OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Visitors to the lobby of Trump Tower wear “Make America Great
Again” hats in New York.
Petticoats and
the connection
to Donald Trump
A
century ago last week, a group of marginalized voters
took to the ballot box in the small Eastern Oregon town
of Umatilla to make a change in their local government.
Informally known as the Petticoat Revolution, a group of
women came together on Dec. 5, 1916, to upend the good ol’
boy leadership in their town. They were dissatisfied watching the
town fall further into disrepair, with laws loosely enforced, and
set a plan in motion to toss them out.
According to a report in the East Oregonian from the time, the
women conspired under the guise of a card game to write their
names onto the ballot. The men who ran the city were so sure
of their re-election that they didn’t bother to campaign for their
seats. Oregon had given women the right to vote in 1912, but the
idea was still new and none of the men on the council saw what
was coming until it was too late.
One element that made the coup possible was dismally low
voter turnout.
In a town of 198 people, Laura J. Starcher defeated her hus-
band and Mayor E.E. Starcher, with 26 votes to eight. Gladys
Spinning, Florence Brownell, Anna Means and Stella Paulu
all won council seats, Lola Merrick was elected treasurer and
Bertha Cherry became recorder by the same means.
Getting to work
Once in office, the women got to work. Laura Starcher set the
agenda of replacing street lights that were removed by the previ-
ous administration, cleaning and fixing the streets and sidewalks,
and enforcing the laws of the town, among other things. E.E.
Starcher, after the initial shock of losing the election to his wife,
found some words of praise for her to The (Portland) Oregonian,
saying she was “the best housekeeper in the United States.”
In the 1920 election, the year women’s suffrage was added to
the U.S. Constitution in the 19th Amendment, no women ran for
the council and it was again filled with men.
Fast forward through history
History has a strange way of not just repeating, but invert-
ing. We saw it just last month as Hillary Clinton, the first female
major party candidate in U.S. history, lost a narrow presidential
election that she was widely and confidently expected to win.
Many pundits, experts and editorial boards considered her
opponent, Donald Trump, to be the leader of an unsustainable
and impractical following. His campaign was not carried out in
secret, like the Petticoat Revolution, but his message hit some of
the same notes of anger toward leadership perceived as disinter-
ested, complacent and compromised.
Trump’s win also relied on a disengaged electorate, with the
lowest turnout since the 1996 election and down about 9 per-
centage points from 2008. While Clinton won the most votes,
Trump won the important ones in the important states and will
take office in January.
Wield the power
Both the Petticoat Revolution of 1916 and the Make America
Great Again campaign of 2016 gave political power to people
with no prior experience wielding it.
But the similarities end there, especially considering the mag-
nitude of the U.S. president’s responsibilities compared to that
of an early 20th century city council in a small Eastern Oregon
town.
A parable to the powerless
Donald Trump’s campaign and victory will be dissected for
decades, and it is a new template for a political upset. There
were factors both in his control and outside of it that led to his
election.
What the women of Umatilla pulled off a century ago is now
a curious footnote in that area’s history, a parable of the ability to
overthrow stereotypes and give voice to the previously power-
less. They saw the opportunity to take power and grabbed hold,
changing the mindset and culture of their town.
Nature wins in a landslide
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
S
EASIDE — We spend so
much time responding to the
extraordinary demands of
tsunami prep that we don’t consider
the more traditional threats. After
all, tsunamis only happen every 244
years.
Seaside Fire and Rescue Chief
Joey Daniels told me that while
training for tsunamis and mega-
quakes was important, the day-to-
day operations of the department
focused on more common occur-
rences like landslides and floods.
City Council
President Don
Johnson urged
residents this fall to
not only consider
tsunamis, but
remember storms
that come “even more frequently.”
“Prepare for the Big One, but
be ready for the other ones coming
through,” Johnson said this fall.
I’m still haunted by the call I
received about one year ago from
Astoria’s Kari Stedman, who with
her aunt, Marilyn Keno, was caught
in rising waters in front of Dennis’
7 Dee’s last year. As soon as they
hit the water, the engine stalled
and water began filling the vehicle.
Stedman escaped by climbing out
a window and onto the roof of the
Ford Taurus before wading through
two feet of water to free Keno. Both
were treated for hypothermia and
post-traumatic stress.
I never drive past that spot in the
rain without thinking about it.
The flood of ’96
A heavy rain can still shut down
a major road like U.S. Highway
101, and it did so on Thanksgiving
Day.
Oregon’s Statewide Planning
Goal 7 states stream and river
crossings must be designed to allow
for clearance above flood levels
and flood-prone roads and bridges
identified and mapped.
Nature doesn’t always play
along.
While Seaside’s hills are
underlain by mudstone bedrock
or volcanic rock, which rarely has
landslides, heavy rains can trigger
debris and mud flows like those wit-
nessed in Seaside in February 1996.
“The Great Flood of ’96” forced
the evacuation of 22,000 people in
Oregon and 7,000 in Washington.
Snow, freezing temperatures and
then a subtropical jet stream flooded
saturated ground.
A bridge collapse south of U.S.
Highway 26 near the Nehalem
River left families trapped after a
40-foot concrete center span was
washed away by a massive logjam
led to a bridge collapse.
It took eight hours for rescuers
to hike into the hills to get around
mudslides and reach trapped
families. Roads were marked to
signal planes. One home was lost to
fire after power came on. Standing
water, wet building materials and
furnishings led to dire warnings
from the state health department.
“People are just beginning to
come out of their initial shock,” the
county’s former emergency manager
Ed Hauer told the Seaside Signal
two weeks after the floods.
For families who lost homes
and belongings, “They don’t know
where to go from here,” Hauer said.
Some roads remained underwa-
ter for days, while slides and deteri-
oration closed many smaller roads.
In this state
map, darker
area indicate
“very high”
existing
landslide
conditions.
Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries
At the storm’s peak, 167
roads closed throughout the state.
Northwest Oregon highways faced
more than $44 million in damages,
and drew rescue support from the
National Guard, Coast Guard and
local responders.
Car engines, refrigerators and
major appliances were carried off in
the floodwaters.
“Even my false teeth floated
away,” Hamlet’s Larry Sage told the
Signal.
The Oregon
Coast is
entering a
period with
more extreme
storms and
likely greater
impacts
from coastal
erosion.
Making strides
Landslides are ranked as one of
the most significant natural hazards in
the state, causing millions of dollars
in damage annually, geologist Brad
Avy wrote in a 2016 report from the
Oregon Department of Geology and
Mineral Industries, the state agency
known as DOGAMI.
While DOGAMI has made “great
strides” in mapping landslides, fore-
casters still can’t tell us the possibility
a slide will occur or its intensity.
Not all hillsides are slide prone.
But if you see ground movement,
evacuate immediately.
“It may start very slowly and be
hard to detect,” said Althea Rizzo,
geologic hazards coordinator for
the state Office of Emergency
Management said. “Know the routes
to safe ground.”
Better and more accurate
maps have led to identification of
previously unknown slides. “It will
take time to make the necessary
preparations,” Rizzo said. “It may be
necessary to harden routes against
slides.”
Think about how much worse it
would have been if North Coast Land
Conservancy hadn’t embarked on its
Circle Creek floodplain restoration
project in 2013. To restore the flood-
plain, the land conservancy and its
partners — including Clatsop County
and the Oregon Department of
Transportation — excavated sections
of a berm that was built along the
Necanicum River, leaving certain
areas to maintain older trees.
Lyra Fontaine reported that the
berm removal allowed water from the
Necanicum River to naturally flood
the Circle Creek floodplain, instead
of the adjacent Highway 101. After
the first year of the project, analysis
showed that the restoration prevented
road closure at least three times that
winter. Since the 2013 berm removal,
“we’ve had significantly less flooding
both in frequency and severity,” the
Oregon Department of Transportation
reported.
When the highway was closed
elsewhere during last winter’s big
rainstorm, it was passable by Circle
Creek.
The forecast
So far, this year’s flood watches
and landslide threats shut down trails
in the state’s Coast Range, the central
and south Willamette Valley and the
south Washington coast.
“People, structures and roads
located below steep slopes in
canyons and near the mouths of
canyons may be at serious risk,”
DOGAMI Communication Director
Ali Ryan Hansen said in advance of
November’s Thanksgiving storms.
Dangerous places include canyon
bottoms, stream channels, bases of
steep hillsides and road cuts or other
areas where slopes of hills have been
excavated or over-steepened. Be
especially careful in places where
slides or debris flows have occurred
in the past.
As I write this, Ecola State Park
and Indian Beach Trail are closed
after heavy rains undid temporary
repairs to Indian Beach Trail.
Visitors to Saddle Mountain
State Natural Area are forewarned
by the Oregon Recreation and Parks
Department that winter weather may
cause the road to become impassable.
“Use caution and always let someone
know where you are going,” they
advise.
In 2005, the same department
forecast a 25-year period of La
Niña, which means that the Oregon
Coast is entering a period with more
extreme storms and likely greater
impacts from coastal erosion.
That was 11 years ago, with about
14 more to come.
But who’s counting?
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s
South County reporter and editor of
the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach
Gazette.