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
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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
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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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