This is Northwest Public Broadcasting Weekly News Now.

I'm Tracci Dial.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Well Winter, as you can see, has arrived.

After a really slow start to the season, pretty much the whole Northwest is getting hit with some type of winter weather this week.

From ice storms to snow storms, it is expected to get a little bit worse before it gets better for a lot of us.

Now, this week we talked with Harborview Medical Center.

We're told emergency rooms in the Northwest are filling up across the entire region.

In Seattle and everywhere around it.

People are getting injured from falls, the snow and the ice, not just making the roads difficult to get around on, but pretty much everything.

We talked to Elizabeth Phelan.

She is the founding director of the Fall Prevention Clinic at Harborview.

She says young people often hurt their wrists and their ankles when they slip on the ice.

And other people they're coming in with things like hip fractures, back injuries and shoulder breaks.

Now, she says the recovery will likely far outlast the winter weather.

Those kind of injuries take about three months to heal.

It takes about that long for a bone to fully heal.

So people's lives are definitely altered and it often requires them to have help when they were previously independent.

So it is walk like a penguin season out there.

Please stay safe.

But it's not just bones that are breaking in this winter weather.

We also talked to a general contractor in Richland.

Dan Vargo says the sound of the warm up that we're all waiting for, it is the terrible sound of breaking pipes.

And the problem is that people might not know right now that their pipes are frozen.

It's when they warm up that they can burst.

Typically, you know, immediate water damage is covered by insurance.

So, you know, there's there's that benefit.

But, you know, depending on the extent of the damage, you know, you're out of a space for a period of time.

Stay with NWPB, our radio hosts will keep you updated on weather updates all season long.

Now to a health alert about a big algal bloom on the Snake River.

That health alert has been lifted.

After nearly three months, the Whitman County Health Department lifted the alert on the large span of the Snake in Eastern Washington.

The algae, it looked like neon green scum and it smelled.

The health department had to get two samples in a row from the river that were below toxicity levels.

That first sample that met requirements was taken in late December.

The second was taken this month.

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