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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2018
Hurricane Lane lumbers toward Hawaii
By JENNIFER SINCO
KELLEHER and
AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press
HONOLULU — Hurri-
cane Lane spun in a danger-
ously unpredictable path today
as it lumbered toward Hawaii,
dumping rain on the mostly
rural Big Island and forcing
more than 1,000 people to flee
to emergency shelters.
The Category 2 storm had
winds of about 110 mph, with
stronger gusts. It was unclear
when the system would make
an expected turn west and bar-
rel toward the island chain.
Even though it was not pro-
jected to make a direct hit on
Hawaii, the storm could pass
close to the islands, bringing
a huge storm surge, high wind
and heavy rain, meteorologists
said.
“There’s a lot of uncer-
tainty in this forecast,” warned
Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Administrator Brock
Long. “We’re going to see tor-
rential rains occur for the next
48 to 72 hours. We hope all cit-
izens are heeding the warning
that local officials are putting
out.”
Early today, National
Weather Service meteorologist
Chevy Chevalier described
flooding on the Big Island
as catastrophic. Some areas
recorded 35 inches of rain in
48 hours. The hurricane was
edging away, and may drop
less rain, but the Big Island “is
not out of the woods,” Cheva-
lier said.
“The sponge is full,” he
said. “There’s nowhere for the
water to go except to pond up
and flood these areas.”
At 5 a.m., the center of the
hurricane was about 200 miles
south of Honolulu. The island
had recorded wind gusts up to
60 mph. Oahu and the other
central islands of Maui, Molo-
kai and Lanai were bracing
Jessica Henricks
The Wailuku River floods near Hilo, Hawaii. A powerful
hurricane unleashed torrents of rain and landslides that
blocked roads on the rural Big Island.
for hurricane or tropical storm
conditions later today.
Many of the safety con-
cerns focused on high surf and
storm surge, Chevalier said.
“We’re expecting surf in
the 15- to 20-foot range on
the southern shores of these
islands,” he said. When heavy
rain falls on steep mountains,
“that water comes down fast.
So it comes down and joins the
water that’s coming up on the
southern shores and what does
that do? If floods the coastal
areas.”
Police warned tourists
to leave the world-famous
Waikiki Beach ahead of the
storm’s arrival in Honolulu. So
far, about 1,500 people, mostly
on Oahu, were in emergency
shelters, said Brad Kieserman
of the American Red Cross.
Emergency crews rescued
five California tourists from
a home they were renting in
Hilo after a nearby gulch over-
flowed and flooded the house
on the Big Island.
Suzanne Demerais said
a tiny waterfall and small
stream were flowing near the
home when she first arrived
with four friends from the Los
Angeles area. But the stream
turned into a torrent, and the
river rose rapidly over 24
hours.
Hawaii County firefight-
ers, who were in touch with
the home’s owner, decided to
evacuate the group before the
water rose any higher. They
floated the five out on their
backs, Demerais said.
“It was quite an experience
because we weren’t planning
to have a hurricane during our
vacation time,” Demerais said.
Elsewhere, a brushfire
forced the relocation of a hur-
ricane shelter in Lahaina on
the island of Maui. Nearby res-
idents were also being evacu-
ated. A Maui County spokes-
man said it’s was not clear if
the fire was hurricane related.
Hurricane Lane lashed the
Big Island with more than
30 inches of rain in about 24
hours. A wind gust of 67 mph
was recorded at Kohala Ranch
on the northern side of the
island.
About 200 miles north of
Hilo, on the state’s most popu-
lated island of Oahu, employ-
ees of the Sheraton Waikiki
resort filled sandbags to pro-
tect the oceanfront hotel from
surging surf.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
McCain’s family
says he’s stopping
medical treatment
WASHINGTON — John McCain, the six-
term Arizona senator and the Republican pres-
idential nominee in 2008, has chosen to discon-
tinue medical treatment for his brain cancer, his
family said today.
In a statement, the family said McCain has
surpassed expectations for survival, but “the
progress of disease and the inexorable advance
of age render their verdict.” The family added,
“With his usual strength of will, he has now
chosen to discontinue medical treatment.”
The senator, who would be 82 next week, has
been away from the Capitol since December.
McCain, a former Navy pilot, was held as
a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than
five years. He was elected to Congress in the
early 1980s and was elected to the Senate in
1986, replacing Barry Goldwater, who retired.
McCain gained a reputation as a lawmaker who
was willing to stick to his convictions rather
than go along with party leaders. It is a streak
that draws a mix of respect and ire.
McCain underwent surgery in July 2017 to
remove a blood clot in his brain after being diag-
nosed with an aggressive tumor called a glio-
blastoma. It’s the same type of tumor that killed
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at age 77 in 2009.
McCain rebounded quickly, however, return-
ing to Washington and entering the Senate in late
July to a standing ovation from his colleagues.
In a dramatic turn, he later cast a deciding vote
against the Republican health care bill, earning
the wrath of President Donald Trump, who fre-
quently cites McCain’s vote at campaign events.
Reports: Trump
Organization finance
chief gets immunity
NEW YORK — Media outlets are reporting
that President Donald Trump’s bookkeeper for
his personal and business affairs for decades has
been granted immunity in the federal probe of
former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
The Wall Street Journal and NBC News, cit-
ing anonymous sources, said longtime Trump
Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg
got immunity to talk to federal prosecutors in the
investigation of hush money Cohen paid to two
women who claimed affairs with Trump.
Though not named in the Cohen case, Weis-
selberg is believed to be one of two Trump exec-
utives mentioned in the suit who reimbursed
Cohen and covered up the payments by saying
they were legal expenses.
Weisselberg has been a Trump confidant who
started working for his family in the early 1970s.
National Enquirer
had safe with damaging
Trump stories
WASHINGTON — The National Enquirer
kept a safe containing documents about hush-
money payments and damaging stories it killed
as part of its cozy relationship with Donald
Trump leading up to 2016 presidential election,
people familiar with the arrangement said.
The detail comes as several media outlets
reported Thursday that federal prosecutors have
granted immunity to National Enquirer chief
David Pecker, potentially laying bare his efforts
to protect his longtime friend Trump.
Trump ex-lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded
guilty this week to campaign finance violations
alleging he, Trump and the tabloid were involved
in buying the silence of a porn actress and a Play-
boy model who alleged affairs.
Several people familiar with the Enquirer’s
parent, American Media Inc., said the safe was
a great source of power for Pecker, the compa-
ny’s CEO.
The Trump records were stored alongside
similar documents pertaining to other celebrities’
catch-and-kill deals, in which exclusive rights to
people’s stories were bought with no intention
of publishing to keep them out of the news. By
keeping celebrities’ embarrassing secrets, the
company was able to ingratiate itself with them
and ask for favors in return.
But after The Wall Street Journal initially pub-
lished the first details of Playboy model Karen
McDougal’s catch-and-kill deal shortly before the
2016 election, those assets became a liability. Fear-
ful that the documents might be used against Amer-
ican Media, Pecker and the company’s chief con-
tent officer, Dylan Howard, removed them from
the safe in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration.
It was unclear whether the documents were
destroyed or simply moved to a location known
to fewer people.
While Trump denies the affairs, his account
of his knowledge of the payments has shifted. In
April, Trump denied he knew anything about the
Daniels payment. He told Fox News in an inter-
view broadcast Thursday that he knew about
payments “later on.”
Georgia county
scraps plan to close
most polling places
ATLANTA — Election officials in a major-
ity black Georgia county voted today to scrap
a widely condemned proposal to eliminate
most of their polling places.
Concern about the proposal to close seven
of nine voting locations in the rural county
was “overwhelming,” and is “an encourag-
ing reminder that protecting the right to vote
remains a fundamental American principle,”
the elections board in Randolph County said
in a statement.
Voting and civil rights groups applauded
the decision but said the episode demon-
strates the need to restore Voting Rights Act
protections that were tossed out by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 2013.
The elections board, made up of a black
woman and a white man, took about 30 sec-
onds to vote down the proposal, county attor-
ney Tommy Coleman said.
The plan to close polling places had drawn
national media attention over the past week,
and county officials were inundated with
angry emails from all over the country in what
Coleman called “a tsunami of attention.”
Critics questioned why a county would
make it harder to vote during the hotly con-
tested governor’s race. Georgia’s top elec-
tions official, Republican Brian Kemp, is run-
ning against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is
trying to become Georgia’s first black gover-
nor. Both said they oppose the plan.
An independent consultant recommended
the consolidation and said the seven poll-
ing places in question don’t comply with
the Americans with Disabilities Act. The
county fired that consultant in a letter sent
Wednesday.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educa-
tional Fund and the ACLU of Georgia sent
a joint letter Wednesday to election officials
in all 159 Georgia counties, urging them to
avoid polling place changes that could disen-
franchise voters.
Suboxone: More than 72,000 people died in the US from drug overdoses in 2017
Continued from Page 1A
Drug Administration to treat
opioid addiction. A mixture of
buprenorphine and naloxone,
Suboxone reaches some of the
same receptors in the body as
heroin or prescription opioids,
but can help wean addicts off
the drugs while easing with-
drawal symptoms.
Since June, about a dozen
people have participated in
treatment through the Oregon
Health Plan, the state’s ver-
sion of Medicaid. In the first
year, the two doctors certified
by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration to prescribe
Suboxone can treat up to 30
people each, so the initial cap is
60 patients.
Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care and Columbia Memorial
have been looking for referrals
from the county’s needle-ex-
change program, the county jail
and primary care doctors who
have patients struggling with
opioid abuse. Some patients
first go through detox at Bridge
to Pathways in St. Helens, the
closest medical detox to Clat-
sop County.
“When we started doing this,
we thought there was going to
be a line out the door and down
the street, based on the problem
in this community,” said Amy
Baker, the executive director of
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare,
the county’s mental health con-
tractor. “And we really haven’t
seen that.”
One obstacle is finding peo-
ple during the often small win-
dows of readiness when they
are open to treatment and will-
ing to endure the anxiety of
withdrawal. Another is over-
coming the stigma among peo-
ple who may be abusing pre-
scription opioids initially meant
to treat pain and, in their minds,
do not fit the stereotype of an
addict.
“There are people that
you see in your everyday life
that you wouldn’t consider an
addict, but they are having a
hard time kicking the amount
that they’re on, and it’s really
not serving them well, and so
trying to taper them down to
what is a more appropriate dose,
or to a different medication in
general, some people still strug-
gle with that,” Schacher said.
“So this is an option for us,
from the primary care stand-
point, to help those patients
wean down from those
medications.”
Record number
More than 72,000 peo-
ple in the United States died
from drug overdoses in 2017,
according to preliminary esti-
mates from the federal Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention, a record number
driven by a spike in overdoses
from synthetic opioids, such as
fentanyl.
While many conservatives,
and some in law enforcement,
are uncomfortable with treat-
ment options that substitute
one powerful drug for another
and do not stress abstinence,
the Trump administration has
embraced medication-assisted
treatment in response to the opi-
oid epidemic.
The FDA has encouraged
greater innovation among drug-
makers and called for expanded
access to treatment, describing
it as having the highest proba-
bility of success for people in
recovery. Three FDA-approved
drugs — buprenorphine, meth-
adone and naltrexone — are
commonly used in treatment.
The government also recog-
nizes new ways to gauge prog-
ress beyond abstinence, such as
reducing overdoses, preventing
the spread of infectious diseases
like Hepatitis C and improving
well-being.
“They need medicine to
return to work, re-engage with
their families, and regain the
dignity that comes with being
in control of their lives,” Alex
Azar, the secretary of the
U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, told the
nation’s governors in February.
“These outcomes are literally
the opposite of how we define
addiction.”
Michael McNickle, the
county’s public health director,
who helped start the needle-ex-
change program last year, said
SEPTEMBER 1-3, 2018 | Labor Day Weekend
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medication-assisted treatment
is a positive step forward.
“It is important to provide
treatment for people struggling
with opioid use disorder to pre-
vent overdose or even death,”
he said in an email. “I believe it
is crucial to have access to evi-
dence-based treatments to com-
bat the opioid epidemic, includ-
ing MAT. I think MAT should
only be offered in combination
with counseling and behavioral
therapies.”
Once or twice a week
Launched with startup
money from the Columbia
Pacific Coordinated Care Orga-
nization, which oversees the
Oregon Health Plan in Clatsop,
Columbia and Tillamook coun-
ties, medication-assisted treat-
ment is part of a broader effort
to treat substance abuse locally.
Patients get prescriptions
for Suboxone once or twice a
week at the clinic to pick up
at pharmacies. While they are
subject to urinalysis to screen
for drug use, and are expected
to attend therapy, they are not
required to stay completely free
of other drugs, since the intent
is to reduce harm during recov-
ery and avoid the kind of dan-
gerous relapse where there is a
higher risk of overdose.
“No. 1, you’re keeping peo-
ple alive,” Schacher said. “But
you’re allowing people to be
productive members of soci-
ety, productive members of
our community, present in their
family.”
Schacher and Baker con-
sider opioid abuse a significant
problem in Clatsop County,
which also has high rates of
methamphetamine and alcohol
abuse. Like in many rural com-
munities, substance abuse helps
fuel disparities in health care
and mental health and bleeds
into criminal justice.
“If you want to talk about
it as being a choice or a moral
failing, go talk to somebody
who has lost a loved one to
overdose,” Baker said. “It’s the
pain and the frustration of not
being able to help somebody
when they’re struggling in the
throes of addiction.”
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