The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current, October 30, 2018, Image 65

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    GIVING BACK INSIDE
146TH YEAR, NO. 87
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2018
A map shows
the location of a
6.2 earthquake
off the Oregon
Coast in August.
Seaside
struggles
most with
chronic
absenteeism
Rate has worsened
throughout the state
RUMBLE
STRIP
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
A cluster of earthquakes is
a reminder to be prepared
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
S
ince mid-July, several earth-
quakes have rumbled off the
Pacific coast, an uncomfort-
able reminder to get prepared
for the Big One.
This month, a cluster of quakes rang-
ing from magnitude 6.5 to 6.8 hit off
Vancouver Island in British Colum-
bia, with a 4.5 magnitude temblor strik-
ing 171 miles and 6 miles deep off the
southern Oregon Coast shortly after.
Similar earthquakes near Bandon have
registered multiple times throughout the
summer, including a 6.2 quake in late
August.
While seismic activity along the
North Coast has been relatively quiet,
some of the shaking — and the fear of
whether these earthquakes are indica-
tors that a Cascadia Subduction Zone
disaster is coming — has been felt by
residents.
Though recent earthquakes have
received a lot of attention, their occur-
rence should not be cause for any more
alarm than usual, local geologist Tom
Horning said.
Earthquakes with magnitudes more
than 4.0 often come in clusters about
once every six to 18 months, Horning
said.
“This always comes up,” said Horn-
ing, who serves on the Seaside City
Council. “You’ll likely be talking to me
again in two years.”
The cluster happening near south-
ern Oregon is along the Blanco Fracture
Zone, a transform fault known to have
frequent seismic activity. Because there
ONE DOLLAR
Seaside students continued to struggle
the most with chronic absenteeism relative
to their peers in Clatsop County and state-
wide last school year.
Chronic absenteeism is defined as miss-
ing at least 10 percent of the school year.
Nearly one-quarter of Seaside students were
considered chronically absent last school
year, according to state attendance reports, a
nearly 1 percent increase from the year prior
and up 7.5 percent from 2014-15.
Around one-third of Seaside kindergart-
ners and high schoolers last school year were
considered chronically absent.
“I think that we certainly need an improve-
ment in our attendance,” said Sheila Roley,
the school superintendent in Seaside. “It has
become close to the top of our priority list.”
The school district has a highly mobile
population, with families sometimes moving
out of the district and not letting the district
know, Roley said. Families busy with work
during the summer also take breaks during
the school year to spend time together, rack-
ing up absences, she said.
See SEASIDE, Page 4A
U.S. Geological Survey maps
The star in the lower left corner of the map shows the location of a 4.5 earth-
quake on Wednesday off the Oregon Coast.
are no fault zones directly pointed near
the North Coast, there is less constant
stress. Consider it “nature’s way of dis-
sipating friction,” Horning said.
“It’s hard to reconcile what’s happen-
ing in Vancouver with the center part of
the subduction zone where we are,” he
said. “It’s only an academic exercise to
estimate how much stress could be pil-
ing up or not as a result.”
If anything, the fact the Cascadia
Subduction Zone fault is so quiet is
more notable, said Evelyn Roeloffs, a
geophysicist from the U.S. Geological
Survey.
“We can’t make any association with
earthquakes out in the ocean like (the
ones) near southern Oregon and the tim-
ing of when earthquakes might hit closer
in the coastline,” she said. “Our sub-
duction zone is unusual because we had
large earthquakes in prehistoric times,
and we expect to have a big earthquake
in the future … But it’s so quiet now.
That’s more the mysterious thing.”
While the types of earthquakes and the
frequency are not unusual, the amount of
interest taken by the public and the news
See QUAKES, Page 8A
‘THIS ACTIVITY SHOULD NOT ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO
BE LESS ALARMED OR MORE ALARMED. YOU SHOULD
ALWAYS BE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ALARMED LIVING
HERE … AND YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE PREPARED.’
Coast Guard
crew honored
for disaster
response
Five given Air Medal
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
As an elderly woman was hoisted into a
Coast Guard helicopter in the aftermath of
Hurricane Harvey last year, she surveyed the
devastation that had befallen her rural Texas
community. She then reached toward the sky
in prayer.
Lt. Kyle Murphy, a pilot, remembers the
moment even more than the countless obsta-
cles he and other crew members faced during
the disaster.
“I can still see the people that we picked
up. I can see their faces,” Murphy said.
Murphy and members of the two Air Sta-
tion Astoria aircrews who responded to the
hurricane were awarded Monday with the Air
Medal. Other recipients of the medal, a mil-
itary decoration that recognizes acts of her-
oism and achievement during aerial flights,
Tom Horning | local geologist
See CREW, Page 8A
DOLL ASYLUM A
MACABRE REFUGE
A Halloween fright on Harrison
By EDWARD
STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Most of the year, Mark
Williams’ and Heidi Loutzen-
hiser’s 1906 John Wicks-de-
signed Victorian looks like
any other historic home.
But around Halloween,
the couple’s home on Harri-
son Avenue transforms into a
macabre refuge known as the
Doll Asylum.
See ASYLUM, Page 8A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
The Doll Asylum in Astoria includes around 1,200 toys
arranged in various degrees of horror and humor around
Mark Williams’ and Heidi Loutzenhiser’s Victorian home.