A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2021
Petersen: ‘I think people were not
scared to death, but they were concerned’
Continued from Page A1
But the threat then
appeared real.
Petersen’s husband, Gene,
was the special events direc-
tor at broadcaster KHQ in
Spokane. Managers dreamed
up the idea of having a tra-
ditional American family —
mom, dad and two young
kids — lock themselves into
a concrete bomb shelter and
tell listeners what it was like.
Petersen , originally from
Tacoma, had survived polio
at 5 . She moved with her
family to Spokane when
young and graduated from
Washington State University
after studying home econom-
ics and English literature.
She was 22 and her hus-
band was 25 when they began
the adventure.
Telling the story 60 years
later, Petersen is all smiles.
But the deprivations weren’t
fun. The concrete bunker was
erected in an urban shopping
mall parking lot. It had one
window — and listeners who
learned its location would
peer inside.
The room was about 10
feet by 10 feet. No one was
allowed out for 14 days,
although the door was
opened once a night for Gene
Petersen to empty trash. “He
never got farther than two
steps from the door,” she said.
Even though they were early
in their marriage and living in
a modest rented house, they
were aware of the minimal
space. “It was pretty darned
tight,” she said. “It was really
a ‘culture shock.’”
The children, Laurie, 4,
and son Dana, 1 , had a play-
pen. A typewriter to write
their radio scripts sat on a
table. They huddled in sleep-
ing bags and kept one cor-
ner for supplies. Another
corner housed the chemical
commode.
The concrete wasn’t
fully “cured,” which meant
the walls sweated and the
temperature could drop 40
degrees overnight. “It was
colder than a well-digger’s
ass in that place,” Petersen
said.
‘He lost his money’
Having little space to
pack changes of clothes was
rough. Bohemian Brewery
provided water in containers
marked for beer. But the big-
gest issue was food.
While they stocked tinned
meat, powdered milk, pea-
nut butter and crackers for
the children — “the kids’
food was not negotiable” —
the couple only had a 14-day
supply of colorless dextrose
Christmas candy in cherry
and strawberry fl avors. This
was supposed to provide
‘IT WOULD BE
SMART TO GET
A SHELTER, BUT
NOBODY WAS IN A
HURRY TO DO IT.’
Sharon Petersen
them with adequate calories.
They kept a strict divi-
sion between their rations
and what their youngsters
ate. “We couldn’t touch it,”
she said. “We got so hungry
we were almost sick of it and
very cranky by about four or
fi ve days into things.”
During the planning
phase, Gene Petersen shared
his excitement with his wife ,
but not everything. “He said
‘It’s a great PR thing,’ but
didn’t tell me I was going to
broadcast, ” she said.
Daily they would type a
script and broadcast 11 times
from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. after
the radio station’s news bul-
letins. “I got into my ‘radio
announcer’ voice,” she
recalled.
“Their ratings went
through the attic. I think
everyone in the Inland
Empire was listening to us.
Two gals said they put radios
in their offi ces so they could
listen.” Broadcasts reached
Montana and San Francisco,
and the station received fan
mail . “We were like some
kind of local heroes or some-
thing, ” she said.
The concrete structure had
one window. “There would
be people knocking on the
window — complete strang-
ers and the president of the
station came and looked in
on us,” she said. “We used to
pull the shade down when we
went potty, and crank it open
for air.”
When not broadcasting,
the couple played cribbage
and enjoyed bonding with the
kids, who brought their col-
oring books. “We both took
books, but never cracked
them, ” she said. Her daugh-
ter was assigned an important
job. “She got to draw the X
on the calendar for each day,”
she said. “It had a heart at the
end.”
They survived 14 days,
despite the prediction of the
manager. “He started a pool
to see how quickly I ran
out screaming,” Petersen
laughed. “He lost his
money!”
Fame was short-lived
The ending was bitter-
sweet. At a celebratory party
in the ballroom at Spokane’s
swanky Davenport Hotel, the
other sales reps ran up a $500
bar bill. Petersen has kept
the gushing thank-you letter
from the station owner.
But such is the nature of
the radio business that less
than two weeks later, Gene
Petersen’s job was elimi-
nated. “It’s a cut throat indus-
try,” she said. The couple
moved west where another
radio station was gearing
up for wide coverage of the
1962 Seattle World’s Fair.
They lived on Vashon Island.
Her husband later worked
briefl y in Portland before get-
ting out of the business.
A sales job with a com-
pany selling mining equip-
ment took them to Den-
ver. The four decades that
followed refl ected what
Petersen calls “a see-saw
life.” They had a third child,
Kirsten. Her husband had a
serious stroke, which led to
years in care. Petersen ’s own
career included a spell as an
executive with Gillette, some
small businesses and many
years as a casino blackjack
dealer.
They lost Laurie to an
illness in her 40s; Gene
Petersen died in 2011. Their
two surviving children live in
Colorado.
A friend from The Dalles
had a family beach house in
Seaview where she had vis-
ited over the years. That
connection brought her to
Ilwaco, where she has lived
happily in the Surf Pines
complex since 2015.
Refl ections spur deeper
thoughts about the seri-
ous direction life took in
the United States during the
Cold War. The Cuban m is-
sile c risis, likely the closest
the world came to nuclear
war, happened exactly one
year after the Petersens’ bun-
ker stay.
During much of the 1950s,
Petersen recalled a period of
complacency. “Everybody
was kind of mellow. The big
deal was whether you were
going to get a new car,” she
said.
Then U.S.-Soviet tensions
ramped up.
“It would be smart to get
a shelter, but nobody was in
a hurry to do it. It was the
beginning of nuclear aware-
ness. Even the bombs in
World War II didn’t bring
it out, and they didn’t use
it in Korea, which proba-
bly shocked a lot of military
people.”
The bunker stunt was a
product of its era.
“I think the station was
trying to promote an aware-
ness, and reinforce how
ill-prepared we are,” she
said. “Spokane, Washington,
seems a long way from ‘the
action.’ I think people were
not scared to death, but they
were concerned.”
Waterline: City will continue monitoring
Continued from Page A1
The city will continue to
monitor waterlines as the
bad weather continues, but
engineering staff said the
transmission line is in good
shape and the break has been
fully repaired.
“There’s vulnerabilities
because of our geography,
topography and our weather
and our soil types, just like
anywhere else in the state,”
said Jeff Harrington, the
city’s public works director.
The transmission line
dates from 1963 and sec-
tions in particularly prob-
lematic areas were exam-
ined in a resiliency study
several years ago. The city
expects to use a portion of
pandemic-related stimulus
money to address the pipe in
these areas in the future.
Given the recent break, that
area might be a spot they add
to the list, Harrington said.
R.J. Marx/The Astorian
The city hopes to relocate the RVs and cars parked along Necanicum Drive between 10th
and 11th avenues.
Homeless camp: ‘Not a permanent site’
Continued from Page A1
“This homeless neigh-
borhood or your so-called
pilot program does not
belong in a residential
area,” Veazey said. “The
city placed it there and
should be responsible for
relocating it. Neighbors
are fi nding needles, bed-
ding, sleeping bags, tents,
lean-to shacks, people liv-
ing in motor homes, in
motor vehicles throughout
our beautiful city. ... What
you have is a surefi re sug-
gestion: ‘Come to Seaside.
Do what you darn well
please, and there are no
consequences.’”
Colleen Gould Gas-
coigne said she lives a
“rock’s throw away from
the trailers.”
“I get to hear their con-
versations and their argu-
ments lately,” Gould Gas-
coigne said. “Because I
have chronic migraines, I
don’t sleep. I’m living with
this day in, day out. When
this started back in May, we
did not get any kind of let-
ters or anything from any of
you saying that this could
happen.”
The issue of RVs aban-
doned or left overnight —
sometimes for weeks or
months at a time — came
before the City Council in
April. Necanicum between
First and 12th, residents
said, had become a long-
term parking area and a
safety and health hazard for
residents.
Police ticketed the cars
along the roadside, and,
over the summer, many
vehicles migrated across
the street to a city-owned
lot near Goodman Park.
The parking has grown
to a dozen families, City
Councilor Tita Montero
said.
Their activity has dis-
turbed the neighborhood
and lowered property val-
ues, residents said.
“You want to take the
property value of that
whole
section,”
Tom
Veazey said. “Not by a
point, but by 10 points.
You should be ashamed
of yourselves, absolutely
ashamed.”
The delivery of the peti-
tion coincided with conclu-
sions from the city’s h ome-
lessness t hink t ank, a group
seeking strategies to man-
age the growing homeless
population.
Among the recommen-
dations, the group advised
establishing a managed car
park to enable the city to
comply with federal legal
rulings and a state law
related to homeless camp-
ing . “We cannot move peo-
ple out of where they are
camping and where they
are residing in their cars if
we don’t have a place for
them to go to,” Montero
said.
Since the parking lot off
Necanicum is already in
use, the think tank advised
the city to “acknowledge
the reality” and enforce
health and safety measures
at the site.
Activist Seamus McVey,
who serves on the think
tank, shared his own expe-
rience with homelessness,
which he said began the
day he left the military.
“I’m the person that
everybody wants to kick
out,” McVey said. “During
my time being homeless,
I’ve been spit on, assaulted
and had garbage thrown at
me. Not by other home-
less people, by people who
just didn’t like the way
I looked. If people don’t
deserve to live in a neigh-
borhood, where do they
deserve to live exactly?
“We’re all people,”
McVey said. “You don’t
know how we got there.
I’m lucky enough to be off
the streets now. But I’ll be
hanged if I’m going to let
somebody try to treat oth-
ers in the position I was
as fi lth and garbage not
deserving of a place to lay
down, not deserving of the
basic human dignity and
respect that we would all
want for ourselves.”
The city’s priority is
to locate a car park or RV
park somewhere within
the region so people could
move from the homeless
camp , Mayor Jay Barber
said.
“This is not a permanent
site,” he said. “This is sit-
ting on property that’s there
for construction purposes.
One of the priorities that
we’re looking at is locating
a permanent site that would
be managed, hopefully by
a nonprofi t organization,
that has experience in other
cities. It also protects the
rights of housed people.”
Open Thanksgiving Day 8am - 6pm
8 to 11:30 breakfast pastries and coffee
THANKSGIVING DINNER
starting at 11:30 am
CHOICE OF:
Turkey
with herbs de provence gravy
$25
Slow Roasted Prime Rib
with horseradish & rosemary au jus
$25
Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon
with wild berry compote
$30
ALL SERVED WITH:
roasted garlic red potato mash
sweet potato casserole with candied
pecans & marshmallow
green bean casserole with crispy fried
onions
sage and shallot stuffing
cranberry relish
PRE-ORDER ONLINE
Facebook or Instagram
OR BY PHONE
(503) 325-1787
PICK-UP THANKSGIVING DAY