107TH OREGON COAST INVITATIONAL STARTS TODAY SPORTS • PAGE 10A
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, JULY 24, 2017
145TH YEAR, NO. 16
ONE DOLLAR
There
goes
the sun
Eclipse could bring
chaos to Oregon’s
forests and mountains
By ZACH URNESS
Statesman Journal
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
The Southeast Seaside Urban Renewal Plan includes work to repair infrastructure such as sidewalks and roads in the
community. The plan also identified a need for improvements to stormwater and sewage infrastructure as well as other
transportation projects.
Southeast Seaside
seeks a turnaround
Whoever scheduled the solar eclipse for
Aug. 21 should be fired.
That’s the joke, at least, among land man-
agers bracing for the tidal wave of humanity
expected to descend on the nation’s public
lands for the once-in-a-lifetime event.
Millions of visitors are projected to
swarm the forests and mountains in states
within the eclipse path of totality, at the same
time wildfire danger and summer tourism is
reaching its apex.
“It literally could not be happening at a
worse time,” said Jean Nelson-Dean, public
information officer for Deschutes National
Forest in Oregon, the first state that will get
eclipse views.
“It’s the peak of fire season. Our emer-
gency responders are going to be spread thin.
And the forest is going to be filled with a lot
of people who don’t camp very often and
might have little experience with the out-
doors,” Nelson-Dean said.
See ECLIPSE, Page 7A
Urban renewal plan still
has hurdles to clear
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
EASIDE — Round one of an urban
renewal plan that would involve critical
bridge and school improvements in south-
east Seaside has moved a step forward.
The Planning Commission determined this
month that the report presented by Elaine How-
ard Consulting met the city’s criteria as speci-
fied in the master plan. Next step is the City
Council, which is scheduled to hear details of
the report at the city’s Aug. 14 meeting.
The report presents renewal area boundaries
and provides cost estimates.
Southeast Seaside’s infrastructure goals, pre-
pared in a May goal-setting session, include
a pedestrian bike bridge, parks projects and
upgrades to unincorporated properties in the area.
Covering almost 560 acres of land along
South Holladay, Avenue S from U.S. High-
way 101 east and the southern section of High-
way 101, the urban renewal district would make
up about 21 percent of the city’s total acreage
and 22 percent of Seaside’s assessed value.
“One of the places where urban renewal agen-
cies can be very effective is in matching
money,” City Manager Mark Winstanley said.
“If the Oregon Department of Transportation,
as an example says, ‘We are going to give you
money for the Avenue U Bridge, but we are only
going to give you 90 percent of the money,’ the
urban-renewal agency could pay for 10 per-
cent of the project. You might be able to build
a bridge early because you are only providing
matching money, not the major portion.”
Submitted Drawing
See SEASIDE:, Page 7A
The city’s former Tsunami Advisory Group prepared this map showing
Seaside’s most endangered areas including the south part of Seaside.
S
AP Photo/David Zalubowski
The annular solar eclipse is seen as the
sun sets behind the Rocky Mountains
from downtown Denver in 2012. Hotels
and campsites are sold out as some
communities are preparing for unparal-
leled numbers of visitors.
More of the
same weather
on the way
Rest of summer as dry
and warm as first half
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
A writer in the genre of the weird
Donihe a star of
bizarro fiction
n the world of bizarro fiction,
Kevin Donihe is somewhat of
a superstar. The wiry, 40-year-old
author has published
more than 10 novels and
twice won the nascent
genre’s top annual book
award.
Trying to escape
writer’s block, Donihe
left his home state of Tennessee sev-
eral months ago for Astoria, where
he has quickly settled in and begun
work on two new books.
Donihe hails from Kingsport, a
small city in the hills of northeast-
ern Tennessee. By age 5, he said,
I
it was clear he would be an author.
By his mid-20s, he’d published his
first novel, “Shall We Gather at the
Garden?,” about a commune of cir-
cus midgets with supernatural pow-
ers who are infiltrated by the book’s
protagonist.
Donihe said he was
inspired by Victorian and
Edwardian horror and
modern and postmod-
ern authors such as Franz
Kafka and William S. Bur-
roughs. He started out writ-
ing horror fiction, which he felt had a
market he could tap into.
“But what I really wanted to write
was strange, idiosyncratic stuff, that
really didn’t have a niche, or didn’t
See DONIHE, Page 7A
If you liked the warm, dry start to our
Northwest summer, you’ll probably like the
rest of it. There’s no change to the dominant
weather pattern in sight.
The National Weather Service’s Climate
Prediction Center released newly extended
forecasts on Thursday for one month and
three months out. For the Pacific Northwest,
the outlook includes a good chance of above
normal temperatures in August and it stays
dry.
Weather Service Meteorologist Ted
Buehner in Seattle said the rest of summer
and early fall look much the same.
“Really good odds on warmer than aver-
age temperatures during this 90 day period,”
he said. “It doesn’t mean that it will always
be warm, but the overall average will tend to
be warmer.”
See WEATHER, Page 7A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Bizarro fiction author Kev-
in Donihe stands in front of a
sculpture modeled by friends af-
ter Muninn, a raven from Norse
mythology belonging to Odin,
used in Fort George Brewery’s
Festival of the Dark Arts.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Kids play on rocks in Sunset Bay as the
sun sets over the Pacific Ocean on Sun-
day in Coos Bay.