Page 4 * The St. Johns Review * #26 DEC. 25, 2015
Email: reviewnewspaper@gmail.com * Mail: PO Box 83068, Port. OR 97283 * Web: www.stjohnsreview.com * Phone: 503-283-5086
Continued from Page 1: Hwy 30 fi re
Even from NW Portland’s Guilds Lake area, it was evident this was a major event.
Cell phone owners must fi rst sign
up at PublicAlerts.org (https://
public.coderedweb.com/CNE/
105FE2E22485).
The slow and partial warning to
residents about air toxics associ-
ated with the emergency appears
to point to a signifi cant gap in the
emergency notifi cation system es-
pecially considering the number of
petroleum storage facilities, trucks
and rail lines transporting volatile
products located nearby. The po-
tential for dangerous air pollution
during an emergency exists and
need for a faster, more compre-
hensive way to notify residents of
safety issues should be an essential
task of city emergency managers.
From the Editor : I just hap-
pened to have my police scanner
on when the accident occurred and
heard the dispatcher report they
had received a call that a semi had
just crashed into a train and there
was fi re and an explosion. The dis-
patcher went on to say that there
had been just the one call on it. (In
such serious incidents, they expect
many calls which I’m assuming,
verifi es the actuality of it.) Just af-
ter the dispatcher reported her in-
formation an offi cer broke in and
said he can verify something has
happened because there is a huge
plume of smoke in the air and he
could hear several explosions. At
that point you could hear police
and fi re quickly responding to it.
I had my TV on and sensing the
possibility of this being a very
serious situation, I started switch-
ing from station to station of our
local channels looking for some
type of interruption in the morning
programming, which consisted of
sport shows, paid programming,
and a child’s show. Nothing was
ever announced by any of them. It
would be at least 60 minutes later
that something appeared on Twit-
ter about the incident.
I fi nd it frustrating that this in-
cident, which could have been
catastrophic, was not covered by
any of our local TV channels. Es-
pecially after the prior week’s cov-
erage of rain, which local channels
interrupted frequently every and
all afternoon. (Yes some areas
were seriously fl ooded and I’m
not saying it shouldn’t have been
covered, but how many times did
we need to see the same coverage
of the same fl ooded streets? It was
defi nitely over-covered.)
I would hope that all our local
TV stations will take a serious
look at their coverage, (or lack
thereof,) of this type of incident
and try and be the news sources
they brag so much about being,
and try and improve on all import-
ant news reports for the future, no
matter what is on TV that needs
to be interrupted. There are many
people that do not have internet
and/or cell phones, and rely on
fi nding out information from their
TVs. As Barbara reported in her
article, some people received re-
verse 911 calls, but even this was
insuffi cient. In this day and age,
we need those people in the media
and emergency services who have
access to today’s lightening fast
resources to use them to keep their
audiences safe and informed. And,
with certainty, before any facili-
ties with the potential of having a
major catastrophic event are built
within any city’s borders, every
and all emergency resources need
to be in place and perfected.
Gayla Patton
Thank you to everyone that sent in their
photos.
Above: The smoke quickly crossed the Willamette River into St. Johns.
Above: Fire crews getting the fi re under c