3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2015
Seaside students challenge communities to be prepared
Student body
leaders seeking
new school
facilities
By KATHERINE LACAZE
EO Media Group
SEASIDE — What they
don’t know can hurt them.
That was the message Seaside
High School’s student leaders
conveyed to the Seaside City
Council last week.
Leaders of the Associated
Student Body are concerned
about how unprepared stu-
dents and the community are
for a catastrophic Cascadia
Subduction Zone event. They
organized “Don’t Catch This
Wave” to spread awareness
about the issue and raise funds
to help move the school dis-
trict’s at-risk campuses out of
the tsunami inundation zone.
“We decided we wanted to
stand up and work to make a
change for ourselves, our peers
and the students that sit below
us in class and are too young
to realize that their lives are in
jeopardy every single day when
they’re at school,” treasurer Jes-
se Trott told the City Council.
She and co-presidents
Taylor Barnes and Whitney
Westerholm shared a version of
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pared for Seaside High School
and other schools across the
state.
Katherine Lacaze/EO Media Group
Seaside High School Associated Student Body officers
gave a presentation on their tsunami awareness and fund-
raising campaign, “Don’t Catch This Wave,” at the Sea-
side City Council meeting last week. Presenters included
co-presidents Whitney Westerholm and Taylor Barnes and
treasurer Jesse Trott (behind).
“Our project is all about tsu-
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focusing on the earthquake and
tsunami that are supposed to
hit our coastline from the very
southern tip of Canada to the
very northern tip of California,”
Trott said.
The hope is to raise funds to
relocate Gearhart Elementary
School, Seaside High School
and Broadway Middle School,
which all sit in the inundation
zone. Seaside Heights Ele-
mentary School also could be
remodeled and expanded in
the process to house all the ele-
mentary students, but nothing is
decided.
“Relocating our schools
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Westerholm said.
Although it may be lofty, she
added, “it’s our goal this year,
and even if we don’t reach it,
we want to keep this program
going.”
A safe place to be
High school students must
walk about 1.6 miles to get to an
evacuation site and cross bridg-
es in the process. Broadway
Middle School students have
about 1 mile to walk. Gearhart
Elementary students only have a
quarter mile, but their route goes
west to a site with an elevation
of 46 feet at its highest point —
likely not high enough.
“What these kids don’t know,
and a lot of our high school-
ers don’t know, is that they are
evacuating to somewhere that
isn’t going to keep them safe,”
said Westerholm, who has a
younger brother at Gearhart El-
ementary. “That just breaks my
heart, to be honest — that we
could have had a safe place for
these kids to be, and there isn’t.”
When the tsunami will hit is
uncertain, but there will be hun-
dreds of students at risk when it
does, and that is Westerholm’s
main motivation for helping to
spearhead the project, she said.
Whether it is the current students
or possibly their future children,
“the fact of the matter is, it will
be a group of 400 kids” that are
impacted, she added.
The three at-risk schools are
not built to withstand an earth-
quake, which will be the death
of many students. For instance,
Barnes said, the high school,
built in the 1950s, will likely
collapse on those who are un-
able to get out.
“They will essentially be
trapped in the school,” he added.
Superintendent
Doug
Dougherty said the schools do
not qualify for any seismic ret-
UR¿WWLQJ PRQH\ QRU FDQ WKH\
access those funds to help move
the schools because they are in
the inundation zone.
The 24-minute presentation
is accompanied by a silent vid-
eo of approximately the same
length that shows the high
school students walking quick-
ly to their evacuation site “in
the best circumstances,” Barnes
said.
That means no earthquake
damage, no debilitated or in-
jured students, and no devastat-
ed bridges. However, according
to the students, research shows
the community would have only
about 15 minutes from the start
of an earthquake before a tsuna-
mi hits.
“That’s not very much time,”
Barnes said.
In the presentation, the stu-
dents discussed the tsunami that
hit Japan in 2011. It is predicted
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west will be similar, Barnes said.
The water will move swiftly,
faster than a human can outrun,
and rise to about 80 to 100 feet
in elevation.
Fundraising for
relocation
Besides footage and pho-
tos from the Japan event, the
presentation also included
a clip from Oregon Public
Broadcasting’s recent doc-
umentary, “Unprepared.” In
the documentary, Dougherty
talked about the 2013 bond
measure the school district
sponsored to acquire funds to
relocate the schools. The price
tag was $128 million, and the
measure failed. Dougherty
has said the district will spon-
sor a similar bond measure
next year.
The students’ fundraising
campaign is primarily for
contributing to that effort, but
they also hope to put some
money toward radio commu-
nication equipment, natural
disaster preparedness kits,
pre-assembled food and sup-
ply kits, advertising about tsu-
nami evacuation routes and
immediate disaster relief.
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in the process of sending letters
to Fortune 500 companies, poli-
ticians and celebrities asking for
funds. The main goal, though,
is to reach out to other students
and schools.
In the past couple of weeks,
they gave their “Don’t Catch
This Wave” presentation at
Gresham and Scappoose high
schools. Gresham High School
will dedicate its annual Unity
Week to raise funds for the Sea-
side project. Westerholm said
they will go back to Gresham in
a couple weeks to present during
the kick-off assembly for Unity
Week.
The Seaside students also
are handing out blue ribbons
and asking people to tie them
in a visible place to show sup-
port and bring awareness to the
cause. Additionally, they plan
to hold a walk-a-thon, similar
to Relay For Life, in the spring.
6WXGHQWV ZLOO ¿QG SHRSOH WR
sponsor them to run or walk 1.6
miles, the same distance of their
evacuation route.
City Councilor Dana Phillips
said she was impressed by what
the Associated Student Body of-
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safety of the students.”
Councilor Jay Barber agreed.
“What we’re seeing here is
that our young people really are
leading the way for us to wake
up to the reality that we live in,”
he said.
State lawmaker pushes for student threat assessment system
assessment system is it will work
like a hand and glove go together,
a system of giving information to
SALEM — A state represen- VFKRRORI¿FLDOVHDUO\DQGDOORZLQJ
tative on the Oregon Task Force them to interact in a very effective
on School Safety says he will way and have a multidisciplinary,
push for legislation next year PXOWLDJHQF\ UHVSRQVH´ 1RYRW-
to establish a statewide student ney said. “That is the best practice
to deal with threats of violence.”
threat assessment system.
School representatives on the
State Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Alo-
ha, the chairman of the House task force said Friday the tip line
Judiciary Committee, already ZRXOGVSDZQDQLQÀX[RIWLSVWR
submitted a bill for February’s which school staff have no addi-
short session that would fund a tional capacity or training to re-
statewide student threat tip line, spond.
“The data doesn’t speak well
where anonymous reports could
that we are handling tips as well
be made.
The threat assessment system as we should. Shootings and sui-
and tip line both come from a list cide are happening at (an) accel-
of legislative recommendations HUDWHGUDWH´1RYRWQH\VDLG³*HW-
WKHWDVNIRUFHPDGHLQ1RYHPEHU ting additional tips and handling
to help prevent mass killings at the exact same way we always
schools, such as the shooting at have been is probably going to be
Umpqua Community College in ineffective.”
“I think we are setting up our
October.
“Without the threat assess- schools and districts for failure if
ment, the tip line system would we don’t empower them to know
not be as strong,” said task force about how to assess those tips,”
PHPEHU 'DYH 1RYRWQH\ VXSHU- said Susan Graves, safety coordi-
intendent of Willamette Educa-
tion Service District.
“The way the subcommittee
envisioned the tip line and threat
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
‘Deadliest
Catch’
spinoff set
IRU1HZSRUW
Associated Press
Makers of the popular Dis-
covery network series “Dead-
liest Catch” are heading south
WRD¿VKLQJYLOODJHLQ2UHJRQ
for a spinoff.
The new series, called
“Deadliest Catch: Dungeon
Cove,” is set to premiere next
fall. It will focus on families
involved in the Dungeness
FUDE¿VKLQJLQGXVWU\LQ1HZ-
port, the network said Friday.
The announcement doesn’t
mean that the original series,
which is set to begin its 12th
season in the spring, is wind-
ing down, said Joseph Boyle,
Discovery’s executive pro-
ducer for the show. Discov-
ery executives were intrigued
by the spinoff proposal from
Original Productions, which
makes “Deadliest Catch,”
he said. The original series,
DERXW¿VKLQJERDWVLQ$ODVND¶V
Bering Sea, is one of the net-
work’s signature programs.
7KHLQGXVWU\DURXQG1HZ-
port was interesting to Dis-
FRYHU\ EHFDXVH ¿VKHUPHQ
UDFHWRFDWFKDVPDQ\¿VKDV
they can during a season, as
opposed to working with a
quota, he said.
“It’s every man for your-
self,” Boyle said. “They go
RXWWKHUHDQG¿VKWKHLUKHDUWV
out.”
nator for Lincoln County School
District. “The consequences can
be enormous.”
Exact costs unknown
Barker’s bill asks for about
$300,000 per biennium for a tip
line, but an exact cost has yet to
be determined. Oregon State Po-
lice just put out a request for pro-
posals Wednesday for the tip line,
said Capt. Tom Worthy.
Initial estimates for the threat
assessment system are about $1
PLOOLRQ1RYRWQH\VDLG
Worthy said the actual cost
could exceed that amount, de-
SHQGLQJZKHWKHURI¿FLDOVGHFLGH
to use existing record systems at
the Oregon State Police or state
Department of Education or buy
a new record system.
“A record system will not
come cheap,” Worthy said. “That
would be a big dollar amount and
complicated.”
The tip line would have voice,
text and mobile application ca-
pabilities and might be modeled
after a system used in Colorado.
The threat assessment system
LQYROYHV ¿UVW WLHU VFKRROEDVHG
teams to respond to initial threats
and second tier community-based
threat assessment teams to re-
spond to more serious threats.
The teams would provide in-
terventions to students at risk of
committing violence against oth-
ers or themselves. Interventions
could include mental health coun-
seling, mentors and additional su-
pervision, among other measures.
The task force is set to sun-
set in 2017. Members on Friday
agreed to ask lawmakers to ex-
tend the group’s expiration until
2019. Task force members said
they would like to continue their
work with a focus on prevention.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO Me-
dia Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
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