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Gorge Local:
Cascadia Creamery
in Trout Lake — A13
B8-9
B4
B1
B12
A7
A4-6
B5
B6-7
A13
A10
The Next Door Inc:
'Thanks to You' — A4
Weather
Snowfallexpectedthrough
theweekend,lowsdownto
13degrees
Art and Music
Exhibits, concert in The Dalles —
B1
Columbia Gorge News
HOOD RIVER | THE DALLES | WHITE SALMON
Wednesday,February10,2021 Volume1,Issue45
No trolls under this bridge
Crews start
demolishing
section of I-84
in Hood River
Kirby Neumann-Rea
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
$1.00
COVID-19
“Keepfollowingthesafety
precautions—wearegoingto
keepgoing,wearegoing
togetthere.”
Mimi McDonell
Wasco County Health Officer
HOOD RIVER — Gnarled rebar
and piles of gray rubble line the
deck of the Interstate 84 bridge
over the Hood River, where traffic
serpentines past an unusual public
works demolition project.
Carter and Company crews are
working with Oregon Department
of Transportation to knock into
small pieces — down to dust, in fact
— the 380-foot east-bound span of
the freeway as it crosses the river.
Part of the mostly-asphalt freeway,
the concrete portion is technically
a bridge and dates to the freeway
construction in the 1950s.
SeeI-84,page6
New COVID
infections
dropping
Mark Gibson
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
Supervisor Jim Califf with the largest of the holes on the Interstate 84 bridge deck, about 100 yards east of exit 63.
Kirby Neumann-Rea photos
Skier endures 'minor frostbite' following
his rescue by Trout Lake locals
Jacob Bertram
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
of five mountaineers who
braved the winter weather
to make the climb through
the night, find the skier, and
bring him home.
All told, the ordeal lasted
from Saturday afternoon to
around 4 a.m. on Sunday,
when the group found the
skier and brought him back
down the mountain.
Jacob Stock, the skier’s
A 17-year-old skier
from Trout Lake survived
after getting stranded in
whiteout conditions on
Mount Adams last week-
end, thanks to emergency
communications and nav-
igations systems as well as
the expediency of a group
father, said his son had suf-
fered a minor hit of frostbite
to his wrist, a fortunate turn
of events from what he most
deeply feared on Saturday.
“To have my son back,
it was very relieving,”
Stock said. “I know I could
never thank those five guys
enough. Their bravery,
knowledge, and experience
are unmatched.”
The young skier had
made his way up the moun-
tain early the morning of
Jan. 30 to do some solo
skiing, Stock recalled.
“It was nice weather
when he was up there. He
turned around and from
what he describes, the
weather started to go in at
one time and it felt like he
had vertigo,” Stock said. The
skier then posted up on the
Lunch Counter approach.
Stock and his wife were
snowmobiling in the Gifford
Pinchot National Forest at
the time the first beacon
signal went out, around
1:30 in the afternoon. They
were out of range to talk to
him through their Garmin
SeeRESCUE,page2
HOOD RIVER — For Hood River County
School District and the approximately 4,000
students it serves, the COVID-19 pandemic and
subsequent switch to Comprehensive Distance
Learning (CDL) that began last spring has
meant a heavy reliance on technology — both
access to devices and internet services — to
maintain a new model of public education.
But for the district’s Director of Technology
Tod Hilstad and staff, this story begins much
earlier than March 13, 2020, the last day HRCSD
schools were open for in-person instruction.
“A few years ago, the community of Hood
River voted to approve a bond and invest in its
schools,” said Hilstad. “Part of this bond includ-
ed $3 million to upgrade classroom instruc-
tional technology and computing devices for
teachers and students.”
The district decided to apply that money
SeeCOVID,page8
Chaos
coming
Senior vaccine eligibility
begins next week
Tech team connects
students, teachers with
distance learning tools
Trisha Walker
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
Wasco and Hood River counties
are both on track to meet state
in-person school metrics, and
closer to moving from Extreme
Risk to the High Risk category of
pandemic restrictions.
If current coronavirus trends
continue, Wasco County may
meet the metrics for on site hybrid
education as early as next week,
with new positive cases dropping
to 88 and a test positivity rate of 3.7
percent Jan. 17 through Jan. 30, the
first or “warning” week of a two-
week cycle, Health Officer Mimi
McDonell told the Wasco County
board of commissioners Feb. 3.
“The trend is going in the right
direction, the trend is going down,”
she said.
By Gary A. Warner
■ Oregon
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The gap between
COVID-19 vaccine eligibility and
availability will make for a chaotic
start to age-based inoculations
this week.
Beginning Monday, Oregon
residents 80 and older became
eligible to receive their first dose
of the two-shot Moderna or Pfizer
vaccines.
People over 80 have account-
ed for just over half of the 2,002
deaths from COVID-19 in Oregon.
But Gov. Kate Brown and
Oregon Health Authority Director
Pat Allen said demand vastly
outstrips current supply. Allen told
a House panel earlier this week
that there are an estimated 168,000
people 80 and older in Oregon,
which is currently receiving about
40,000 first-shot doses of the vac-
cine per week. This includes doses
for those in earlier priority groups
who haven’t been inoculated yet.
The required second doses are in a
separate count.
It all translates to a build-
ing wave of frustration and
towards student iPads, so when the pandemic
hit, all students in grades 6-12 already had
access to the devices; high schoolers were
already allowed to take their iPads home before
the pandemic, while K-8 students used them in
classrooms. For CDL purposes, all iPads
were checked out (and checked back in)
for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school
year, and again distributed at the start of
SeeTECH,page11
Daniel, a third grader at Parkdale
Elementary and participant in
Comprehensive Distance Learning
(CDL) through Hood River County
School District, with headphones pur-
chased with funds donated by Hood
River County Education Foundation.
Photo courtesy of HRCSD
SeeSENIORS,page8
COVID-19 VACCINE INFO: How to get vaccinated
Oregon
WHO
Older Adults
WHEN
80+ FEB. 8
WHERE
Public vaccination clinics
75+ FEB. 15
Local public health & tribes
70+ FEB. 22
65+ MAR. 1
Long term care facilities
Participating retail pharmacies
Wa s h i n g t o n
HOW
ONLINE
covidvaccine.oregon.gov
• Local events/links
• Get Vaccinated Oregon
registration/notification tool
• Chat box
211
• text ORCOVID to 898211
• email: ORCOVID@211info.org
• Call 211
WHO/WHEN
Winter
• All people 65 yearsor older
• All people 50 years or older in
multigenerational households (home where
individuals from 2 or more generations
reside such as an elder and a grandchild)
Spring/Summer
• High-risk critical workers 50 years or older
who work in certain congregate settings:
Agriculture; food processing; grocery
stores; K-12 (educators & staff); childcare;
corrections; prisons, jails or detention centers;
public transit; fire; law enforcement
WHERE
Public vaccination clinics
Local public health & tribes
Long term care facilities
Participating retail
pharmacies
HOW
WASHINGTON
1-800-525-0127
1-888-856-5816
https://www.doh.wa.gov/
Emergencies/COVID19/vaccine
covid.vaccine@doh.wa.gov
text the word “Coronavirus”
to 211211
Find out if it’s your turn at
FindYourPhaseWA.org