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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2017)
DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2017 145TH YEAR, NO. 48 Helping hands for Harvey ONE DOLLAR Carol G. Newman An orange moon over Astoria. Haze from fi res limits outdoor activities Offi cials urge common sense By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Eight of the nine Coast Guard personnel from Air Station Astoria sent to Texas to respond after Hurricane Harvey described their experiences Tuesday. It was the first hurricane duty for any of them. Organized chaos held together by rigorous training By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian W hen Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast, the Coast Guard brought in person- nel from around the country to help , stationing nearly 40 helicopters to perform rescues. Sector Columbia River sent two air crews. After returning this week, they described a scene of organized chaos held together by rigorous training, camaraderie and a dedica- tion to saving others. The crews included pilots Lt. Cmdr. James Gibson, Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Rapp, Lt. Chip Haas and Lt. Kyle Murphy; rescue swim- mers Petty Offi cer 2nd Class Jor- dan Gilbert and Petty Offi cer 2nd Class Dan Wilson; avionics elec- trical technicians Petty Offi cer 2nd Class Jake Cimbak, Petty Offi cer 3rd Class Allison Dowell and Petty Offi cer 3rd Class Tyler Hioe. Water and rooftops The two air crews from the Coast Guard deployed separately to Sector Mobile in Alabama and then on to Air Station Houston. The fi rst thing Hioe remembered was looking out a small window of a C-130. “That’s when it hit me we were there, just seeing all the roofs and all the water through a small window,” he said. Cimbak and Hioe, part of the fi rst local crew to arrive, immedi- ately went to work inspecting the Coast Guard’s MH-60 helicopters, all of which had faced heavy use and some of which were broken. “It was just pouring rain side- ways,” Cimbak said. “It was really ‘THE COAST GUARD IS A SMALL ORGANIZATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE CONSTANTLY LEANING FORWARD TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.’ Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Rapp Sector Columbia River Coast Guard hot, and we were pretty much wet for two days straight.” The Coast Guardsmen worked long days, sleeping for several hours a night on creaky cots in an abandoned hangar with at least 50 other people. Local crews more familiar with the landscape, much of which had been plunged into darkness by the hurricane and was strewn with power lines and other hidden obsta- cles, handled much of the opera- tions during the darkest hours, Cim- bak said. ‘Just kind of … chaos’ Murphy said arriving Coast Guardsmen were split up by spe- cialties, with crews and fl ight plans often built from the ground up. “From the pilot’s side, it was just kind of … chaos,” he said. Dowell had been certifi ed as a hoist operator several weeks before heading to Texas, where she per- formed her fi rst missions hoisting real victims and worked with dif- ferent rescue swimmers. But by that point all the rigorous, standardized training had made hoists part of her muscle memory, she said, and the communication among the differ- ing air crew lineups seamless. Typically, Coast Guard aviators don’t bring cellphones on fl ights, Haas said. But with spotty com- munications and mass numbers of people calling in and using social media to reach out for help, fl ight and boat crews embraced smart- phones, receiving coordinates and navigating to homes through cloud-computing apps like Google Maps. “When the weather was at its worst, it was just the Coast Guard,” said Wilson, who celebrated his 34th birthday rescuing people from fl ood waters. “They were getting the people in most need. And then once that weather had started clear- ing out, that’s when we were getting a lot more resources from the other services as well, which were much needed, and that was just mass evacuation.” Aviators worked with local agencies on where to drop survivors off and with volunteer groups like the Cajun Navy to get people in less serious condition onto boats and to high ground. See COAST GUARD, Page 9A Astoria residents woke up to MORE a sprinkle of ash on their cars Tuesday morning, while people INSIDE in Knappa reported seeing small Fire or volcano? fl akes of ash falling throughout the Oregon blaze day like snow. sparks eruption No air quality warnings have comparisons. been issued in Clatsop County Page 2A yet, even as dozens of wildfi res rage across the state, including a fi re caused by fi reworks in the Columbia River Gorge that broke out Saturday in the Eagle Creek area. That 20,000-acre fi re has since spread toward Portland and jumped the river into Washington state. However, offi cials recommend caution and common sense at the coast as ash and smoke haze from that fi re descend on Clatsop County. Schools limited outdoor activities Tuesday. At Asto- ria High School, all sports practices and other outdoor activities were moved inside . Staff anticipated making a similar decision today, but wouldn’t know for sure until the afternoon . A cross-country meet in Tualatin that Astoria students expected to attend was canceled See HAZE, Page 7A City council backs child care center Opponents have 21 days to appeal decision By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian An education and child care center slated to move into a building on Port of Astoria property last month is in limbo. The Astoria City Coun- cil voted 4-1 Tuesday night to uphold a Planning Com- mission decision to allow Shooting Stars Child Devel- opment Center to operate out of a building on Gateway Avenue, shooting down an appeal by Chris Connaway, president of the local long- shore union chapter. Connaway had argued that the center is a mul- ti use facility and should be considered under more stringent conditions out- lined in the city’s develop- ment code. He and others involved in the hearing now have 21 days to appeal the City Council’s decision to the state Land Use Board of Appeals. Until the appeals process is over, Denise Giliga, owner of Shooting Stars, says the center is stuck between its current location at St. Mary Star of the Sea on Grand Avenue and the new location on Gateway. The center’s lease with the Star of the Sea church ends Sept. 30. See COUNCIL, Page 7A Immigrants shocked by DACA decision Some hopeful Congress will save program By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian Natalia Ponce May was working a shift at the Home Depot in Warrenton when she received a disturbing text from a friend Tuesday morning. President Donald Trump had just announced his inten- tion to dismantle a federal program that allows undocu- mented immigrants who came to the United States as chil- dren to apply for two-year, renewable legal status and employment. A single mother of two young daughters who earned her GED earlier this year and plans to begin classes at Clat- sop Community College later this month, Ponce May began to cry. “I’m still, like, in shock with it,” she said. “I’m just very scared. I think everyone is.” Ponce May is one of several hundred thousand people living in the U.S. who have applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , a program former President Barack Obama established through a 2012 executive order. “I was hopeful this was one of the programs that would be spared,” said Jorge Guti- errez, the executive director of the Lower Columbia His- panic Council. “I was a little bit shocked.” Ponce May, 28, who emi- grated from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula at age 15, applied for the program fi ve years ago. Her application is still pend- ing, and Tuesday’s announce- ment has pushed her further into limbo. Frightened, she called her lawyer as soon as she took her fi rst break for the day. See DACA, Page 7A Brian Davies/The Register-Guard Protesters assemble in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in downtown Eugene Tuesday. The gathering was intended to express solidarity against the Trump admin- istration’s plan to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded young un- documented immigrants from deportation.