B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2011
W
ho says you can’t teach old dogs — or their
owners — new tricks?
That certainly wasn’t the case at the Classy
Canines 4-H d og club annual event on Saturday at the
Clatsop County Fairgrounds.
The public was invited to bring dogs and join the 4-H
kids and their canines for d og r ally, a gility and n osework
events. Experienced dog handlers gave classes to novices
before each competition. Several dozen people and dogs
participated in the competition and workshops.
Stay safe and batten down the hatches.
That was the message from North Coast
emergency preparedness offi cials and state
agencies today.
The storm that walloped the North Coast and
Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula overnight
on Monday is likely to continue through 7 a.m.
Wednesday.
The National Weather Service predicted the
storm could be the worst since the Great Coastal
Gale of 2007.
The U.S. Coast Guard closed the Columbia
River B ar entrance because of hazardous condi-
tions at 9 p.m. on Monday. The closure applies
to all vessels, and any request to cross the bar
prior to reopening must be approved by Capt.
Bruce Jones of Coast Guard Sector Columbia
River.
Happy and healthy are the two things that serve as
the goal for the room in which Astoria Mayor Willis Van
Dusen was standing Tuesday morning.
Both were true when the room once held fi rst and sec-
ond graders.
Both remain true as new paint, hardwood fl oors and
athletic equipment grace the room now.
The former St. Mary, Star of the Sea School now
serves as the Astoria Recreation Center for youngsters ,
teens and adult fi tness classes, as well as child care for
parents using the facility and a program for children when
school is not in session.
“We’re absolutely delighted with this facility,” City
Councilor Arline LaMear, who is also a member of the
Astoria Parks Board, said at the Tuesday opening. “I just
couldn’t believe all of the things that were going on in
Gray School, and now, things have just tripled by the
opening of this.
“We are so grateful to Father Ken (Sampson) and to
everyone in the city that has worked so hard to make this
come to fruition. This is just a very exciting day for the
city and a very exciting day for all of us.”
Trucks splash through water from the Necanicum River running across U.S. Highway 101 near Beerman Creek Road
south of Seaside in 2011.
nue bridge, which slid more than a foot downhill in recent
days. When the bridge was rebuilt last summer, the city
began construction of a system of drains to carry water
away from the bridge foundations.
The Circle Creek RV Park in Seaside was inundated with
fl ood waters in 2011.
Prowlers were on the loose again early this morning
in the e ast e nd of Astoria, attempting to enter the Desde-
mona Club and actually forcing an entrance to the beer
parlor next door, where the cash register was rifl ed of
$24.90.
A gusty southeast gale attained a 60-mile-an-
hour maximum velocity during the night and
whipped up power and telephone line damage
as well as one traffi c accident here.
The wind reached its maximum force between
midnight and 1 a.m., the North Head weather
b ureau reported, and had moderated greatly by
this morning, although a southeast storm warn-
ing was still fl ying.
50 years ago — 1971
The Astoria Plywood Corp. will discontinue use of its
wigwam burner at the end of this year, manager Cleve
Ramsey said Friday. The closure is in response to direc-
tives from the state Department of Environmental Quality.
A spokesman for DEQ said last week Astoria Plywood
was to have stopped using the big, metal burner earlier,
but was given an extension because of delays in construc-
tion at the plywood plant. Waste material from the mill is
burned in the wigwam shaped burner.
Ramsey said after Jan. 1 waste material will be run
either through the plant’s new chipper or through a device
that breaks down the material for use in the plant’s boiler.
He said the burner had been “a real convenience, but
there’s not much you can do because they (the DEQ) have
a big club.”
Astoria Plywood started operating around 1950.
How do you get people to turn out for a com-
munity talk session?
That question occupied members of the Clat-
sop County Youth Council and District 1 c oun-
cil of the g overnor’s Commission on Youth at a
meeting on Monday in Astoria. The District 1
c ouncil is sponsoring a series of three “rap ses-
sions” among students, parents, teachers and
s chool b oard members at Astoria High School.
A few of the students and adults who attended
last week’s rap session tried Monday to explain
why only 25 to 30 people attended last Thurs-
day night.
One student and a member of the District
1 c ouncil said a problem at one of the rap ses-
sions was that participants seemed more inter-
ested in talking and getting over their views than
in listening to others and having an exchange of
views.
Another c ouncil member speculated that the
light turn out last week owed in part to a lack of
community togetherness in Astoria.
LONG BEACH, Wash. — The m ain street storefronts
Capt. John Lampi, of Ilwaco, Washington,
master of the 72-foot dragger John T, is a fi rst
rate sea going mechanic, the U.S. Coast Guard
reported today.
Lt. Robert Bracken, skipper of the cutter
Nemah, which off ered assistance to the John T
southwest of the lightship Tuesday, said that the
Ilwaco deepsea fi sherman had made remark-
able emergency repairs of the rudder.
A heavy sea had wrecked the rudder assem-
bly, carrying out the gear box. Despite the heavy
sea, Lampi made repairs, which held out in the
choppy run over the bar.
Local aviation interests are putting up a strong but
apparently losing fi ght to retain radio-range facilities for
the Astoria airport in the face of the C ivil A eronautics
B oard’s desire to pull out the facilities.
The radio range is considered vital to the West Coast
Airlines service, which otherwise will be limited by bad
weather conditions.
Brown pelicans receive care at the Wildlife Center of the
North Coast after suff ering injuries during storms in 2011.
of this p eninsula town will soon resemble a seacoast town
of 1900, or maybe a movie set.
Residents and visitors alike will be able to imagine
themselves in a bygone era as the town’s stores and build-
ings change their exteriors. It’s all directed by the Long
Beach Chamber of Commerce.
In recent months, many ideas have been debated on
how to upgrade the town. At a recent meeting it was
decided to give the town a theme, much like Leaven-
worth, which has a Bavarian motif. Leavenworth since
1965 has turned itself into a tourist mecca with a great
increase in business.
Downtown merchants have agreed to change their
building fronts as they can. If the weather permits, the
fi rst changes will begin this weekend when Marsh’s Free
Museum starts by putting up a canopy.
75 years ago — 1946
Downward slipping of land in various parts of the city,
which comes almost every winter with heavy rains, has
resumed at two points on Irving A venue.
One is the approach at the west end of the Irving A ve-
Tina Gilbert, a power yoga instructor, teaches during a Zumba demonstration at the grand opening of the Astoria
Recreation Center in 2011.
Col. Theron D. Weaver, of the Pacifi c division
of the U.S. A rmy Corps of E ngineers, has rec-
ommended the deepening of the w est channel in
Baker B ay to the depth of 10 feet at low tide and
also the dredging of a mooring basin for small
craft in Ilwaco, Washington.
Snapping her mooring lines in a storm in Crescent
City, California, the local drag boat Thelma II, owned by
George Amato , is on the beach, endangered by a high tide
and a heavy surf.
The heaviest sea ever to smack the pilot
schooner Columbia crashed her pull boats and
swept over the vessel near buoy No. 6 early in the
series of storms that have hit the coast recently.
Outbound with a pilot aboard, the schoo-
ner continued on her course and led the incom-
ing freighter into the river where the pilot was
transferred.
Forty percent of the cars chugging down the nation’s
highways are nothing but “junk on wheels,” Lou Delson
said today.
Delson, as executive secretary of the National Auto
Wreckers A ssociation, knows a jalopy when he sees one.
And these days, he said, he sees too many of them on the
highways.
Astoria Plywood’s waste burner in 1971.