PORTLAND, Ore.—Majiah Washington noticed a flash outside her home this week in Portland, where a dangerous storm had coated the city with ice. Opening her blinds, she saw a red SUV with a downed power line on it and a couple who had been putting their baby in the car.
The woman screamed to her boyfriend to get the baby to safety, and he grabbed the child and began to scramble up the driveway on concrete so slick it was almost impossible to walk. But before he made it halfway, he slid backward and his foot touched the live wire—“a little fire, then smoke,” Ms. Washington said.
