The Bulletin., January 06, 2022, Page 3, Image 3

The BulleTin • Thursday, January 6, 2022 A3
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
In Cannon Beach, distinctive tsunami sirens need a new owner
BY NICOLE BALES
The astorian
CANNON BEACH — The
city’s famous “mooing” tsu-
nami warning sirens are in
need of a new owner.
The Cannon Beach Rural
Fire Protection District, which
installed the Community
Warning System — known as
COWS — in the 1980s, has de-
cided to move away from man-
aging the system.
Fire Chief Marc Reckmann
said maintenance and up-
grades are costly, making it un-
sustainable for the fire district
to continue to own and oper-
ate the seven 40-foot tall siren
towers around Cannon Beach
and Arch Cape.
“It is outside of the district’s
responsibility to manage those
and maintain them,” he said.
“Emergency management does
not fall within a fire district. It
falls within a city and a county.”
The fire district’s board
agreed to start trying to shift
the responsibility to the city
or county. In the meantime,
Reckmann said the fire dis-
trict will continue to broadcast
the iconic mooing sound on
the first Wednesday of every
month.
Picked as a playful joke
by the late fire district board
member Alfred Aya Jr., the
mooing sound is a riff on the
system’s acronym.
While the city has shown
lydia ely/astorian photos
‘Mooing’ sirens warn against tsu-
namis in Cannon Beach.
creating a management and
financial plan so it doesn’t be-
come a burden.
If a tsunami is expected af-
ter a distant earthquake, there
is usually two to four hours to
evacuate, Hudson said, and the
sirens can be a way of getting
residents and tourists to pay at-
tention and respond.
While there are other meth-
tine, as the majority of infected
patients are on those units.
More than 60% of the patients
on the Leaf 3 unit tested posi-
tive as of Tuesday.
The hospital has close to 600
patients and 1,500 staff at its
main Salem campus.
Staff on those units are re-
quired to wear full personal
protective equipment, and Mat-
teucci said locks on those units
would be changed as needed “to
facilitate medical isolation.”
Two other units are being
used to quarantine patients who
have been exposed to or have
been diagnosed with COVID.
Matteucci said more than
half of the patients who tested
positive for COVID-19 were
showing symptoms, and that
many of the patients are vac-
cinated, but none have had
booster shots.
“Patients on the primary
outbreak units who had boost-
ers did not test positive, point-
ing to the effectiveness of the
boosters,” Matteucci wrote in a
A tsunami evacuation sign near Haystack Rock points beachgoers uphill.
some interest in taking over re-
sponsibility, much still has to
be worked out.
Is it feasible? And what will
it cost residents to upgrade and
maintain the system? Those
are some of the questions Rick
Hudson, the city’s emergency
manager, has before the City
Council considers taking on
the role.
Oregon State Hospital quarantines 3 units for COVID-19
The Oregon State Hospital
has quarantined three units
for coronavirus outbreaks and
halted new admissions amid
a statewide surge in cases at-
tributed to the highly conta-
gious omicron variant.
Hospital Superintendent
There are five tsunami siren
towers in the city’s jurisdiction,
and while tsunami’s are rare —
the last one in Cannon Beach
was in 1964 — Hudson said
the sirens can save lives.
If the city decides to take
ownership of the sirens, Hud-
son said he would work to
modernize the system by link-
ing it to a dispatch center and
ods of notifying people, includ-
ing wireless emergency signals
that are used to put out Amber
Alerts and local notification
systems like Clatsop Alerts, a
siren can notify people on the
beach who decided to leave
their phones in their cars or at
homes.
“For me, personally, I’d hate
to get rid of something that re-
ally does fill a gap in the worst-
case scenario when nobody has
modern technology around,”
Hudson said.
Tiffany Brown, Clatsop
County’s director of emergency
Dolly Matteucci said Tuesday
that 29 patients at the psychiat-
ric hospital had tested positive
for COVID-19 since Dec. 29,
and 32 staff had tested positive
since Dec. 27. She said the Bird
1, Flower 3 and Leaf 3 units
have been closed for quaran-
management, agrees the sirens
play an important role. She
said the situation in Cannon
Beach is not a new story.
Coastal communities in
Oregon began implementing
sirens after Washington state
decided to adopt and manage
a siren system for the coast,
she said.
But after some time, an ex-
odus began, she explained, be-
cause the sirens were too costly
to maintain and manage. Some
communities that kept the si-
rens have seen the systems fall
into disrepair, she said, and
once other notification systems
came into play, it furthered the
argument by some to remove
the towers.
Brown noted that Clatsop
County is one of the few coun-
ties in Oregon still maintaining
sirens because of its status as
the highest-hazard county for
tsunamis.
In addition to the sirens in
Cannon Beach and Arch Cape,
there are sirens in Seaside and
Gearhart, which are managed
by Seaside. Warrenton is work-
ing to get the parts to install
two sirens.
“I’m very proud that in Clat-
sop County we have so many
communities with sirens,”
Brown said. But, she added,
“there’s no disputing that we’d
be more resilient if it were a sin-
gle system that was managed in
a more comprehensive way.”
public letter on Tuesday. “All el-
igible patients had been offered
booster doses before this out-
break.”
The hospital has halted ad-
missions during the outbreak,
and patients will not be trans-
ferred from other units to any
of the quarantined units.
— The Oregonian
STOREWIDE CLEARANCE SALE!
Up To
50% off
*
Select Furniture and Mattresses
IN
A
G
R
A
B
S
’
N
O
R
S
E
L
T
I
W
*
CEN
F
F
O
%
75
o
t
p
U
Free Delivery &
Special Financing
Available**
2017 S Hwy 97, Redmond • 541-548-2066
63485 N Hwy 97, Bend • 541-330-5084
www.WilsonsOfRedmond.net
**See store for details. *Off Compare at Price