I could, it's just that by the time we landed in PDX, the standby list was rather long for the next PDX-SEA shuttle flight and given that I no longer have status and was traveling on an award ticket with a companion, I didn't feel super confident that we would both clear. In the end, it looks like all but one person cleared off the standby list, but as our final destination was south of Seattle, we decided it would be safer to jump ship right away and drive, rather than risk not clearing off standby and waiting two hours for the next flight that was actually operating. Also, when the flights there are operating normally have 70 seats, and the flight that is screwed up has 178 seats, that makes reaccommodating pax more challenging.

Edit to add: Alaska gave me a $100 credit, so I’m happy with the outcome. Good customer service considering I was on award!