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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2021)
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2021 A3 TODAY It’s Sunday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2021. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day. Today’s Highlight in History: In 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauder- dale, Florida, killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years earlier. In 1778, the American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France. In 1876, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray ap- plied separately for patents re- lated to the telephone. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor. In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as Presi- dent William Howard Taft signed a proclamation. In 1920, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maud Wood Park. In 1929, the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down. In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian forces reached the Rhine River in Ger- many. In 1967, Aretha Franklin record- ed her cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” at Atlantic Records in New York. In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police. In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient when the surgery was per- formed at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; she lived until November 1990. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Kho- meini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” a novel con- demned as blasphemous. In 2013, American Airlines and US Airways announced an $11 billion merger that turned American into the world’s big- gest airline. In 2019, William Barr was sworn in for his second stint as the nation’s attorney general; he succeeded Jeff Sessions, who’d been pushed out of office by President Donald Trump after Trump denounced Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Ten years ago: President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.7 trillion budget plan that would freeze or reduce some safety-net pro- grams for the nation’s poor but turn aside Republican demands for more drastic cuts to shrink the government to where it was before he took office. The TV game show “Jeopardy!” began airing the first of three episodes pitting human players Brad Rut- ter and Ken Jennings against an IBM computer named “Watson.” Watson ended up winning with a cumulative total of $77,147 versus $24,000 for Jennings and $21,600 for Rutter. Five years ago: Pope Francis condemned the drug trade’s “dealers of death” and urged Mexicans to shun the devil’s lust for money as he led a huge open-air Mass for more than 300,000 people in the poverty- stricken Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec. One year ago: A Chinese health official said more than 1,700 medical workers had been infected by the coronavirus, and six had died. Egypt confirmed its first case of the new virus, which had infected more than 64,000 people globally. Today’s Birthdays: Actor Andrew Prine is 85. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 79. Jazz musician Maceo Parker is 78. Journalist Carl Bernstein is 77. TV person- ality Pat O’Brien is 73. Magician Teller (Penn and Teller) is 73. Cajun singer-musician Michael Doucet (Beausoleil) is 70. Actor Ken Wahl is 64. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 62. Actor Meg Tilly is 61. Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is 61. Singer-pro- ducer Dwayne Wiggins is 60. Actor Zach Galligan is 57. Actor Valente Rodriguez is 57. Former tennis player Manuela Maleeva is 54. Actor Simon Pegg is 51. Rock singer Rob Thomas is 49. Former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe is 49. Actor Danai Gurira is 43. Actor Tiffany Thornton is 35. Actor Brett Dier is 31. Actor Freddie Highmore is 29. — Associated Press LOCAL, STATE & REGION PACIFIC NORTHWEST | ICE STORM Outages could last through weekend BY GILLIAN FLACCUS AND REBECCA BOONE The Associated Press LAKE OSWEGO — A win- ter storm blanketed the Pacific Northwest with ice and snow on Saturday, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power and disrupting travel across the region. Freezing rain left roads, power lines and trees coated in ice in the Portland region, and by Saturday morning more than 270,000 people were with- out power. The outages could extend throughout the weekend for some, said Elizabeth Lattanner, a spokeswoman for PGE, one of the major electricity provid- ers in the region. “In storms like these, resto- ration takes time given all of the challenges our crews face in getting to restoration sites and repairing those outages,” Lattanner said. “We have more than 600 PGE and contract personnel responding to the storm — it’s all hands on deck.” Many ice-laden trees snapped under the weight, fall- ing on power lines and causing some transformers to blow out in showers of blue and orange sparks. By noon on Saturday, more than 1,200 PGE power lines were down, Lattanner said. The ice and snowfall caused treacherous driving conditions, forcing Oregon transportation Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP Samuel Braun, 6, let his dad, Dave, take the brunt of the frozen powder while sledding in the snowfall Friday in Walla Walla, Washington. Both came up smiling. Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian via AP An aerial view of the Morrison Bridge and downtown Portland is seen Friday during a snowstorm. officials to close Interstate 84 in the Columbia River Gorge, and the regional transit agency TriMet suspended all bus and train service in the region. TriMet spokesperson Tia York asked people to avoid all travel unless it’s an emergency. “It is too dangerous out there,” York wrote in a pre- pared statement. Police in Salem also warned residents in Marion and Polk counties to watch for downed power lines and falling tree limbs, and the Oregon State Police said fallen trees blocked several roads across the region. Some Washington state res- idents were also socked in by the weather, with snow falling throughout the Seattle region on Saturday morning and freezing rain falling along the coast in Grays Harbor County. The city of Seattle activated its Emergency Operations Center Saturday morning to coordi- nate the city’s winter storm re- sponse. Heavy snowfall also led to dangerous driving conditions in parts of Eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho, with Mal- heur County and Boise, Idaho, expected to get as much as 6 inches of snow by Saturday af- ternoon. The National Weather Ser- vice said all three states should brace for another surge of win- ter moisture to hit the North- west Sunday night, potentially leading to more heavy snowfall through Monday. The “unsettled winter con- ditions” would likely continue throughout the week, the Na- tional Weather Service said Saturday morning. Western Washington was ex- pected to get an additional 3 to 6 inches of snow on Saturday, with another 2 inches possible on Sunday and Monday. Rain falling on accumulated snow raised the possibility of urban flooding happening Sunday night or Monday in some ar- eas, according to the National Weather Service. The heavy snow made for dangerous avalanche condi- tions in the many areas across the Olympics and Cascades mountain ranges, with large avalanches possible. Officials with the Payette Avalanche Center in west-cen- tral Idaho also warned of in- creasing avalanche risk in the days ahead. Bill would expand cropland firefighting options in state BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Cropland owners in Oregon would be eligible to join range- land fire protection associa- tions under a bill that seeks to improve their access to equip- ment and training. Areas that produce dryland wheat are prone to wildfire — as seen in the 2018 Substa- tion Fire, which burned 78,000 acres in Wasco and Sherman counties — but currently can- not be included in rangeland fire associations. “During harvest time, ripe grain crops are a tinder box. A lightning strike, a spark of any kind or chaff falling on a hot engine can cause a crop fire,” said Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Ath- ena, during a recent legislative hearing. Hansell has introduced legis- lation that would allow range- land fire protection associa- tions to be organized on “land used for cultivating crops” in addition to rangeland and un- developed areas. Supporters Courtesy of Molly Belshe/via Capital Press The Substation Fire burns through standing wheat in Sher- man County. say Senate Bill 590 will en- hance firefighting resources in rural communities. “Wildfire does not adhere to boundaries, it does not stop at fence lines or changes in land- ownership, or rangeland or cropland,” said Amanda Hoey, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Growers League. By forming or joining an as- sociation, farmers could better coordinate with state agencies, such as the Oregon Depart- ment of Forestry on firefight- ing and acquire surplus fire- fighting equipment from the federal government, Hoey said. Roger Beyer, a lobbyist for the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, said the financial impacts on the state’s Depart- ment of Forestry must be con- sidered as part of the discus- sion about SB 590. While the bill’s benefits out- weigh any of these concerns, the legislation should provide added funding to the forestry department, Beyer said. Without adequate funding, the heavier workload could de- tract from the agency’s existing firefighting duties, he said. The department currently has three full-time employees who support 23 rangeland fire protection associations that cover about 15 million acres. In the past, the agency estimated that expanding associations to include cropland would re- quire an additional three em- ployees at a cost of more than $700,000 per biennium. Two classes on Feb. 19, 9:00 am and 12:00 pm Bend Country Inn 62065 SE 27th St., Bend, OR Multi-State: $80.00 Oregon Included No Fee Oregon Only: $45.00 Skin Cancer doesn’t go away just because it’s winter. 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