WEEKEND EDITION
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
THE YEAR
IN PHOTOS
ONLINE AT
EastOregonian.com
JANUARY 2-3, 2021
145th Year, No. 33
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
NEW YEAR’S EVE
2020 YEAR IN REVIEW
‘We’re
going
to move
forward’
$1.50
Dozens of people
gather at the Eastern
Oregon Trade and
Event Center in
Hermiston to say good
riddance to 2020
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — Some stood
near the warmth of fi res in the
parking lot of the Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Center in Herm-
iston, eating, drinking and sharing
stories under the light of a nearly
full moon on a clear, crisp and
windless New Year’s Eve.
Dozens more sat in their cars
nearby, waiting for the fi reworks
that would mark the end of a truly
arduous year.
Two men stood perhaps 100
yards away, in the dark beyond the
Festival of Lights, preparing nearly
100 fi reworks that would “blow out
the old (year) and bring in the new
one,” pyrotechnician Tom Ramsey
said.
Each person had a story of
struggle — the struggle of help-
ing their children through online
school; the struggle of working in
a hospital during the pandemic; the
struggle of losing a loved one to
COVID-19; the struggle of not see-
ing friends and family for months.
But each also had their story of
hope — the hope from a year spent
inside and closer to family; the
hope from receiving the COVID-
19 vaccine the day before; the hope
from the notion that although the
next day wouldn’t be any different,
maybe the next year would.
“It’s a mixed feeling,” said Al
Davis, the general manager of
EOTEC, who organized the event
as a last-ditch effort to bring some
celebration to the community.
“You can’t forget 2020 that fast,
it’s right there and the scab is still
wet. But you know what, it really
can’t get much worse. It’s got to
get better. So we’re going to move
forward.”
The lowlight of Davis’ year
came just before Christmas, when
his 82-year-old aunt passed away
due to COVID-19. She was living
in a nursing home in Pennsylva-
nia after breaking her hip and was
two weeks from receiving the vac-
cine when she tested positive for
See Celebration, Page A7
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Nate Fuller, left, and Archie Morrow await rescue on the roof of a home in Thorn Hollow on Feb. 6, 2020. The pair was stranded when they
attempted to rescue the elderly couple that was stuck in the house as waters from the Umatilla River began to rise. According to a family
member of one of those stranded, all four people were rescued by 9:40 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2020
A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER
East Oregonian
U
MATILLA COUNTY — His-
torically, when the East Ore-
gonian has compiled top-10
stories of the year lists, it has
polled the staff on the top sto-
ries and compiled the list based
on those results. When we went
down that path, it was apparent that the
voting was for stories two through 10,
because there is no question what the
year’s top story would be — the COVID-
19 pandemic.
That left stories like the February
fl ooding that ravaged Umatilla County,
summer protests in Hermiston and Pend-
leton, the sudden death of a Pendleton
Top 10 COVID-19
1. Umatilla County
resident tests
presumptive positive for
coronavirus
Umatilla County staked
its place in the history of the
COVID-19 pandemic when it
reported Oregon’s third case.
The state announced on
March 2 that a man had tested
positive for the coronavi-
rus after attending a basket-
ball game at the Weston Mid-
dle School gym. The man was
also an employee at the Wild-
horse Resort & Casino, leading
the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation to
temporarily close Wildhorse
and several other facilities in
Mission.
The virus was still new
enough to the state that the
case spurred an Oregon Health
Authority
teleconference,
where State Health Offi cer
Dean Sidelinger tried to temper
the seriousness of the develop-
ment by adding most people
would only experience mild
symptoms after contracting
COVID-19.
But Sidelinger also cau-
tioned that harder days were
coming.
“We anticipate that these
case numbers will increase and
we may see more serious ill-
nesses and possibly even deaths
within Oregon,” he said.
The fact that Umatilla Coun-
ty’s fi rst case wasn’t connected
with Oregon’s fi rst two doc-
umented cases was a harbin-
ger of how fast the virus would
spread in a short period of time.
Business continued rela-
tively unabated in the initial
days following the fi rst case,
but the status quo was fl eeting.
Within weeks, the state
closed schools and businesses
weren’t far behind. By the sum-
mer, the county was record-
ing dozens of new COVID-19
cases per day.
2. Vaccines arrive in
Umatilla County
In a dreary year fi lled with
illness and death, Umatilla
County received a glimmer of
hope in turning back the tide on
COVID-19.
Daily case numbers still
remain high, but the rapid
development of the COVID-19
vaccine meant Umatilla County
was administering its fi rst inoc-
ulations in mid-December.
Yellowhawk Tribal Health
Center on the Umatilla Indian
Reservation was the fi rst in
the county, and among the
fi rst tribes in the Northwest,
to begin immunizing locals,
prioritizing health care work-
ers before moving on to tribal
elders.
“I feel as though this is the
fi rst time we have been given a
chance to fi ght back,” a clinic
administrator said. “Now,
there’s kind of a light at the end
of the tunnel.”
Vaccination drives began
more than a week later at St.
Anthony Hospital in Pendle-
ton and Good Shepherd Med-
See COVID-19, Page A7
city councilor and the permanent closure
of the Boardman Generating Station com-
peting for space with COVID-19 stories
on the list.
With that in mind, we decided to split
the list in two and have top-10 COVID-19
stories and a non-COVID list. There were
no shortage of stories to choose from in
2020.
Top 10
1. Umatilla River
overfl ows its banks
A 100-year fl ood is an
extreme event that only has a
1% chance of happening each
year.
In the 1990s, authorities
calculated the 100-year fl ood
level on the Umatilla River was
22,500 cubic feet per second,
about 7,000 cfs higher than the
record high. In early February,
a combination of heavy rain and
rapidly melting snow in the Blue
Mountains pushed the river’s cfs
to 28,900, a fi gure attached to a
fl ood that cost Umatilla County
dearly.
Homes in Pendleton, Echo
and the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation
were evacuated as the Umatil-
la’s waters expanded far beyond
the fl oodplain.
The Thorn Hollow Bridge
was washed away, necessitating
helicopter rescues.
The surging waters breached
a Pendleton levee, fl ooding
Keystone RV Co. and Cor-Tek,
causing them to suspend or cur-
tail operations.
One woman near Pendleton
died.
The fl oods quickly drew the
attention of Salem, eliciting a
visit from Gov. Kate Brown,
who pledged millions of dollars
to replace lost housing and make
critical infrastructure repairs.
Many of the evacuees came
back to homes covered in mud
and in a state beyond repair.
While Pendleton is in the midst
of working with a developer on
replacement housing, it hasn’t
yet broken ground. The Thorn
Hollow Bridge is still broken
as the county and the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation look toward
help from the state and federal
government to get it replaced.
For Pendleton, the Umatilla
River fl ood was the second year
in a row that it experienced a
major fl ood, after McKay Creek
fl ooded in 2019.
Communities across Uma-
tilla County will likely still be
rebuilding from the latest fl ood
as winter transitions into spring,
keeping an eye on the region’s
waterways to make sure they
stay within their banks.
2. 200 march through
streets of Pendleton in
peaceful Black Lives
Matter protest
As protests against racial
injustice and police brutality
took place across the country
over the summer, nearly 200
Black Lives Matter demonstra-
tors took to the streets of Pend-
leton in late August.
The event was overwhelm-
ingly peaceful, as protesters
gathered in the park to listen to
community speeches. Organiz-
ers even worked with Pendle-
ton Police Chief Stuart Roberts
weekly to plan out the stages of
the protest.
The crowd was young and
diverse, with attendees from
a variety of racial and ethnic
backgrounds.
See Top 10, Page A8