A sheet of ice covers the cockpit, fuselage and wings of one of the grounded jets at the airport in Portland on Thursday. All flights were cancelled until today. At least one airline announced this morning it intends to resume flight service. AP Photo

PORTLAND - Two airlines canceled flights out of Portland International Airport today, but others were hopeful of resuming departures as rising temperatures started to turn some of the city's snow and ice to slush.

Hundreds of people who camped inside the airport this week had left by Thursday. Many of them had gone to hotels or found other means to continue their journeys.

Some stayed and made the best of the situation. Masayuki Kudo, 21, had been camping out at the airport for nearly two days. Other than having a desire to bathe, he wasn't finding his time at the airport unpleasant.

"You meet so many people and you've made yourself a temporary airport buddy," said the student at Eastern Oregon University.

Kudo was among the residents of a small community that sprang up inside the airport this week because of the winter storm that shut down air passenger service in and out of Portland.

Concourses became living rooms, furnished with luggage. Strangers sleeping next to one another are now like family. Airport officials and Portland businesses pitched in with free novels from Powell's City of Books, blankets from the Salvation Army and doughnuts from Krispy Kreme.

"I've met so many interesting people," said 72-year-old Amarylliss Bender, stranded at the airport since Tuesday morning. "And, to be honest, aside from one or two people tops, there hasn't been a single one of us with a bad attitude."

Officials started canceling flights at the airport when the storm swept into the Willamette Valley on Tuesday, leaving ice on airplanes and runways. With temperatures starting to edge above freezing, airport officials hoped to reopen sometime today.

Still, Alaska and America West airlines announced Thursday night that they were canceling all Friday flights.

Although warmer air was moving into the Willamette Valley, there were still nasty vestiges of the storm, and Portland and Salem-Keizer school officials decided late Thursday to cancel classes for the fourth day in a row.

With more drivers starting to test the streets, pedestrians were sent to the icy sidewalks, with occasionally disastrous results. More than a dozen people had checked into area hospitals with broken bones and sprains from falls on the ice, officials said.

On the water, a tug boat docked at a Portland marina sank, apparently from a buildup of ice from the freezing rain. Leaked fuel spread in a slick line that could be seen at least two miles down the Columbia River.