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.