to see more counties over in the Eastern part of the state and the Central part of the state also designated because we now are worried about some buildings because of the weight of the snow on the roof of buildings in, for instance, the Winatche area, and those areas. So this is the first time that I remember, and I was born here, and I'm 57 years old, that we have had this statewide, and then it goes into Oregon and British Columbia, and Idaho also.

JIM LEHRER: Now when a county is designated a disaster area, what does that get for them?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Well, that means that all the state resources are available to them, including the Washington National Guard. And so that means things like sandbagging by the National Guard. The equipment that the National Guard has, such as military ambulances, that can go through rougher weather than just your regular type of equipment, is all available to back up the local officials.

JIM LEHRER: Now when you mentioned sandbagging, the big threat now is flooding, right? That's the latest one.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: That's what we're worried about now, although in Eastern and Central Washington, there are still some very dangerous roads, and the passes being closed is a big problem to us, and the coldness there is a big problem. But now with this rapid increase in temperature and all this rain that we think is going to be coming in or predicted to be coming in about New Year's, we're worried about floods. We're preparing for those, and people are really working hard. That's all the bad news. The good news here, Jim, is people, neighbor helping neighbor. We're prepared to work to handle this, but it is the most unique storm in my lifetime, and that's 57 years.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Are the planes running normally in and out of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport now?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: They now are much closer to that. We had the problem two days ago about actually running low on the de-icing capabilities and so on. But now the planes are pretty close to running normally out of Seattle-Tacoma.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Some people can't get to them. That's the problem.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. They'd be terrific if you could get there, right.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: If you could get there. Especially if you're trying to come across the passage, you can't do it.

JIM LEHRER: I got you. Look, you mentioned the next couple of days.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Right.

JIM LEHRER: I was hesitant to ask you what the forecast is. I mean, what is it? What are you expecting to happen?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: The forecast is about New Year's Day much more rain coming in. If that happens, we're going to be facing some real challenges floodwise. That's a two-day-away forecast, but that is the forecast. So what we would have would be another major rainstorm coming in on top of the most snow we've had in a long time, plus the ice storm that came in the middle of that. All those together put a pretty big load on the natural drainage systems.

JIM LEHRER: Oh, boy. So you went into this 57 years old. You may go out 70, right?

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: (laughing) Well, this is true, but people are really working well on it. And we'll get through this. Fortunately, we're in good financial shape. Our economy is going great. You know, we'll handle this, and while there's been some tragedies happen, frankly, we're grateful that the loss of life has been as small as it has been.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, Governor, thank you very much and good luck to you, sir.

GOV. MIKE LOWRY: Thank you, Jim.

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