Smoke signals., December 15, 2015, Page 7, Image 7

S moke S ignals
DECEMBER 15, 2015
7
Storms send South Yamhill River to fourth-highest crest
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
A series of Pacific storms that
battered Oregon and southwestern
Washington between Sunday, Dec.
6, and Wednesday, Dec. 9, sent the
South Yamhill River at Willamina
to its fourth highest crest ever re-
corded, according to the National
Weather Service’s Advanced Hy-
drologic Prediction Service.
The South Yamhill River reached
14.72 feet during the early morning
of Tuesday, Dec. 8, and sent water
cascading across Highway 18 just
northeast of Spirit Mountain Casi-
no at Rowell Creek Road, limiting
traffic to one lane and shutting
down the highway briefly.
The river’s record crest is 17.1
feet in 1964.
Because of the inclement weather
and threat of flooding, Grand Ronde
Governance Center employees were
sent home at noon Monday, Dec. 7,
the only interruption in work hours
during the stormy weather. Accord-
ing to the Weather Channel, the
Grand Ronde area received more
than 7 inches of rain in the first
nine days of December.
A break on Tuesday, Dec. 8,
allowed the rain to seep into the
ground and rivers and creeks to re-
cede before another storm barreled
into the area on Tuesday evening
and Wednesday morning. Howev-
er, the storm was not as intense
and the South Yamhill River only
reached 13.3 feet and stayed within
its banks.
Tribal employees reported to
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
A crew from Portland General Electirc repairs power lines west of milepost 19
on Highway 18 after a tree fell on them affecting power in the Grand Ronde
area for some residents on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
work at regular times on Wednes-
day, Dec. 9.
Although more rain fell in the
Grand Ronde area later in the
week, the storms were not as wet
and river levels decreased dramat-
ically.
Tribal Emergency Operations Co-
ordinator Jamie Baxter activated
the Tribe’s Incident Management
Team on Monday, Dec. 7, to monitor
the weather situation and prepare
for possible flooding in the Grand
Ronde area.
The team, led by Planning De-
partment Manager Rick George,
met on Monday and Tuesday, and
included Tribal staff and repre-
sentatives from the Grand Ronde
Police Department, Tribal Council,
General Manager’s Office, Publi-
cations, Human Resources, Public
Works, Facilities and Maintenance,
Natural Resources, Information
Systems, Planning, GIS and other
departments.
Even as late as Thursday, Dec.
10, the team was sending out warn-
ings on the Tribe’s Facebook page
regarding possible funnel clouds
and lightning in the Grand Ronde
area.
Damage to Tribal buildings was
relatively minor, with water seep-
age reported to three Tribal build-
ings, as well as driveway rocking
that was washed away from the
access road off Highway 22. The
day-use area also flooded, but dam-
age was inconsequential.
Spirit Mountain Casino Gener-
al Manager Stan Dillon said the
storms caused limited closures be-
cause guests left early on Monday
and employees who live far away
called in because of flooding in the
areas in which they reside.
“We closed bingo, Playworld, pok-
er, keno and Legends,” Dillon said.
“There was no damage to the facili-
ty on the first night of the flooding.”
However, the casino experienced
power issues on Tuesday.
“Two of our generators did not
kick in like they are supposed to,”
Dillon said. “So we had the area of
the casino near the main cage and
poker go dark, as well as the lodge,
ballrooms, etc. This did cause bingo
to close and we refunded guests
their money.”
Besides water limiting travel
on Highway 18 on Monday night,
Grand Ronde Road south of the
highway was unpassable on Mon-
day and Highway 22 (Hebo Road)
west of Grand Ronde was closed
after a portion of the road washed
away at milepost 12.
In addition, a tree fell west of
milepost 19 on Highway 18 on
Tuesday night, affecting power in
the Grand Ronde area for some
residents.
High winds also distributed tree
debris throughout the area. n
Having a single story can be detrimental to youth
TRAINING continued
from front page
level as they journey through their
education,” Sherwood said. “The
training will demonstrate how the
single story can be dangerous and
detrimental to our youth, families
and our culture as a Tribe.”
Reeves provided Willamina
teachers and administrators with a
video she had seen while attending
graduate school at the University of
Oregon. She said she was attending
a multi-cultural literacy class when
she watched the video for the first
time.
The video was a TED Talk given
by Nigerian author Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie. The point of her talk
was that people make the mistake
of assuming people have only a
single story. Adichie said people’s
lives and cultures are made up of
many overlapping stories.
TED is a nonprofit organization
established in 1984 that is devoted
to spreading ideas through infor-
mative talks. TED stands for Tech-
nology, Entertainment and Design.
In the video, Adichie spoke of her
own experiences with a single sto-
ry and told how those experiences
shaped her viewpoints at a young
age and became the way she saw
the world as well. Adichie said that
if you show someone as just one
thing and you do it over and over,
they become that thing.
“All of these experiences make
me who I am,” said Adichie. “The
single story creates stereotypes,
and the problem with stereotypes is
not that they are untrue, but that
they are incomplete. They make
one story become the only story.”
Adichie said having a single story
viewpoint causes disassociation
rather than highlighting common-
alities in people.
“The consequence of the single
story is this: It robs people of dig-
nity,” said Adichie. “It makes our
recognition of our equal humanity
difficult. It emphasizes how we are
different rather than how we are
similar.”
Almost 100 Willamina ele-
mentary, middle and high school
teachers gathered for the training.
After watching Adichie’s TED Talk,
teachers broke into small groups
to discuss the video and answer
questions provided by the Tribe’s
education staff.
Teachers were asked what the
single story of the Willamina School
District was. They were asked if the
materials they were using in their
classrooms were biased in any way.
Teachers were asked if they had
been the victim of a single story and
if they had a single story viewpoint
of others at any time during their
education careers.
One teacher shared the story of a
student that she knew who would
fail not only in her classroom, but
in life. The teacher described a
nightmare scenario in which the
child had no real chance at a good
life because of her situation at home
and her behaviors caused by her
home life. The teacher talked about
having to pretend to have a bright
outlook for this student.
“I remember thinking I had to
fake being hopeful for her because
in real life I had no hope for her,”
the teacher said. “I thought I knew
her story. I just thought I knew it.”
The teacher then shared how
years after having this child as
a student she saw her again as a
young adult.
“Here was this glamorous, tall,
well-dressed person and she’s
beautiful,” the teacher said. “She
had a beautiful child and she had
beautiful clothes, and she had just
maximized everything she could do
and her story wasn’t at all what I
had thought. I was wrong. We need
to remember that and not think we
know the rest of the story that we
don’t know.”
Willamina Middle and High
School Principal Tim France said
he saw the video before it was
shown to teachers.
France said he believes that it
is “human nature” to have precon-
ceived notions of people and that
talking about the subject is a good
reminder to take off the “lenses”
that everyone uses when making
judgments.
France said he hopes the training
will refresh everybody’s effort to get
to know students before thinking
they know their whole story.
“This is what we are here for,”
said France. “We really need to
make sure that we are helping kids
to get to where they need to be.”
Sherwood, whose children are
Tribal members, said the training
with teachers in Willamina was a
“follow-up” to a collaborative proj-
ect the groups worked on in August.
“This is an effort to get people to
work together for the betterment
of our children,” Sherwood said.
“It’s about perspective and how
you see others. Are you teaching
everybody’s story?”
Reeves said it is her goal and the
goal of her program to partner with
the local school districts, Willamina
School District in particular.
“We’re trying to make it a part-
nership and have that relationship
with them,” Reeves said of the
teaching staff at the Willamina
schools.
“There is that beautiful part of
Willamina schools that we don’t
always see or that isn’t always
portrayed,” Sherwood said. “I think
today, why we chose this training
was because we really wanted
them (Willamina school teachers)
to reflect on that, on have you been
a victim of the single story? Or has
the single story been something
you’ve done to someone else? It was
just really a lot of reflection.”
Reeves said the goal of the single
story training wasn’t to try to teach
the education staff something, but
more as a reminder.
See TRAINING
continued on page 11