Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2017)
GREAT COASTAL GALE OF 2007 Page 10 // December 2017 DailyAstorian.com ‘You’ve just got to hunker down and fight your way through it’ 2007 storm tested Seaside’s public works employees By R.J. MARX Seaside Signal N eal Wallace was the public works director for Seaside in 2007, and it fell to he and his team to respond to the cleanup left in the after- math of the Great Coastal Gale. “I feel like we are always prepared for something,” Wallace said. “It’s part of what we do.” It was Sunday eve- ning, Dec. 2, 2007, and “it was blowing up pretty good outside.” A light sleeper, at 6 a.m. there was a knock on the door. Neal Wallace It wasn’t until he saw a big billboard tossed onto the highway that he realized the scale of the storm. “We get big winds, but those winds just kept up,” he said. “It was howling for 24 hours.” Among his first actions was to gather crews and help respond to public safety concerns. Despite three days of high winds, Wal- lace and crew battled the outdoor ele- ments. “Monday they were really bad,” he said. “You just do. It’s just one of those things. You’ve just got to hunker down and fight your way through it.” The com- munity pulled STORM FACTS: together to Daytime temperatures help each other were fairly comfortable out, from indi- in the mid-50s. vidual resi- dents to the fire department and Pacific Power, which brought crews from throughout the West. The Bob Chisholm Community Center turned into a shelter for hundreds of resi- dents, under the direction of Mary Blake, then executive director of the Sunset PAM ROBEL Pacific Northwest Natural Foods and adjoining shops in Gearhart suffered from roof and water damage. A business sustained damage in high winds. PAM ROBEL North Coast residents gather at the Bob Chisholm Senior and Community Center in Seaside for warm food, kids games and movies during the storm. Empire Park and Recreation Department. While the building didn’t have a backup power source at the time, Wallace and his crew helped hook up a 60-kilowatt generator so they could run the kitchen and run lights. The emergency operations center, using walkie-talkies, allowed the city to coordinate cleanup operations. “Down at the south ‘Y,’ off on the east side of the highway, was a big empty lot that had been graded off,” Wallace said. “We got permission to bring debris there, which was very handy.” A hauling crew brought grinders in and hauled the material away. Western Ore- gon Waste added to the recycling effort. Wallace sees the city’s 2007 response as indicative of what might happen when future disasters strike. “Wherever there is a problem, people figure out a solution,” Wallace said. While storms will always hit, moving power lines underground makes a big dif- ference, he said. The city is working on that now — all new development requires underground power, and busier areas are targeted — access areas, the beach, Ave- nue A, 12th Avenue and Holladay Drive. “Hopefully they’ll do that on South Holl- aday Drive,” he added. Unfortunately, for many streets, if wires are already overhead, “it gets wick- edly expensive,” he said. Any special commendations during the storm? “I think everybody overall,” Wallace said. “I think it is hard to single out peo- ple, because so many people just did what they could to make it happen in so many different areas. “Whether it is a storm or you’ve got a main break, that’s when the public works guys kind of shine,” he continued. “When they respond to fix some things, that’s when they look the best.” South County had its own problems By PAMELA ROBEL For The Daily Astorian W hen the weather report came in, I decided the eas- iest thing to get for myself in the event that I was out of power for a little while would be easy “cheese” — you know, the stuff that comes in a can and doesn’t have to be refriger- ated — and a loaf of bread for cheese sandwiches. I bought my first camping lantern, brought my sleeping bag in from my car, plugged in my laptop, and taped my windows because I’d never been in a storm like was predicted. I remember the lights flickering out, and the wind making my apart- ment sway enough that I felt seasick. Waking up in the morning and head- ing to the Seaside Signal office, the first thing I remember seeing that sug- gested it was a doozy of a storm was the huge pine in front of the office uprooted in the parking lot. As more light came, more dam- age showed. Stops at city hall, the police and fire departments confirmed there was no power and that an emer- gency shelter was being set up. From there on out, the shelter was my first stop every morning. The radio was the other vital part of the information train. Everywhere I went had a radio on so that updates could be heard quickly; the hum of the radios became an almost constant background noise. What struck me most was the sense of community throughout the whole immediate aftermath and the longer cleanup. Having moved to Seaside to work, getting through the storm with everyone else made me a local, not a tourist. Maybe because we all went through things together, maybe because when I wasn’t working I went to the shelter to help make meals. Coverage and reporting was tricky. You couldn’t make phone calls or send emails. As I remember it, U.S. High- way 101 was closed for a few days, so I was standing on the beach sending my reports to The Daily Astorian via text message, taking my own humble photos, and doing a lot of literal foot- work for every story before returning to my dark, cold apartment to wash my hair in cold water in my bathroom sink and snuggle into my sleeping bag at curfew each night. On day three or four, when 101 was reopened, I drove my story notes to the Astoria office, typing on the shared computer and grateful for the warmth of the office. Whether it was a story about chopping tree debris or flipping pancakes, every story seemed critically important through that time. When the power came back on in Astoria, I’d never been more thank- ful for the offer to stay in a hotel. I’ll always be thankful for the paper put- ting me up for two nights. Having access to heat and hot water felt unbe- lievably luxurious after a week in the dark and cold! Pamela Robel is a writer based in Moses Lake, Washington. She was The Daily Astorian’s Seaside-based South County reporter in 2007. W E S T A N D B E H I N D W H AT W E I N S T A L L Call Now for a FREE Estimate! 360-423-1420 YOUR LOCAL GENERAC ELITE DEALER • Automatic Standby Generator • Factory Authorized Installer • Factory Authorized Service Provider • Factory Trained Technicians www.RenaudElectric.com 3rd Generation Since 1955