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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2019
Response: The hovercraft can reach 78% of the world’s coastlines
Continued from Page A1
The Clatsop County Offi ce of Emer-
gency Management coordinated the event
with the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and
state Military Department.
“The landing exercise was two fold,”
said Tiffany Brown, the county’s emer-
gency manager. “The fi rst reason was to
help us better understand the challenges
and interface that will occur with the Navy
if they show up to help us after a Casca-
dia earthquake and tsunami. The second
part of it was for them to start establishing
which beaches are suitable for landing.”
A large earthquake will likely cause
large-scale damage to the region’s road-
ways. Air and sea have become the more
likely routes of delivering supplies after-
ward. That idea crystalized during the
Cascadia Rising emergency preparedness
exercise in 2016, Brown said.
In 2017, the Navy’s Third Fleet, on its
way to Seafair in Seattle, practiced land-
ing supplies from an amphibious landing
craft at South Beach Marina in Newport.
A recent assessment found several
spots in the county for landing, including
Gower Street in Cannon Beach, the Prom-
enade in Seaside, 10th Street in Gearhart
and Sunset Beach, chosen for Monday’s
exercise.
The propellers of the Navy’s air-cush-
ioned landing craft kicked up sand and
water on Sunset Beach as hundreds of
onlookers watched them hover in, defl ate,
drop off heavy vehicles, infl ate and hover
back out to sea atop the surf.
“We can land pretty much anything,”
said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher McCurry, an
executive offi cer aboard the U S S Anchor-
age, a 634-foot amphibious landing dock
where two hovercraft are stowed.
The hovercraft can reach 78% of the
world’s coastlines with far more mobil-
ity than World War II-era craft, McCurry
said. While the Anchorage, commis-
sioned in 2011, has yet to respond to a nat-
ural disaster, other readiness groups sup-
ported responses to Hurricane Katrina,
the Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in
Indonesia and H urricane Maria in Puerto
Rico.
Ships like the Anchorage can get
underway within 96 hours after local
authorities ask for federal assistance . “We
might be able to get on faster depending
on what we’re bringing, ” McCurry said.
The Anchorage can carry water purifi -
cation systems, water tanks, mobile hos-
pitals and medical personnel. Teams from
the ship can set up fi eld hospitals or take
people onboard for treatment. Aircraft
aboard can perform search and rescue
operations.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Astorian
Crew members on the USS Anchorage prepare landing craft for departure during the training exercise.
Guests disembark a landing craft after taking a tour of the USS Anchorage staged off shore.
While the Navy landed supplies from
hovercraft on the beach, the 173rd Fighter
Wing in Klamath Falls fl ew them into the
a irport. Two cargo planes — one from
Japan and another from Little Rock,
Arkansas — took turns landing at the
local airport, unloading H umvees, reload-
ing and taking off.
Senior Master Sgt. Jennifer Shirar, a
spokeswoman for the 173rd, said the unit
is used to fl ying fi ghter planes and wanted
to practice staging cargo planes to provide
relief.
“If the Cascadia event were to occur,
Klamath Falls should not be as affected as
our coastal regions,” she said. “We wanted
to see if we could be a staging area.
“We’re all Oregonians, and if some-
thing like this were to happen, we would
be responding.”
Before the Cascadia Rising exer-
cise, many senior leaders from across the
country had no idea about the dangers the
region faces, Brown said.
“No one was aware of it,” she said.
“They were aware of the New Madrid
Fault, because most of them were on the
East Coast,” she said of the seismic zone
in the South and Midwest. “That regional
exercise was a real shot in the arm for us
as a region, for the rest of the country to
have a better understanding of what the
impacts of this event are going to look
like.”
Military vehicles offl oad from a landing craft at
Sunset Beach during the training exercise.
Commission: ‘We need to do everything we can
to make sure that this is a confi dential process’
Continued from Page A1
“This is for employees
to give confi dential feed-
back on their day-to-day
operations,” Spence said.
“It’s a number of questions
(about) their workplace,
the relationships, and it is
kept confi dential with the
employee so they can give
an unfettered opinion of
their work environment.”
Whether the survey
results could be kept con-
fi dential was a sticking
point for Stevens. The
retired Coast Guard cap-
tain said his experience
with such surveys in the
military made him worried
the results, like the com-
ments by McGrath, would
not remain confi dential and
could be disclosed to the
media or others outside the
Port.
“It’s real hard to keep it
confi dential,” he said. “Of
course people talk to one
another. And there is always
a chance for people who
have a long-sought-after
vendetta after their supervi-
sor or after their boss will
also come to light.”
Eileen Eakins, the Port’s
attorney, said a survey of
employees is part of the
Port Commission’s abil-
ity to evaluate the execu-
tive director. She would
work with a consultant
and Spence to develop the
‘IT’S A NUMBER OF QUESTIONS
(ABOUT) THEIR WORKPLACE,
THE RELATIONSHIPS, AND IT IS
KEPT CONFIDENTIAL WITH THE
EMPLOYEE SO THEY CAN GIVE
AN UNFETTERED OPINION OF
THEIR WORK ENVIRONMENT.’
Frank Spence | president of Port Commission
survey.
“We need to do every-
thing we can to make sure
that this is a confi dential
process,” she said. “And
for those who are inclined
to share it with The Daily
Astorian, or state legis-
lators or anyone else that
they feel necessary to see it,
the way to make sure that
doesn’t happen is to not
distribute a paper copy.”
The survey results
should be discussed pri-
vately in executive ses-
sion, after which the Port
Commission can decide
how to use the results in
their evaluation of Knight,
she said.
“At some point, the
commission may decide
they want to disclose it,
but that’s going to be your
call,” Eakins said. “If it’s
in my possession, I cannot
disclose it unless it’s sub-
poenaed by a court.”
The Port denied a pub-
lic records request by The
Astorian for McGrath’s let-
ter and comments, which
by that point had gone to
Port commissioners, state
agencies and legislators.
The Clatsop County Dis-
trict Attorney’s Offi ce later
ordered the documents
released after a closed
session allowing Knight
to respond to McGrath’s
allegations.
Knight
has
since
deferred his response until
July, Spence said. The
newspaper obtained copies
of McGrath’s observations
from a confi dential source.
Stevens claimed the pro-
cess of reviewing Knight’s
performance had been cor-
rupted by the disclosure of
McGrath’s observations.
Rohne claimed the review
has nothing to do with the
disclosure, which Stevens
disputed.
Port: Staff estimates the crumbling Pier 2
will need several million dollars in repairs
Continued from Page A1
The Port needs an updated
plan to seek help from the
state to address more than
$20 million in maintenance
on crumbling docks. The
Port still has nearly $16 mil-
lion in outstanding loans
with the state’s Infrastruc-
ture Finance Authority for
past improvements, part of
the reason McArthur said
the agency needs to assure
the state it will make a plan
and follow through.
“This is not the end-all,”
she said. “The end-all is
you guys making sure what-
ever becomes your strategic
business plan, you follow it.
You follow it to the letter.
You document what you’re
doing. You demonstrate to
the public that you’re doing
what you said you would
do.”
McArthur’s draft details
the need to repair the Port’s
central waterfront, starting
with the crumbling Pier 2,
where seafood processors in
the agency’s warehouse take
in catch and employ hun-
dreds of workers.
Port s taff estimate the
pier, pockmarked with metal
sheets and quick fi xes to
the deck, needs several mil-
lion dollars in repairs. The
Port recently hired an engi-
neering fi rm to investigate
a solution to sinking on the
west side. State engineers
recently recommended clo-
sure of the east side because
of a rotting substructure.
Many of the recommen-
dations in McArthur’s plan
came from an ad-hoc com-
mittee of fi nancial and eco-
nomic development profes-
sionals convened to help the
Port save and make more
money. The committee pre-
sented its fi nal recommen-
dations before McArthur,
along with the Port’s Airport
Advisory Committee.
The fi nance committee
called for a more proactive
fi nancial approach and bet-
ter tracking of the costs of
maintenance and deprecia-
tion of Port assets in leases
to tenants. The committee
recommended more staff
involvement in reporting to
the commission and more
outside scrutiny of the Port.
The
most
immedi-
ate recommendations cen-
ter around selling under-
performing assets — likely
buildings, but not land
— to provide immediate
money to address deferred
maintenance.
McArthur and the fi nance
committee recommended
creating a process for assess-
ing the viability of prop-
erties before selling any.
The Port recently hired an
appraiser to review the Asto-
ria Riverwalk Inn, Chinook
Building and former Seafare
Restaurant surrounding the
West Mooring Basin for a
likely sale.
Near the end of her pre-
sentation, McArthur reit-
erated that the Port’s near-
term plan needs to focus
on requalifying for state
funding, addressing aging
infrastructure and regain-
ing public trust to make a
case for signifi cant public
investment.
“If you get this founda-
tional work done, then you
can go back to saying, ‘Our
focus needs to be on the eco-
nomic development com-
ponent of our mission,’”
she said. “You’re not going
to get there without doing
these other things fi rst.”
The state Department
of Transportation recently
paused its ConnectOregon
infrastructure grant program
to focus on several multi-
modal hubs around the state.
Dave Harlan, a former
Port employee and now
ports manager for Business
Oregon, told the Port Com-
mission there will likely be
a substantial round of Con-
nectOregon funding in the
near future.
“I just hope that you’ve
got a strategic plan in place,
because I think it’s going to
be a requirement to apply,”
he said. “And I think there’s
an opportunity to bring in
some signifi cant dollars for
Pier 2, and at least take off
one of your top priorities.”