A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
Civilian pilots, cyclists rehearse aid delivery after Cascadia
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
A huge dress rehearsal for
regional earthquake disaster
relief was supposed to hap-
pen this week until the ongo-
ing pandemic forced it to be
shrunk and moved online.
The original Cascadia Rising
2022 exercise would have
involved more than 22,000
participants – chiefl y U.S.
soldiers, sailors and airmen
as well as state, local and
tribal emergency planners.
Some smaller drills were set
to go ahead last weekend and
next featuring civilian volun-
teers who will demonstrate
unusual ways aid may get
to Pacifi c Northwest earth-
quake survivors.
On Saturday, around 40
to 50 cargo bike riders were
set to compete in a disaster
relief drill in Portland. This
weekend, more than 100
private pilots from Oregon,
Washington state and Brit-
ish Columbia, Canada, will
take to the skies to shuttle
food from airfi eld to airfi eld
in another mock quake relief
eff ort.
The drill scenarios entail
a magnitude 9.0 full rip of
the off shore Cascadia earth-
quake fault from Vancou-
ver Island to northern Cali-
fornia — aka “the Big One.”
That brings widespread dev-
astation west of the Cascade
Range in Oregon and Wash-
ington state. The highways to
the east, north and south are
severed.
In this worst-case sce-
nario, help will come from
above, said Sky Terry, the
Northwest regional direc-
tor of the Emergency Volun-
teer Air Corps. Terry likened
his organization’s one-day
exercise to a “Berlin Airlift
eff ort.”
“The other analogy would
be the China-Burma hop in
World War II,” Terry said.
“You lose the land route.
All you’ve got is air to sup-
ply everything and keep it
going.”
Terry said private pilots
are prepared to go into the
breach, presumably along-
side the National Guard
when the Big One hap-
pens for real. The off shore
fault last ruptured in Janu-
Clallam County DART and Sara Harrington
Private pilots and cyclists were set to take to the air and the streets this month to practice delivering relief supplies after a catastrophic earthquake.
‘PREPAREDNESS DOESN’T NEED TO BE DOUR,
LABORIOUS AND BORING. IF IT IS ALL THOSE THINGS,
YOU’RE GOING TO GET LESS CITIZEN PARTICIPATION.’
Mike Cobb | event co-founder
ary 1700, spawning a tsu-
nami that reached all the way
across the Pacifi c to Japan.
Cascadia megaquakes typ-
ically happen every 250
to 800 years. That puts the
present-day well within the
return window.
The aerial relief drill,
dubbed Thunder Run, will
begin with private pilots
launching from Walla Walla,
Washington, and Langley,
British Columbia, where
boxes of food are being
stockpiled for distribution
into western Washington and
Oregon.
“The way to look at Walla
Walla is that it is the out-of-
impact area hub for the gen-
eral aviation response,” said
Terry, who formerly served
as a communications opera-
tor in the U.S. Army. “That’s
the aircraft carrier that is just
outside the battle zone throw-
ing support into the fray, but
planes can come back and
resources come back and it
still has all the normal com-
munication to the outside
world.”
But wait, won’t the
destination airports such
as Renton, Bellingham,
Hoquiam, Shelton and Port
Angeles in Washington and
Aurora, Albany and Creswell
in Oregon be wrecked and
unusable after the Big One?
Terry replied that the back-
bone of the private airlift
will be nimble little Cessnas,
Bonanzas, Mooneys and
Piper planes.
“We don’t necessarily
have to use an airport,” Terry
said. “We can use a stretch of
Highway 101 or I-5 or any
long two-lane stretch of road.
So, we’re not totally depen-
dent on having all the air-
ports survive.”
Event organizers have
collected roughly 60,000
pounds of boxed food for this
one-day drill. The volunteer
pilots, amateur radio opera-
tors and ground crews at the
destinations including from
the Civil Air Patrol will hand
over the cargos to food banks
to simulate bringing aid to an
earthquake disaster zone.
Terry said another goal
is to demonstrate to state
and federal authorities the
capabilities of general avia-
tion and inspire confi dence.
He got the attention of the
Washington State Emer-
gency Management Divi-
sion, where Robert Ezelle is
the director.
“When our state suf-
fers the anticipated Casca-
dia earthquake and tsunami,
it will take every resource
we have to get our commu-
nities the help they need,”
Ezelle said via email. “Vol-
unteers will be a necessity,
and we constantly look at
how they’ll be incorporated
into our response.”
Separate from the aerial
relief drill, bicyclists in Port-
land were set to practice how
to distribute disaster relief
on two wheels. Not just any
two wheels — on sturdy
cargo bikes, some capable of
schlepping up to 200 pounds.
Event co-founder Mike Cobb
said cargo bikes are ideal to
get airlifted supplies across
the last mile to recipients in
neighborhoods.
“There might be 3,000 or
5,000 cargo bikers in Port-
land. You can bet that a good
portion of those people are
going to want to help,” Cobb
said. “So, we’re going to
optimize a system to deploy
these willing and capable
cargo bikers.”
This was set to be the sixth
edition in Portland of what is
known as the Disaster Relief
Trials. Previously, there were
corollary bike events in Seat-
tle, Bend and Eugene. Cobb
says the drill takes the form
of a friendly competition.
Bicyclists must visit seven
checkpoints during the drill,
pick up cargo along the way
and scale obstacles meant to
mimic earthquake wreckage,
including a 1 -meter-high
barrier.
“Preparedness
doesn’t
need to be dour, laborious
and boring,” Cobb said. “If
it is all those things, you’re
going to get less citizen
participation.”
Cobb explained that he
and his co-organizers coor-
dinated with the Portland
Bureau of Emergency Man-
agement so that the cargo
bike competition represents
a realistic extension of neigh-
borhood disaster relief plans.
The bureau helped promote
the event.
If you don’t happen to
own a small airplane or a
cargo bike, there are other
ways to be inspired to pre-
pare for the Big One. The
start and fi nish line of the
2022 Disaster Relief Trials
in northeast Portland’s Cully
Park was simultaneously set
to be the scene of a resil-
ience fair. Manzanita will
host its own emergency pre-
paredness fair on Thursday .
In coastal Lincoln County,
the communities of Depoe
Bay, Newport and Lincoln
City were also set to conduct
disaster rehearsals heavily
reliant on volunteers.
Replacing benefi ts of Snake River dams would cost billions, report says
By NICHOLAS K.
GERANIOS
Associated Press
The benefi ts provided
by four giant hydroelectric
dams on the lower Snake
River in Washington state
can be replaced if the dams
are breached to save endan-
gered salmon runs, accord-
ing to a new report released
Thursday.
But it would be expensive.
Finding other ways to
provide electricity, irriga-
tion and enabling commerce
would cost between $10.3
billion and $27.2 billion, said
the report commissioned by
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee,
a Democrat, and U.S. Sen.
Patty Murray, a Washington
Democrat.
The draft report does not
make any recommendations
on whether the four dams
should be breached. A deci-
sion on that divisive issue
is expected later. Instead,
the report allows the public,
tribes, river users and other
stakeholders to provide input
over the next month that will
inform that decision.
“We continue to approach
the question of breaching
with open minds and without
a predetermined decision,”
Inslee and Murray said in a
press release.
“Every community in the
Pacifi c Northwest knows the
value and importance of our
iconic salmon runs — and
every community recognizes
the importance of salmon to
our economy and cultural
heritage,” they said. “We
each remain fi rmly commit-
ted to saving our salmon.”
Breaching the dams
would signifi cantly improve
the ability of salmon and
steelhead to swim from their
inland spawning grounds
to the Pacifi c Ocean, where
they spend most of their
lives, and then back to their
original spawning grounds to
procreate and die, the report
said.
Major benefi ts of the
dams include making the
Snake River navigable up
to Lewiston, Idaho, allow-
ing barges to carry wheat and
other crops to ocean ports.
Eliminating the dams would
require truck and rail trans-
portation improvements to
move crops, the report said.
The dams also generate
electricity, provide irrigation
water for farmers and recre-
ation opportunities for peo-
ple, the report said.
The dams have many sup-
porters, including two GOP
members of Congress rep-
resenting eastern Washing-
ton state. The dams are also
supported by barge compa-
nies, farmers and other busi-
ness interests. Breaching
them would require an act of
Congress.
U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse
and U.S. Rep. Cathy McMor-
ris Rodgers, both Republi-
cans of eastern Washington,
introduced a bill on Thursday
to protect the dams, which
are located in their districts.
“Breaching the four lower
Snake River dams would be
harmful to our communities,
our environment, and our
economy,” Newhouse said.
“What’s alarming is trying
to breach them at a time when
families in eastern Washing-
ton are paying record-high
energy costs just to keep
the lights on this summer,”
McMorris Rodgers said.
But the chairman of the
Yakama Nation said the
PROTECT
dams must be breached.
“Our people are salmon
people,” said tribal council
chairman Delano Saluskin.
“When the salmon thrive, we
thrive; but when they suff er,
our people suff er too.”
Exploring the Columbia
River basin in 1805, Lewis
and Clark wrote of water-
ways so full with salmon that
you could all but walk across
on their backs.
In the late 1800s, up to
16 million salmon and steel-
head returned to the Colum-
bia River basin every year
to spawn. Over the next cen-
tury and a half, overfi shing
whittled that number down.
By the early 1950s, just
under 130,000 Chinook were
returning to the Snake River.
Construction of the fi rst
dam on the lower river,
Ice Harbor, began in 1955.
Lower Monumental fol-
lowed in 1969, Little Goose
in 1970, and Lower Gran-
ite in 1975. The dams stretch
from Pasco, Washington, to
near Pullman, Washington,
and stand between migrat-
ing salmon and 5,500 miles
of spawning habitat in cen-
tral Idaho.
YOUR FAMILY FROM
UNEXPECTED
AMBULANCE COSTS.
WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
BOAT RACES CULLABY LAKE
Sat. June 18 th and Sun. 19 th , 2022 • 10am - 6pm
Presented by: Columbia Outboard Racing Association
Sanctioned by: American Power Boat Association
Questions?: Contact cora.raceboats@gmail.com
LAKE WILL BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC
ONLY
COVERS
HOUSEHOLD
$
59
PER YEAR
MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE TO SIGN UP:
ambulancemembership.com/medix
or call: 503-861-5554