A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2019
IN BRIEF
A FOOTBALL
JAMBOREE
Astoria reroutes traffi c for
waterfront bridge replacement
Astoria recently began the second phase of its water-
front bridge replacement project, closing vehicle and
pedestrian crossings at Sixth, Eighth and 10th streets.
The city received a state Department of Transporta-
tion grant to repair six waterfront bridges between Sixth
and 11th streets. The fi rst phase of the project, address-
ing odd-numbered streets, fi nished late this summer.
Replacement of the even-numbered street ends has
closed vehicle access along 10th Street between the
Astoria Riverwalk and Marine Drive, and along Sixth
and Eighth streets between the Riverwalk and Astor
Street. The city recommends parking on Marine Drive.
Riverwalk foot traffi c has been detoured to Astor
Street between Fifth and 10th streets, and to Marine
Drive between 10th and 11th streets, before returning
to the waterfront.
In a youth football jamboree Saturday at CMH
Field, Astoria posted a dramatic 7-6 win over
Tillamook, when Sam Mather (81) tossed a
touchdown pass to Tucker Delay on the fi nal
play of regulation, with Mather running in the
conversion. Delay is being hoisted by Astoria
coach Zac Patterson.
Astoria Warming Center plans
neighborhood meeting
The Astoria Warming Center is holding a preseason
neighborhood meeting.
The meeting will be at the First United Methodist
Church Fellowship Hall at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
People are welcome to share ideas, concerns and
information for the upcoming shelter season.
Morrison steps down
from rec district board
SEASIDE — Sunset Empire Park and Recreation
District board member Lindsey Morrison has stepped
down for personal reasons.
She resigned Sept. 20.
Morrison won Position 5 on the recreation district’s
board in May with 42% of the vote.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
Oct. 18, 2019
GODWIN, Frances
Marie, 87, of Seaside,
died in Seaside. Cald-
well’s Funeral & Crema-
tion Arrangement Center
of Seaside is in charge of
the arrangements.
Oct. 17, 2019
MAY, Charles Web-
ster, 85, of Astoria, died
in Portland. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
MEMORIALS
Saturday, Oct. 26
CORDER, Steven Jay
“Steve” — Celebration
of life potluck at 2 p.m.,
Masonic Lodge, 1572
Franklin Ave.
WELCH, Patrick Scott
— Remembrance cele-
bration of life at 2 p.m.,
Coastline Christian Fel-
lowship, 89386 Oregon
Hi ghway 202 in Olney.
Sunday, Oct. 27
TARR, Janice P. —
Memorial during the
9:30 a.m. regular service,
St. Catherine’s Episcopal
Church, 36335 U.S. High-
way 101 in Nehalem. All
are welcome.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
• Tyson David Bur-
nard, 23, of Astoria, was
arrested Saturday on state
Highway 202 for assault
in the fourth degree.
Child neglect
• Donald Oscar Lans-
down Jr., 42, of Astoria,
was arrested Friday on
Columbia Drive in Sea-
side for two counts of
child neglect in the sec-
ond degree.
DUII
• Anthony Mein-
hardt, 31, of Elizabeth-
town, Pennsylvania, was
arrested Friday in Sea-
side for driving under the
infl uence of intoxicants,
failure to drive within the
lane and careless driving.
His blood alcohol con-
tent was 0.13%.
Reckless driving
•
Colin
Ellery
Krueger, 47, of Puyal-
lup, Washington, was
arrested Friday for reck-
less driving. Police said
he was driving west-
bound on U.S. High-
way 30 in Astoria when
he lost control of his car
and drove off the west-
bound shoulder down an
embankment.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Sunset Empire Park and
Recreation District Board
of Directors, 5:15 p.m., Bob
Chisholm Community Cen-
ter, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside.
Astoria Planning Commis-
sion, 6:30 p.m., City Hall,
1095 Duane St.
WEDNESDAY
Astoria Parks Board,
6:45 a.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
THURSDAY
Sunset Empire Trans-
portation District Board,
9 a.m., Astoria Transit Center
Conference Room, 900
Marine Drive.
Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce Council,
12 p.m., 818 Commercial
Street, Suite 203.
Astoria City Council,
7 p.m., work session, City
Hall, 1095 Duane St.
Established July 1, 1873
Circulation phone number:
503-325-3211
Periodicals postage paid at Astoria, OR
(USPS 035-000)
Published Tuesday, Thursday
and Saturday by EO Media Group,
949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
97103 Telephone 503-325-3211,
800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR
97103-0210
DailyAstorian.com
ADVERTISING OWNERSHIP
All advertising copy and illustrations
prepared by The Astorian become the
property of The Astorian and may not
be reproduced for any use without
explicit prior approval.
COPYRIGHT ©
Entire contents © Copyright,
2019 by The Astorian.
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF
CIRCULATIONS, INC.
Printed on
recycled paper
Subscription rates
Eff ective May 1, 2019
MAIL (IN COUNTY)
EZpay (per month) ...............................................................................................................$11.25
13 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$37.00
26 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$71.00
52 weeks in advance ........................................................................................................ $135.00
Out of County Rates available at 800-781-3214
DIGITAL
EZpay (per month) .................................................................................................................$8.00
Gary Henley/The Astorian
Oregon Coast hospitals work
on earthquake resilience
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
The state of Oregon is
pushing the community hos-
pitals along the Oregon Coast
to improve their earthquake
resilience. This comes after a
state report predicted none of
them would be able to sustain
operations after the feared
Big One — a magnitude 9
offshore Cascadia earthquake
and tsunami.
Hospitals in Washington
state were called out too, in a
separate report by that state’s
government. The challenge is
inspiring some creative think-
ing about how these hospitals
might secure extended emer-
gency power and water.
A year and a half ago,
the Oregon Health Authority
gathered the head honchos of
all 11 Oregon coastal hospi-
tals in a conference room in
Newport. The hospital CEOs
heard a sobering warning fol-
lowed by a call to action. A
state resilience engineer told
them their coastal towns will
be isolated by landslides, col-
lapsed bridges and turned
into de facto islands after a
great Cascadia earthquake.
“We understand now that
we should plan our resiliency
efforts around a mark of
about three weeks or more,”
said Dr. Lesley Ogden, CEO
of the Samaritan North Lin-
coln Hospital in Lincoln City
and Samaritan Pacifi c Com-
munities Hospital in New-
port who was present at the
meeting. “We should expect
to be totally on our own with-
out deliveries of fuel or water
or anything else.”
In the wake of the 2016
Cascadia Rising quake pre-
paredness exercise, Oregon
and Washington emergency
planners upped the amount
of time the average North-
west resident should be pre-
pared to be self-suffi cient.
The guidelines went from
three days to two weeks.
The longer, three-week stan-
dard for the coastal hospi-
tals comes from the assump-
tion that coastal counties will
sustain the worst earthquake
damage, plus a tsunami, and
be cut off the longest.
Conveniently, Ogden is
overseeing the construction
of a new hospital in Lin-
coln City. It represents a big
advance in quake readiness
over the 50-year-old building
it replaces.
The new hospital fea-
tures remarkably robust steel
beams, bracing and deep pil-
ings for what is mostly a one-
story structure. Facilities
director Chris Lemar noted
fl exible connectors in the pip-
ing throughout a guided tour.
“You can shake ‘em pretty
good and it’s not going to
break,” Lemar said, after rat-
tling a fl exible pipe. “That
way this can keep running
once the shaking stops.”
Ogden
and
Lemar
expressed confi dence that the
new hospital building would
Tom Banse/Northwest News Network
Dr. Lesley Ogden and Chris Lemar stand beside the backup generator at Lincoln City’s new
hospital, which is mounted on a shock-absorbing rack to protect against an earthquake.
remain standing after a mag-
nitude 9 earthquake.
“Now our obligation is
to fi gure out how to care for
patients in it and how to have
things such as power, water
and all of those things we
need to provide care,” Ogden
added.
The time after a major
earthquake might be the
moment of greatest need.
Getting the hospital self-suf-
fi cient on water and electric-
ity for three weeks will be an
ongoing challenge once the
new building opens in early
February.
The new Lincoln City
hospital has an outside wall
connector to receive water
from a fi re truck in an out-
age, which the old hospital
doesn’t have. Disaster plan-
ners also are casting an eye
on Devil’s Lake as a water
source, which is less than
one block away. However,
there is risk in relying on this
coastal lake for freshwater
because saltwater may wash
in with a tsunami after a Cas-
cadia quake.
At the state health author-
ity, emergency operations
director Akiko Saito said the
spotlight cast by the Oregon
Coastal Hospital Resilience
Project is bringing positive
change from Astoria to Gold
Beach.
“We’re talking about a
catastrophic event. I think
in the end I don’t know that
we’re ever going to be 100%
ready, but I think we’re defi -
nitely in a much better spot,”
Saito said in an interview.
There is not an exact cor-
ollary in Washington state
to the Oregon project. The
smaller number of hospi-
tals on Washington’s outer
coast are making piecemeal
upgrades individually. A
spokeswoman for the state
Department of Health said
the agency reviews each hos-
pital’s emergency response
plan and is collecting data
for a longer-term resilience
effort.
WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
In California, the Legisla-
ture set deadlines of 2020 and
2030 for hospitals to build
anew or upgrade their build-
ings to ensure they are func-
tional after a strong earth-
quake. The higher standards
passed into law after a mag-
nitude 6.7 earthquake near
Los Angeles in 1994, which
damaged 11 hospitals and
forced eight to evacuate.
Meanwhile in Florence,
Peace Harbor hospital has a
plan to use shallow back-up
water wells drilled on its
property to ensure uninter-
rupted water supply.
In Reedsport, the Lower
Umpqua Hospital hopes
to get water resupply from
a portable, military-grade
water purifi cation plant the
city recently acquired with
a grant. The reverse osmosis
desalination unit has a listed
capacity to produce 5,000-
10,000 gallons of potable
water per day.
Ogden said Samaritan
Health is talking with the
city of Newport about build-
ing a large water storage tank
near the hospital in New-
port, which could hold at
least three weeks’ supply. A
new water reservoir with an
“earthquake hardened” con-
nection to the hospital is also
on the wish list for Reed-
sport provided funding can
be arranged, said City Man-
ager Jonathan Wright.
Saito said earthquake
preparations also involve
planning of how to move
patients out of coastal hos-
pitals to less affected facil-
ities far inland, possibly by
helicopter.
The small hospital in
Coquille near the southern
Oregon Coast is seriously
looking at building a “micro-
grid.” This could provide
backup power for as long
as needed. It would entail a
large solar array, battery stor-
age, diesel generator and a
switchable grid connection.
“It’s always diffi cult to
launch into a large capital
expenditure strictly for disas-
ter preparedness,” said Jeff
Lang, CEO of Coquille Val-
ley Hospital. “The beauty of
a microgrid system is that
during a disaster it helps up
take care of our community
and during normal opera-
tion times it helps us reduce
the overall cost to the hospi-
tal for electricity — and it’s a
green solution.”
Southern Coos Hospital
in Bandon is also interested
in a solar microgrid, except
in this case the idea is that
the municipal utility would
build and own the backup
power project at the city
shop, which is about 1,000
feet away from the hospital.
The Bandon electric depart-
ment is waiting to hear more
about pricing from potential
vendor Siemens, which is
also working with Coquille
Valley.
“Basically from an ongo-
ing cost perspective it makes
fi nancial sense and from
a resilience standpoint it
makes fi nancial sense,” Lang
said in an interview. “So I’m
really excited about it.”
However, Lang said there
is still a lot of legwork to
be done to work through
the details and the fi nanc-
ing package before seeking
approval from his hospital
district’s board.
A 2017 report on earth-
quake preparedness deliv-
ered to Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee identifi ed gaps and
barriers in the hospital realm.
The cost of seismic upgrades
was a big one. Small, rural
hospitals often can’t absorb
this expense. That’s why in
Oregon an advisor on how
to apply for state and fed-
eral grants sometimes tagged
along with the hospital resil-
ience project.
The Oregon hospital resil-
ience project was paid for
with a grant from the U.S.
Department of Health and
Human Services. Saito said
coast-wide activities are
wrapping up in the com-
ing months as grant funding
transitions to regional pre-
paredness planning groups.
Seismologists say the
Pacifi c
Northwest
has
entered the broad time win-
dow for the next rupture of
the offshore Cascadia fault
zone. The last big shake
from the Cascadia Subduc-
tion Zone fault happened in
the year 1700. The boundary
where the tectonic plates are
colliding stretches from Van-
couver Island to Northern
California.