Multnomah County declares state of emergency, opens winter shelters

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — With cold, wet weather and the potential snow on the way to the Portland Metro Area, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson declared a state of emergency Wednesday morning and announced the county will open warming shelters on Wednesday night.

According to Multnomah County, four shelters will be opening with extra beds also being added to a year-round shelter.

Nearly 500 beds are being activated through Thursday morning at least.

The county has an interactive map where you can view all open warming sites during the day, which includes Multnomah County Library branches.

Full list of the shelters:

• Cook Plaza: 19421 S.E. Stark St., Gresham

• Division Place: 323 S.E. Division Place, Portland

• Imago Dei Church: 1302 S.E. Ankeny St., Portland

• Powell Shelter: 7332 S.E. Powell Blvd., Portland

• Market Street Shelter: 120 S.E. Market St., Portland (a limited number of beds will be available at this shelter)

The state of emergency goes into effect at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

This comes a month after the county chose to close shelters with ice still on the ground.

“During the last event we opened 12 shelters, so we’ve got a lot of extra bins in case we need to expand,” said Chris Voss, the emergency management director for Multnomah County. “We’ve already started recruiting people not just for tonight but through Saturday morning just in case the snow does come and actually sticks around for a while.”

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