INSIDE: Hermiston police arrest man for murder | PAGE A3
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2021
146th Year, No. 26
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
$1.50
BACK TO THE FUTURE
2022 brings
another
pandemic
New Year
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
COLD TEMPERATURES TURN
EASTERN OREGON RAIN INTO
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Andrew Taylor-Beaver, 12, sleds down the hill in Aldrich Park on
Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, as a fresh snow blanketed Pendleton.
SNOW
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
UMATILLA COUNTY —
Just a day before the calendar
recognizes the fi rst day of winter,
many communities in Eastern
Oregon saw their fi rst signifi cant
snowstorm of the cold weather
season.
Cold temperatures turned rain
into snow Sunday night, Dec. 20,
and the snow continued into the
morning of Dec. 21. The National
Weather Service issued a winter
weather advisory through 3 p.m.
that day.
Every region of Umatilla
County saw signifi cant snow-
fall through the morning. Joe
Solomon, a meteorologist with
the weather service, said Pendle-
ton received 1-3 inches of snow,
Hermiston 2-5 inches and the
Milton-Freewater and Walla
Walla areas about 2 inches of
snow.
Solomon explained what
factors turned a standard rain
storm into something much icier.
“There was a stalled cold
front that runs across northern
Oregon to southern Washington
with a steady stream of mois-
ture moving along that front,” he
said. “Cold air north of that front
has been slowly fi ltering in all
the way down into north-central
Oregon.”
Most area schools already
started their winter break, giving
students some snow to play with
on their fi rst offi cial day off . The
Pendleton School District wasn’t
set to break for the holiday season
until Dec. 22, but the district
canceled school the morning of
Dec. 20. Blue Mountain Commu-
nity College eventually joined its
K-12 peers in canceling in-person
classes on all of its campuses.
Snow and ice also can wreak
havoc on local infrastructure,
and it took a brief toll on Herm-
SALEM — A rapidly spread-
ing deadly virus. Record-breaking
fi res. Acrid smoke from the Pacifi c
to Pendleton. A riot in the Capitol.
As 2020 came to a welcome
close a year ago, an exhausted
Oregon public had hope for the
New Year.
The worst of the COVID-19
pandemic seemed over with the
arrival of vaccines. The Labor Day
fi res were gone, and the smoke that
gave the state the worst air in the
world some days was gone. Protes-
tors who fought with police in the
Capitol in Salem were gone with the
end of the special session.
Soon, 2020 would be in the rear
view mirror. An optimistic joke that
the worst had passed was that “Hind-
sight is 2020.”
But as 2021 in Oregon winds
down, it feels like a sequel of the
highly unpopular horror classic,
2020 in Oregon.
Dark humor dominates — the
wordplay now is turned into rueful
wordplay that 2021 is actually
spelled as “2020 Won.”
Now the question is if we are
going to have a trilogy.
In announcing a sixth wave in
two years of COVID-19 would arrive
around Jan. 1, Gov. Kate Brown
noted another year of COVID-19
wasn’t on anyone’s wish list.
“I know that bracing for a new
variant as we head into our second
pandemic holiday season is not what
we all hoped for,” Brown said.
Many of the catastrophes that
marked 2020 as no one’s favorite
year were back in 2021.
COVID-19 deaths
start to ebb
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Vehicles on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, navigate a snowy Main Street in Pendleton after the fi rst signifi cant
snowfall of the season.
iston electric customers. In an
email, Steve Meyers, the member
services administrator for the
Umatilla Electric Cooperative,
wrote that accumulated snow
caused a tree limb to fall into a
power line, cutting off power to
987 UEC and Hermiston Energy
Services customers for about an
hour during the morning.
Snowstorms also mean road
closures on Interstate 84 and
other state roads, just as resi-
dents begin traveling to visit
friends and family for the holi-
day season. The westbound lanes
on Interstate 84 were briefly
closed between mileposts 193
and 374, and Oregon Department
of Transportation spokesperson
Tom Strandberg said he expects
more in the coming days.
See Snow, Page A9
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Snow covers the Let ’Er Buck sign near the Pendleton Round-Up
Grounds on Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, in Pendleton. The National Weath-
er Service in Pendleton forecasts another weather system coming this
week that should bring snow and rain to lower elevations.
The vaccines set off a mass
scramble for appointments, with
most people told they might have
to wait until mid-summer for inoc-
ulation. Then demand fell off a
cliff . Bottles of Pfi zer and Moderna
vaccine with fewer and fewer arms
to put them in. From a high of
50,000 shots in April, demand in
Oregon shrank to less than a tenth
of that on days in June. Vaccination
became another political wedge
issue. A riot at the U.S. Capitol
showed the fragility of peaceful
democracy.
The fi res were back — earlier and
more remote this year — but burning
miles of scars in the land and cost-
ing millions of dollars to contain.
The smoke choked not just Oregon
but jet streams shared it with places
as far as Boston. This year added a
grim stretch of record-frying heat on
June 28. It hit 116 degrees in Port-
land. Salem was 117. Temperatures
more familiar to Death Valley than
the Willamette Valley.
See 2022, Page A9
Demand for holiday decorations increases at secondhand stores
By ALEX WITTWER AND
ERICK PETERSON
EO Media Group
HERMISTON — Locals deco-
rating for Christmas are finding
more of what they need this year at
of secondhand stores.
Local thrift stores are seeing an
uptick in Christmas shoppers, espe-
cially new ones, as supply chain
issues dim prospects for artifi cial
trees, decorations and lighting at big
box retail stores.
Over at the Hermiston Goodwill
store on Monday, Dec. 20, there
was a small inventory of Christ-
mas decorations. Some of the goods
were mixed in with other items — a
wreath, for example, sat between a
weed wacker and an empty golf club
bag. Also, ornaments, stockings,
plastic holly and more were orga-
nized on shelves and in bins. Seven
artifi cial trees stood near the door.
Standing behind a register, a
Goodwill employee said the store
has been busy selling such items.
Over at The Salvation Army Store
& Donation Center, Pendleton, a
volunteer picked up the phone to
say the same thing. It is busy, she
said, and the store seemed to have
fewer Christmas decorations than
in years past.
Open Dec. 18 and 19, the
Outreach Thrift Store is closed
throughout the remainder of the
year. However, Carolyn Clemons,
a store director, said she had been
carrying Christmas decorations.
“We’ve had everything from
trees to ornaments, Santas, snow-
men and more,” she said.
See Stores, Page A9
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Angi Train looks through Christmas decorations at the People Helping Peo-
ple secondhand store in La Grande on Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. Thrift stores have
seen an increase in customers as supply chain issues hamper large chain re-
tailers’ stock of Christmas goods.