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© AP / Rick BowmerA crushed automobile lies under a toppled tree at a home Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, in Oregon City, Ore.
A monster Pacific Northwest storm coated parts of Washington with freezing rain on Thursday after claiming its first life - a child whose body was pulled from an Oregon creek where a car was swept away from a grocery store parking lot.

Another child and a man were rescued Wednesday evening, but rescuers searched Thursday for another adult missing in the creek in the Willamette Valley community of Albany, Ore., about 70 miles south of Portland, Ore., said fire department spokeswoman Wanda Omdahl.

The child who escaped was taken to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland.

Omdahl said she didn't know the age or gender of either child.

Rising water from recent heavy rains swelled Periwinkle Creek and carried the car from the parking lot of Mega Foods about 7 p.m. Wednesday. "We had a ton of rain," Omdahl said. "I haven't seen that creek like that since '96."

"The water just got high so fast," she said. "It's a big tragedy."

People across the Northwest confronted icy roads, power outages and the dangers of flooding from melting snow Thursday after the windy winter storm dropped more than a foot of snow in some places, causing school closures, knocking out electricity to thousands and leaving hundreds of accidents in its wake.

In Washington, ice closed Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport Thursday morning. Spokeswoman Charla Skaggs told KOMO Radio airlines would likely cancel flights because taxiways remain a problem even as runways are deiced.

The National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning for the Seattle area and southwest Washington until noon Thursday because freezing rain was creating dangerous conditions. The ice storm warning covers Seattle, Tacoma, Bremerton, the east Puget Sound lowlands, lower Chehalis Valley and central coast, including Hoquiam.

The Transportation Department closed Highway 18 near Issaquah because of falling trees.

Forecasters expect up to 0.04 inch of ice before temperatures rise above freezing by afternoon. The weather service forecasts rain to return by afternoon in Western Washington. Snow is still in the forecast for Eastern Washington into Friday.

Washington State University in Pullman was closed. The University of Washington also cancelled Thursday classes at three campuses, including Seattle. Seattle schools were also closed again Thursday, as were schools in Bellingham in northwest Washington, and in southeast Washington's Pasco, Kennewick and Richland.

The National Weather Service issued flood warnings for several Oregon rivers and several roads were closed because of flooding in Salem.

Nearly a foot of new snow fell in Olympia, Wash., where 11 inches was measured at the airport Wednesday. The record is 14.2 inches on Jan. 24, 1972.

Lewis County, south of Olympia, had the highest snowfall amounts, ranging from 12 to 17 inches.

"It's unusual to get this much snow for western Washington," said Dennis D'Amico, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle.

Forecasters warned that heavy rain combined with snowmelt could lead to some Washington river flooding, especially in the Chehalis River Basin, an area that has been hit by significant floods in recent years.

The storm caused hundreds of accidents but no fatalities.

"I saw a guy in my rear mirror," said Washington State Patrol trooper Guy Gill. "I saw headlights and taillights and headlights and taillights again as he spun around off the road."

In Oregon, high winds hammered parts of the coast and caused power outages that initially affected tens of thousands of customers, with reports of gusts as high as 113 mph. There were no immediate reports of serious damage.