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2A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017 Trump won in places, like Aberdeen, drowning in despair County fl ipped Republican last November By CLAIRE GALOFARO Associated Press ABERDEEN, Wash. — One-hundred-fi fty baskets of pink petunias hang from the light posts all over this city, watered regularly by residents trying to make their community feel alive again. A local artist spends his afternoons high in a bucket truck, painting a block- long mural of a little girl blow- ing bubbles, each circle the scene of an imagined, hopeful future. But in the present, vacant buildings dominate blocks. A van, stuffed so full of blan- kets and boxes they are spilling from the windows, pulls to the curb outside Stacie Blodgett’s antiques shop. “Look inside of it,” she says. “I bet you he’s living in it.” Around the corner, a crowded tent city of the des- perate and addicted has taken over the riverbank, makeshift memorials to too many dead too young jutting up intermit- tently from the mud. America, when viewed through the bars on Blodgett’s windows, looks a lot less great than it used to be. So she answered Donald Trump’s call to the country’s forgotten cor- ners. Thousands of her neigh- bors did, too, and her county, AP Photo/David Goldman Forrest Wood, 24, injects heroin into his arm under a bridge along the Wishkah River at Kurt Cobain Memorial Park in Aberdeen, Wash., in June. once among the most reli- ably Democratic in the nation, swung Republican in a presi- dential election for the fi rst time in 90 years. “People were like, ‘This guy’s going to be it. He’s going to change everything, make it better again,’” she says. Blodgett stands at the com- puter on her counter and scrolls through the headlines. Every day it’s something new: details in the Russia campaign investi- gation, shake-ups at the White House, turmoil over Trump’s response to race-fueled riots. His administration’s failed plans to remake the health care system may or may not cost millions their coverage, and there’s a lack of clarity over how exactly he intends to erad- icate a spiraling drug crisis that now claims 142 American lives each day — a growing number of them here, in Grays Harbor County. “Has he done anything good yet?” she asks. “Has he?” Born and raised Blodgett was born and raised in this county, where the logging economy collapsed decades ago, replaced by a sim- mering sense of injustice that outsiders took the lumber, built cities around the world and then left this place to decay when there was nothing more to take. The community sank into despair. Suicides increased, addiction took root. Blodgett is 59, and the rate at which people here die from drugs and alcohol FIVE-DAY FORECAST FOR ASTORIA TONIGHT WEDNESDAY THURSDAY 68 53 56 Low clouds Tillamook 57/70 Salem 59/84 Newport 53/65 Full Last Sep 5 Coos Bay 55/68 New Sep 12 Source: Jim Todd, OMSI TOMORROW'S TIDES Astoria / Port Docks Time 9:23 a.m. 9:38 p.m. Low -1.1 ft. 0.5 ft. Ontario 62/92 Working class crumbled Burns 53/86 Klamath Falls 55/84 Lakeview 53/83 Ashland 63/90 REGIONAL CITIES City Baker City Bend Brookings Eugene Ilwaco Klamath Falls Medford Newberg Newport North Bend Hi 96 92 65 86 66 89 97 89 62 65 Today Lo 54 56 54 55 58 55 64 58 53 55 W s s pc s c s s s pc pc Hi 89 85 65 81 66 84 92 83 65 67 Wed. Lo 55 50 54 55 56 50 60 55 51 54 W pc pc pc s c t pc pc pc pc City Olympia Pendleton Portland Roseburg Salem Seaside Spokane Springfi eld Vancouver Yakima Hi 84 95 88 90 89 69 90 87 87 97 Today Lo 55 65 61 61 59 58 61 57 59 61 W s s s s s c s s s s Hi 74 90 81 86 84 69 87 84 81 93 Wed. Lo 49 63 57 60 56 55 60 58 55 57 W c pc pc s s c s s pc pc TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER NATIONAL CITIES City Atlanta Boston Chicago Denver Des Moines Detroit El Paso Fairbanks Honolulu Indianapolis Kansas City Las Vegas Los Angeles Memphis Miami Nashville New Orleans New York Oklahoma City Philadelphia St. Louis Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle Washington, DC Baker 54/89 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2017 Tonight's Sky: After sunset, Jupiter will be low in the west and Saturn high above the southern horizon. Today Hi Lo 91 74 87 71 80 58 86 60 79 55 81 57 92 70 63 47 88 74 81 60 80 55 101 80 83 64 93 73 90 80 93 73 89 76 89 73 90 65 93 75 82 60 92 68 73 60 85 59 95 77 La Grande 58/87 Roseburg 61/86 Brookings 52/64 Sep 19 John Day 59/88 Bend 56/85 Medford 64/92 UNDER THE SKY High 8.7 ft. 8.3 ft. Prineville 54/88 Lebanon 58/84 Eugene 55/81 Sunset tonight ........................... 8:12 p.m. Sunrise Wednesday .................... 6:25 a.m. Moonrise today ........................... 7:22 a.m. Moonset today ........................... 8:55 p.m. Pendleton 65/90 The Dalles 67/89 Portland 61/81 SUN AND MOON Time 2:45 a.m. 3:36 p.m. Mostly sunny and pleasant Plenty of sunshine Shown is tomorrow's weather. Temperatures are tonight's lows and tomorrow's highs. ASTORIA 56/68 Precipitation Monday ............................................ 0.00" Month to date ................................... 0.38" Normal month to date ....................... 0.66" Year to date .................................... 50.05" Normal year to date ........................ 37.60" Aug 29 74 54 REGIONAL WEATHER Astoria through Monday. Temperatures High/low ....................................... 76°/55° Normal high/low ........................... 69°/53° Record high ............................ 85° in 1942 Record low ............................. 42° in 1988 First SATURDAY 67 52 A morning shower; otherwise, partly sunny Low clouds ALMANAC FRIDAY 67 51 W pc s r pc pc r t c sh r t s s pc t t t pc t pc r s pc s pc Hi 90 82 76 87 81 77 92 60 88 78 80 99 80 83 88 84 90 83 85 86 81 90 72 74 85 Wed. Lo 71 63 58 57 59 53 68 48 76 58 58 79 65 63 79 62 77 65 60 65 60 67 59 55 67 Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. W t t s c s pc t c pc pc s pc pc c t c pc t pc pc s pc pc pc t PACKAGE DEALS APPLIANCE AND HOME FURNISHINGS 529 SE MARLIN, WARRENTON 503-861-0929 O VER Mattresses, Furniture 3 A 0 RS TSOP C LA U Y C O NT DEATHS & More! HOURS OPEN: MON-FRI 8-6 • SATURDAY 9-5 • SUNDAY 10-4 We Service What We Sell his parents even picked his name in tribute to the local tim- ber history. He watched drugs take hold of his relatives, and he swore to himself that he would get out, maybe become a park ranger. But he started tak- ing opioid painkillers as a teen- ager, and before he knew it he was shooting heroin — a famil- iar fi rst chapter in the story of American addiction. He sits under a bridge next to a park named after Kurt Cobain, the city’s most famous son, the Nirvana frontman and a heroin addict, who shot him- self in the head at 27 years old in 1994. Wood is 24. He plunges a syringe full of brown liquid into his vein, though he knows well how this might end. “My uncle died right over there in his truck,” he says, pointing to a cluster of battered houses and blinking back tears. “He was messing with drugs. He did too much.” Obamacare Wood’s mother got treat- ment at the county’s methadone clinic and has stayed clean for years, paid for by her coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Holden was so happy on the day President Barack Obama signed the legislation, she cried. It’s an imperfect program with premiums and deductibles ris- ing for some, she says. But thousands here received cov- erage; the uninsured dropped from 18 percent in 2012 to 9 in 2014 — one of the greatest gains in the state. She reads about all the proposals Republicans have offered to topple it — repeal and replace, just repeal, do nothing and let it buckle on its own — and believes the conse- quences of an unstable system will be most painful in counties like hers, where residents die on average three years younger than those in the rest of the state. For two terrifying weeks this summer, no insurer fi led to provide coverage for the county through the exchange next year, threatening to leave thousands without an option. Other initia- tives seem to be on the admin- istration’s chopping block, too, like family planning programs to combat the high rate of teen pregnancy. The health department last year collected 750,000 needles at its syringe exchange designed to stem the tide of drug-re- lated disease — an incredible number for a small commu- nity, but still down from more than 900,000 the year before. Holden attributes that improve- ment to the methadone clinic that helps Wood’s mother and nearly 500 more stay off drugs. BIRTH Aug. 21, 2017 WILSON, Rosalie Eliz- abeth, 94, of Astoria, died in Astoria. Ocean View Funeral & Cremation Service of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. Aug. 20, 2017 KAUPPI, Kenneth H., 60, of Astoria, died in Astoria. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mor- tuary in Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. Aug. 19, 2017 CROWLEY, Charles Leonard, 89, of Toledo, Wash- ington, formerly of Clats- kanie, died in Toledo. Ocean TUESDAY Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., special session to interview candidates, 5 p.m., regular meeting, Port offi ces, 10 Pier 1, Suite 209. Warrenton City Commis- sion, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main Ave. Astoria Planning Commis- sion, 6:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. APPLIANCE YE Across the country, Trump disproportionately claimed these communities where life- times contracted as the working class crumbled. Penn State sociologist Shan- non Monnat spent last fall plot- ting places on a map experienc- ing a rise in “deaths of despair” View Funeral & Cremation Service of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. Aug. 18, 2017 HERRON, Mary Corinne, 91, of Carson City, Nevada, formerly of Astoria, died in Carson City. Ocean View Funeral & Cremation Service of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. Aug. 4, 2017 HUMPHREY, Rob- ert James, 68, of Seaside, died in Seaside. Ocean View Funeral & Cremation Service of Astoria is in charge of the arrangements. PUBLIC MEETINGS Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice. IN has quadrupled in her lifetime. She thought opening an antiques and pawn shop with her boyfriend on a downtown street bordered by petunias would be fun. Instead, she’s confronted every day with her neighbors’ suffering. They come to pawn their jewelry to pay for medication. They come looking for things stolen from them. They come to trade in odds and ends and tell her food stamps won’t cover the dog food. She keeps a bag of kibble behind the register. Now they come to dis- cuss Trump, and their differ- ing degrees of faith that he will make good on his promise to fi x the rotting blue-collar econ- omy that brought this despair to their doorstep. Many here agree that the thrashing and churning in Washington looks trivial when viewed from this place 3,000 miles away that so many resi- dents have been trying so hard to save. Some maintain con- fi dence that Trump will rise above the chaos to deliver on his pledge to resurrect the American dream. Others fear new depths of hopelessness if he fails. Blodgett just prays Trump understand the stakes — because in places like this, there is little room left for error from Washington, D.C. There, he is tweeting insults about senators and CNN. Here, her neighbors have been reduced to living in cars. — from drugs, alcohol and sui- cide wrought by the decima- tion of jobs that used to bring dignity. On Election Day, she glanced up at the television. The map of Trump’s victory looked eerily similar to hers documenting death, from New England through the Rust Belt all the way here, to the rural coast of Washington, a county of 71,000 so out-of-the-way some say it feels like the end of the earth. Aberdeen was built as a boomtown at the dawn of the 20th century. Its spectacular landscape — the Chehalis River carves through tree-topped hills to the harbor — offered ships easy access to the Pacifi c Ocean. Millionaire lumber bar- ons built mansions on the hills. There were restaurants and the- aters and traffi c that backed up as the drawbridge into town seesawed up and down for ship after ship packed with timber. Now that drawbridge pretty much stays put. The economy started to slip in the 1960s, slowly at fi rst, as jobs were lost to globalization and automation. Then the fed- eral government in 1990 lim- ited the level of logging in an attempt to save an endangered owl. Today, the riverbank hosts a homeless encampment where residents pull driftwood from the water to construct memo- rials to the dead. An 8-foot cross honors their latest loss: A 42-year-old man who had heart and lung ailments made worse by infrequent medical care and addiction. A generation ago, people like him worked in the mills, lived in tidy houses and could afford to see a doctor, says the Rev. Sarah Monroe, a street minister here. “But instead his life ended living in a tent on the riverbank.” The county’s population is stagnating and aging, as many young and able move away. Just 15 percent of those left behind have college degrees. A quarter of children grow up poor. There is a critical shortage of doc- tors. All that gathered into what Karolyn Holden, director of the public health department, calls “a perfect storm” that put Grays Harbor near the top of the lists no place wants to be on: drugs, alcohol, early death, runaway rates of welfare. “Things went from extremely good to not good to bad to worse, and we’ve got generations now where they don’t know anything else,” she says. “We have a lot of peo- ple without a lot of hope for themselves.” Forrest Wood grew up here; WEDNESDAY Astoria Parks and Recre- ation Board, 6:45 a.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. Astoria City Council, noon, special meeting on street end easements, City Hall, 1095 Duane St. Clatsop County Housing Authority Board, 5 p.m., Judge Guy Boyington Building, 857 Commercial St. Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 6 p.m., Judge Guy Boyington Build- ing, 857 Commercial St. The Daily Astorian Established July 1, 1873 (USPS 035-000) Published daily, except Saturday and Sunday, by EO Media Group, 949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Telephone 503- 325-3211, 800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103-0210 www.dailyastorian.com MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper. SUBSCRIBER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF CIRCULATIONS, INC. Aug. 2, 2017 HANSEN, Jessica, and VAN OSDOL, Edwin, of Knappa, a girl, Azaleah Azuriah Van Osdol, born at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria. Grandparents are Rune Hansen and Joyce and Ed Van Osdol of Svensen. 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