OREGON CITY, Ore. (KPTV/CNN) – After a week without power, desperate times call for desperate measures in northwest Oregon.
Tracy Stone is still without power. He said, “You know you’re resorting to stuff like how you can create heat in the house. So I created a can with toilet paper with the rubbing alcohol, it creates a flame.”
KPTV met Stone Thursday in his car outside his apartment at Kingsberry Heights in Oregon City, where he spends a lot of his free time.
“I couldn’t sleep any longer because it was cold,” Stone said.
Just a couple cars down, Laura Voss just pulled up to drop off supplies for her two sons who live here
“This is just to help them get through the night,” Voss said of an LED lamp she was holding. “It’s not much but it lights up pretty bright. My youngest boy, he brought me his snake to watch because the snake was so cold he was afraid he was going to die, and I don’t like snakes.”
And its the spirit of giving that’s warming the hearts of the more than 200 people who live in this low-income community
Despite the freezing cold, Valarie Weikel is helping her neighbors. “There’s a lot of people who are disabled, single families,” Weikel said.
“I’m down a half a tank of gas just in charging peoples’ devices for them.”
Weikel runs a neighborhood Facebook page and sprung into action when the power went out last Friday.
“We’re running a two-burner stove at our house, a grill at the house next door, our barn,” Weikel explained. “We were able to bring three propane tanks over, and we’ve been cooking for people and anybody that needs anything.”
Neighbors are now just praying it will soon be their turn for line workers to turn their heat finally back on.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Stone commented. “So i know they just have to be overloaded, but my prayers are with them.”
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