A8 The BulleTin • Friday, april 16, 2021
TODAY
Air travel
Today is Friday, April 16, the
106th day of 2021. There are 259
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 16, 2007, in one of
America’s worst school attacks,
a college senior killed 32 people
on the campus of Virginia Tech
before taking his own life.
In 1789, President-elect George
Washington left Mount Vernon,
Virginia, for his inauguration in
New York.
In 1862, during the Civil War,
President Abraham Lincoln
signed a bill ending slavery in
the District of Columbia.
In 1867, aviation pioneer Wilbur
Wright was born in Millville,
Indiana
In 1912, American aviator Har-
riet Quimby became the first
woman to fly across the English
Channel, leaving Dover, En-
gland, and arriving near Calais,
France, in 59 minutes.
In 1945, a Soviet submarine in
the Baltic Sea torpedoed and
sank the MV Goya, which Germa-
ny was using to transport civilian
refugees and wounded soldiers.
In 1947, the cargo ship Grand-
camp, carrying ammonium
nitrate, blew up in the harbor
in Texas City, Texas; a nearby
ship, the High Flyer, which was
carrying ammonium nitrate and
sulfur, caught fire and exploded
the following day; the blasts and
fires killed nearly 600 people.
In 1962, New Orleans Archbish-
op Joseph Rummel excommuni-
cated three local Roman Catho-
lics for fighting racial integration
of parochial schools.
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr.
wrote his “Letter from Birming-
ham Jail” in which the civil rights
activist responded to a group of
local clergymen who had criti-
cized him for leading street pro-
tests; King defended his tactics,
writing, “Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.”
In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off on
a voyage to the moon.
In 1977, Alex Haley, author of
the best-seller “Roots,” visited
the Gambian village of Juffure,
where, he believed, his ancestor
Kunte Kinte was captured as a
slave in 1767.
In 1996, Britain’s Prince Andrew
and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess
of York, announced they were in
the process of divorcing.
In 2010, the U.S government ac-
cused Wall Street’s most power-
ful firm of fraud, saying Goldman
Sachs & Co. had sold mortgage
investments without telling buy-
ers the securities were crafted
with input from a client who was
betting on them to fail.
Ten years ago: A Taliban sleep-
er agent walked into a meeting
of NATO trainers and Afghan
troops at Forward Operating
Base Gamberi in the eastern Af-
ghan province of Laghman and
detonated a vest of explosives
hidden underneath his uniform.
Five years ago: In an extraor-
dinary gesture, Pope Francis
brought 12 Syrian Muslims to
Italy aboard his plane after an
emotional visit to the Greek island
of Lesbos, which was facing the
brunt of Europe’s migration crisis.
One year ago: The Trump ad-
ministration gutted an Obama-
era rule that compelled the
country’s coal plants to cut back
emissions of mercury and other
human health hazards.
Today’s Birthdays: Emeritus
Pope Benedict XVI is 94. Singer
Bobby Vinton is 86. Denmark’s
Queen Margrethe II is 81. Bas-
ketball Hall of Famer Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar is 74. Former
Massachusetts first lady Ann
Romney is 72. NFL coach Bill
Belichick is 69. Rock singer and
former politician Peter Garrett is
68. Actor Ellen Barkin is 67. Actor
Michel Gill is 61. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken is 59. Rock
musician Jason Scheff (Chicago)
is 59. Singer Jimmy Osmond is
58. Rock singer David Pirner (Soul
Asylum) is 57. Actor-comedian
Martin Lawrence is 56. Actor Jon
Cryer is 56. Actor Peter Billingsley
is 50. Actor Lukas Haas is 45. Ac-
tor-singer Kelli O’Hara is 45. Actor
Claire Foy (TV: “The Crown”) is 37.
Figure skater Mirai Nagasu is 28.
Actor Sadie Sink is 19.
Continued from A7
But many people didn’t
wait for the government to
acknowledge that travel is
generally safe for vaccinated
flyers.
Air travel is picking up all
over the country. More than
38 million people flew in
March, up from fewer than
25 million in February.
Redmond Airport re-
ported 18,872 boardings in
February, a 7.5% increase
from January, according to
the latest figures on the air-
port website.
But that was still more
than 50% below the num-
ber of passengers boarding
flights in Redmond in Febru-
ary 2020.
Airlines are responding by
adding flights. Sun Country
Airlines restored service to
Minneapolis on Thursday
and Condor Airlines will
resume flying to Frankfurt,
Germany, on May 21. Icelan-
dair will resume flying in and
out of Portland on July 2.
Still, it may be many
months — or perhaps years
— before air travel returns
to pre-pandemic travel vol-
umes. In March 2019, 1.5
million people flew through
PDX — nearly twice as many
as flew last month.
But business travel, in par-
ticular, may never return
to normal. Zoom meetings
have proven highly effective
at gathering colleagues from
remote worksites and it’s not
clear businesses are eager to
restore air travel to their bud-
gets.
through no fault of their
Unemployment off
own, are getting a benefit that
Continued from A7
States have great latitude
to determine how much they
pay in jobless support, and
for how long, creating vast
disparities that leave out-of-
work Americans in less gen-
erous parts of the country in
dire financial straits. In 13
states, for example, the aver-
age weekly unemployment
benefit is lower than the
amount needed to remain
above the 2020 poverty line,
according to an analysis from
the Government Account-
ability Office, which studied
the system in September.
“Too many unemployed
folks, people who are laid
leaves them unable to pay
rent and unable to pay for
groceries,” Wyden said.
Historically, congressional
Republicans have chafed at
expanding unemployment
payments, believing it de-
ters people from returning to
work. But Wyden and Bennet
maintain they have an oppor-
tunity to advance reforms as
part of Democrats’ broader
rethinking of the country’s
safety net programs. Presi-
dent Joe Biden is set to unveil
a multitrillion-dollar pro-
posal that aims to provide
new aid to workers, parents
and children facing financial
hardship.
Electric
Continued from A7
On another map, a grid of
red squares marked where
crews need to complete routine
inspections on poles. When
they complete the inspection,
they can mark it off the list,
turning that area green on the
map, and note any mainte-
nance that needs done.
Zumwalt said just a few
years ago, that type of infor-
mation was often on physical
paper, making it much more
difficult to keep track of, up-
date and share between depart-
ments and crews. It was also
difficult to spot trends. Now,
with the click of a button an
employee can sort maps of out-
age histories by cause, location,
time or other factors.
“Before, there was no way
to visualize this or analyze the
data without a ton of work,”
Zumwalt said.
Down the hall, System Op-
erator Kathryn Kennington is
stationed in a control room full
of monitors. The amount of
information displayed on the
screens and the ease of mon-
itoring it has changed signifi-
cantly over the years of her ca-
reer in energy, she said.
“We have a lot more informa-
tion at our fingertips,” she said.
After the co-op installed
smart meters, for example, staff
at the office gained the ability
to “ping” a meter and check
if it is on, without needing to
send someone to physically
look to see if a neighborhood
has lights on.
Kennington said she has also
seen how the GIS mapping has
helped crews in the field re-
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Matt Ellis, a lineman with Umatilla Electric Cooperative, positions
equipment atop a utility pole in Hermiston.
spond more quickly to outages.
“The electronic mapping is
definitely an improvement for
newer linemen who don’t know
the system as well,” she said.
Colvin agrees. On Wednes-
day, April 7, he was out on SE
Ninth Street in Hermiston,
overseeing work to extend
power to a small subdivision
being built along the road. In
addition to making it easier to
navigate, he said the iPads also
help with simple things, like
punching in work hours elec-
tronically instead of filling out
and turning in a handwritten
time sheet every day.
He said new power tools and
equipment purchased in recent
years have saved linemen time.
That’s time they need, he said.
Hermiston, Boardman and
other parts of Umatilla Electric
Cooperative’s service area have
been growing rapidly. That
brings crews out to projects like
the one Colvin was at April 7.
“There are a lot of new sub-
divisions,” he said.
Oregon Senate votes to extend
grace period for past-due rent
Associated Press/Report for America
The Oregon Senate voted in
favor of a bill Wednesday that
would give tenants struggling
with financial hardships due to
the pandemic more time to pay
past-due rent.
Currently, tenants have until
July to pay back rent, but un-
der the proposed bill, tenants
would have until Feb. 28, 2022.
The bill passed with a vote of
25-5 and will move to Oregon’s
House of Representatives for
consideration.
“We have all heard the sto-
ries of Oregonians without
work, who have lost income
or who have lost much of
their income through no fault
of their own — because of a
global health crisis,” said Sen.
Jeff Golden, an Ashland Dem-
ocrat.
Senate Bill 282 also would
protect renters from the long-
term impacts of not making
payments on time by barring
reporting to consumer credit
agencies and removing back
rents from consideration when
submitting future rental ap-
plications. The bill would also
bar potential landlords from
screening out applicants
based on COVID-19-era
evictions and allow the
sealing of evictions during
COVID-19 from a tenant’s
record.
Glenn Alan Harris
of Terrebonne, OR
January 19, 1956 -
April 12, 2021
Arrangements:
Autumn Funerals-Red-
mond is honored to serve
the family. 541-504-9485.
Condolences may be con-
veyed to the family at
www.autumnfunerals.net
Services:
Service information to be
announced at a later date.
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