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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2017)
GREAT COASTAL GALE OF 2007 Page 4 // December 2017 DailyAstorian.com Cutting through a problem Downed trees halted emergency response, aid during 2007 gale By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian he Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office holds an unofficial title amongst emergency officials as the county’s search and rescue team during a county-wide emergency. But obstacles on the roads during the Great Coastal Gale of 2007 often left dep- uties stumped. Most rescues involved elderly peo- ple in rural areas. They even received requests to deliver fuel for generators and other supplies. But as deputies drove out to these areas, thousands of downed trees and damaged roads greeted them. Some even carried chainsaws to clear roads as they responded to calls. A state law passed in 1971 mandated that trees must not be logged within 100 feet of a highway. These forested buffer T DAMIAN MULINIX A tree hangs suspended over Highway 103 on a power line in Ocean Park. zones created canopies over highways. Because trees were logged behind them, the open air made the remaining shrub vulnerable to wind. Even before the storm, trees and large limbs would fall on the highway — taking out power lines and inhibiting road access. The shade from the trees also lengthened the process of snow melt, a factor at high altitudes during the gale. “It really made me think about, ‘How can we have all these trees encroaching upon the road so much? It’s killing us,’” said Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Ber- gin. “That storm really was the catalyst to getting these trees cleared off the road- way and getting them moved back.” In the years following the storm, Bergin worked with State Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, and Rep. Deb- orah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, to pass legislation allowing for hazardous trees to be cleared from state highways. The state legislature passed a bill in 2012 allowing the tree removal, even if they are located in the buffer zones. After pushback from groups hoping to con- serve the trees, Bergin accomplished a goal rooted in the gale. “These trees, they’re beautiful,” Ber- gin said. “We all want trees, but they have to be backed off the road so when we have these huge major events, we don’t lose the power and we don’t lose people.” Many potentially dangerous trees have been removed since then, and many more will be cut in years to come. “It took 30, 40 years to get here, so it’s going to take us a few years to get it cleaned back out,” Bergin said. Ham radio a vital link during storm Gear is relatively cheap, easy to operate, portable By NATALIE ST. JOHN and JACK HEFFERNAN Chinook Observer & The Daily Astorian T hey just don’t make technology like they used to. When the fierce 2007 storm knocked out phone, internet, power and cable lines on both sides of the Columbia River, fans of a largely forgotten, century-old innovation came to the rescue — amateur, or ham, radio operators. “There was a period of time when ham was basically it,” Pacific County Com- missioner Frank Wolfe recalled. Wolfe is one of the roughly 100 “hams” in Pacific County. In the after- math of the storm, he and his fellow ama- teur radio operators helped county offi- cials get in touch with Camp Murray, the center of Washington state’s emergency operations. They also helped dozens of locals. “We would dispatch someone to go down and find Aunt Sally,” Wolfe explained. In one case, their coordination with emergency responders may have saved the life of a man who lost consciousness when his oxygen concentrator ran out of power. STORM FACTS: The opera- Wild combination tors also provided of continuous on-the-ground wind and tropical information about rain was fueled by weather and road remnants of conditions to the staff Typhoon Mitag in Pacific County’s and Typhoon Emergency Operations Hagibis. Center in South Bend. In Oregon, too, doz- ens of radio operators facilitated commu- nications between dispatchers and emer- gency responders. Their services were so vital that when Clatsop County commis- sioners signed a disaster declaration, they Come Visit The PORT OF ILWACO ALEX PAJUNAS A Ford Explorer is trapped by downed telephone poles and power lines looking east on Olney Avenue. Frank Van Winkle, left, Don Hillgertner and Charles “Buddy” Hoell field emergency calls at the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office. used amateur radio to send it to Gov. Ted Kulongoski. “It was really the first time that I under- stood why they were a value to the extent that they were,” said Tiffany Brown, Clat- sop County’s emergency manager. “They really saved the day in those few days before we got communications back up and running.” A decade later, people are even more dependent on cellphones and the internet, and that means they may be in for some unpleasant surprises when the weather goes wild, Wolfe said. That’s when ham radio really shines. Unlike a lot of more modern communication tools, it doesn’t rely on fiber-optic cables, electrical con- nections or other things that are likely to fail in a storm. The gear is relatively cheap, easy to operate and portable. The radios can be powered with solar panels or batteries, and they can be used to com- municate with people all over the world. That’s why Wolfe has spent 20 years training local operators and expanding the county’s ham infrastructure, largely at his own expense. When he first got interested in helping the county with disaster preparedness in 1980, officials were worried about a dif- ferent kind of disaster. “The big thing back then was Mount St. Helens,” Wolfe said. “The debris from the volcano had blocked the Toutle River and basically built a dam made out of tal- cum powder.” While workers raced to stabilize the Toutle, emergency managers feared the Cottage Bakery Outstanding Service Quality Work & Delicatessen Open 7 days a week! 4 a.m. 642-4441 • Downtown Long Beach A Harbor of Safe Refuge - Charter Fishing - Waterfront Dining - Fresh Seafood - Shopping - Lodging - Working Waterfront We Remember! We were open to service the public EVERY DAY of the power outage with hot tea, hot chocolate, coffee, soup, etc. We appreciate all of you, Rain or Shine! dam would collapse, sending a 30-foot- deep mud flow through Cowlitz County, and potentially setting off a domino effect that would cause flooding all the way to the coast. Local leaders realized that if the Toutle dam collapsed, siren systems in Longview and Kelso might spur huge numbers of people to head for the coast, Wolfe said. That got local leaders think- ing seriously about how they would feed, shelter and care for people during a large- scale disaster. The 2007 storm inspired leaders on both sides of the river to take another hard look at their disaster-response plans. As a result, Brown, and her Pacific County counterpart, Stephanie Fritts, both devel- oped stronger ties with the amateur radio community. Radio operators have set up equipment at county-owned facilities on both sides of the river. In Clatsop County, about 500 people earned their amateur radio licenses. Enthusiasts continue to work on cre- ating more radio sites, and strength- ening the signal. Wolfe has personally improved the local radio system by buy- ing and installing repeaters — the devices that help transmit strong radio signals across larger distances. A decade ago, much of the region had a ham signal, but coverage was spotty, especially in hilly or mountainous areas. Now, due to the roughly 20 repeaters Wolfe has installed at his own expense, Pacific County’s sig- nal extends all the way to Camp Murray in Tacoma. That ensures that local emer- gency responders will always have a way to get in touch with their state-level coun- terparts on the National Guard base. “I think windstorms are good for us because they test our planning,” Wolfe said. “It’s just enough of a disaster to get people’s attention.” He hopes these events will show a new generation of potential amateur radio enthusiasts that while ham might seem antiquated, it’s still very relevant when everything else goes haywire. “Our people are already deployed. They live there,” Wolfe said. “They’re already equipped. It’s their own equip- ment that they bought, so they know how to use it. 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