NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Wallowa chicken processor suffers losses due to hailstorm
lingers for Hawkins.
“It’s just the emotion of like,
wow. They just got pummeled
to death,” she said.
By ANDREW CUTLER
AND BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — Mary
Hawkins was outside washing
crates when she noticed a storm
building up on the horizon.
“When the hail started I was
like, almost giggly, like ‘Ha
ha, it’s hailing. I’m gonna hop
inside,’” said Hawkins, who
owns Hawkins Sisters Ranch
with her sister, Nora.
Within moments her deci-
sion proved to be correct as
one of the worst hailstorms
in modern Wallowa County
history descended on her
chicken processing facility on
Bear Creek Road.
Hawkins said the outside
work at the processing facility
was over by the time the storm
hit and much of her stock of
chickens was under cover. Still,
she had several hundred chick-
ens outside under the deluge of
hail. About 300 of her Cornish
Cross chickens were out in a
pasture.
The chickens, said
Hawkins, tend to sit and wait
out inclement weather.
“If anything, they pile up a
little bit,” she said.
When the storm passed,
Hawkins and her employees
immediately went into damage
control mode. Hawkins
checked her horses and vehi-
cles and equipment and then
trotted out to the pasture. What
she saw was carnage.
County comes together
Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Mary Hawkins, along with sister Nora, manages Hawkins Sisters Ranch in Wallowa. The sis-
ters raise Turkeys and Cornish Cross chickens to butcher and also offer custom butchering for
many local hobby farm breeders in the county.
Hundreds of dead chick-
ens littered the field. Many
of the chickens were grouped
together where they died as the
hail hammered them.
“In addition to getting
crushed by the ice, they prob-
ably got smacked, smothered
by one another,” Hawkins said.
As she stared at the field
littered with dead chickens
she said “my first reaction was
to just turn around and walk
away.”
Over the next hour, said
Hawkins, many other chickens
died from the injuries suffered
by the hail.
Some, though, she thought
might be dead were up and
about.
“Half of them is up and
fluffy again,” she said.
Still, by the end of the day
Hawkins said she composted
150 dead chickens.
As Hawkins and her
employees began to clean up
— clearing broken glass and
other debris — she slowly
began to take stock. She real-
ized the hailstorm meant a
significant financial loss to her
business.
The dead chickens were
no longer viable products for
Forecast for Pendleton Area
| Go to AccuWeather.com
TODAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Hot with plenty
of sun
Partly sunny and
very hot
Very hot with
clouds and sun
Hot with sunshine
Hot with plenty of
sunshine
98° 63°
104° 67°
100° 59°
105° 63°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
99° 74°
98° 67°
97° 67°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
103° 73°
100° 65°
98° 65°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. Mon.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
77/58
91/56
97/60
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
97/67
Lewiston
85/61
99/60
Astoria
74/57
Pullman
Yakima 96/62
84/54
99/66
Portland
Hermiston
88/64
Salem
The Dalles 100/59
100/66
91/60
Monday
Normals
Records
98/63
La Grande
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
93/60
94/58
Ontario
103/63
Caldwell
Burns
95°
52°
92°
57°
104° (1933) 40° (1937)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
98/60
0.00"
0.02"
0.08"
7.50"
2.46"
5.22"
WINDS (in mph)
99/59
98/57
0.00"
0.04"
0.15"
11.17"
4.35"
8.46"
through 3 p.m. Mon.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
97/54
91/61
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
Pendleton 94/56
91/62
Corvallis
95°
54°
89°
59°
109° (1901) 38° (1910)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
83/56
Aberdeen
94/63
95/68
Tacoma
Monday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
82/61
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
99/65
Wed.
WNW 4-8
NW 6-12
NE 4-8
NNE 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
97/54
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
5:57 a.m.
8:02 p.m.
10:28 p.m.
11:26 a.m.
Last
New
First
Full
Aug 18
Aug 27
Sep 3
Sep 10
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 106° in Redding, Calif. Low 32° in Truckee, Calif.
sale, she said.
“Can’t process them. There
is just no way to dress them out
and get them cold. The body
condition would be grotesque,
and they were laying out in the
field for two hours. They’re not
really edible,” Hawkins said.
Most of the chickens, she
said, were “nearly finished.”
“I have several thousand
dollars into those chicks
and their feed. I like to raise
them until they dress out at a
4-pound average,” Hawkins
said.
The image of a field
covered in dead chickens still
Wallowa County residents,
businesses and officials began
working together in the after-
math of the storm to help those
in need.
“That’s one good thing we
still have in this country,” said
Wallowa County Commis-
sioner Susan Roberts, who
grew up on a ranch near
Wallowa. “We have a lot of
people who come together to
help.”
Sheriff Joel Fish said
numerous individuals and
businesses turned out to help
their neighbors.
“People jumped in and
stepped up to the plate last
night to help people who
couldn’t board up windows,”
Fish said Friday, Aug. 12.
“There were so many people
helping, I can’t tell you who all
helped and did things.”
In a press release Aug. 12,
Fish said the sheriff’s office,
Enterprise Police, Lostine
Fire, medics and the Oregon
State Police all responded, as
did members of the Wallowa
Volunteer Fire Department.
Fish also said, “Private
citizens responded with tarps
and other items. Citizens went
around to their neighbors help-
ing to clean up and board up
homes. … It was a real testa-
ment to the resiliency of the
citizens of the city of Wallowa
and Wallowa County. I
commend you all.”
A meal site also had been
set up at the Wallowa Senior
Center, said Paul Karvoski,
county emergency services
director.
Residents were active all
over town on Aug. 12, cleaning
up the mess the storm created.
Leaves and branches littered
yards and streets, and people
were just trying to get back to
normal.
Fish and Mayor Gary
Hulse confirmed Aug. 12
that only four minor injuries
were suffered when people
were struck by the hail, which
reports said ranged from the
size of ping pong balls to base-
balls.
Hulse declared a state of
emergency Aug. 12 for the city,
which started the process of
obtaining federal or state aid.
He said the city attorney was
working on the declaration.
Roberts said that although
the county doesn’t “have a
pile of cash” sitting there wait-
ing for such emergencies, the
county will help.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
and the Oregon Office of
Emergency Management are
aware of the storm damage.
“The state has not received
a request for a state declaration
from Wallowa at this time,”
Brown spokesperson Charles
Boyle said Aug. 13.
EOU professor takes on sunscreen
project in memory of late sister
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — Amy
Yielding, a mathematics
professor at Eastern Oregon
University, wishes that
everyone could have known
her sister, Rose, who lived
in Arizona and died of skin
cancer in 2018.
“She was always volun-
teering and involved in
outreach,” said Yielding, who
described Rose as the most
generous of her 10 brothers
and sisters.
Few people in La Grande
knew Rose, who was a
microbiologist at Phoenix
Children’s Hospital, but
today her presence is being
felt throughout La Grande
thanks to Yielding, who is
installing sunscreen dispen-
sary stations throughout La
Grande in memory of her
sister.
“I feel like I am planting
little Rosies,” said Yielding,
noting doing this is helping
ease her sense of loss.
“Rose died six months
after she was diagnosed. It
was devastating,’’ she said.
Yielding said she believes
her sister, who was 35, devel-
oped skin cancer because of
Dick Mason/The Observer
The La Grande area now has
four sunscreen stations, in-
cluding this one at Birnie
Park, shown on Wednesday,
Aug. 10, 2022.
too much unprotected sun
exposure when she was
growing up in Arizona.
To date, Yielding and her
husband, Jason, and daugh-
ter, Josephine, have installed
sunscreen stations at Candy
Cane, Birnie and Riverside
parks and the trailhead of
the Mount Emily Recreation
Area’s Red Apple area. The
sunscreen stations at Birnie
and Riverside parks were
installed in May and the other
two were put in during 2021.
Yielding has installed all
of them to make it easier for
people to protect themselves
from the sun’s damaging rays
so they and their loved ones
do not experience what her
family did.
The project has been
funded with help from
Grande Ronde Hospital
through a small community
events and projects donation
account that is managed by
the hospital and its public
relations department. The
account helps support,
through small, one-time
donations, those unique and
local community efforts
that otherwise may not have
access to a traditional fund-
ing stream or subsidy source.
Yielding credited Casey
Nichols, a dermatology board
certified nurse practitioner at
the hospital, with providing
guidance on the project.
Yielding also said Stu
Spence, director of the La
Grande Parks and Recre-
ation Department, and Sean
Chambers, who earlier
served as the director of
MERA, also provided major
help in securing the city and
county approval needed to
install the sunscreen stations.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
IN BRIEF
La Grande police identify
victim of deadly hit-and-run
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
60s
cold front
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LA GRANDE — A La Grande man died in
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