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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (June 14, 2019)
T he C olumbia P ress June 14, 2019 Mayor’s Message by Henry Balensifer III Surviving, if not thriving Last week I had the distinct and eye-opening pleasure to observe the capability the US Navy can bring to our coast- line should a major disaster occur. Several elected officials in- cluding myself and Mark Ku- jala, the county commissioner for our district, were briefed at Camp Rilea about the process by which active-duty military assets are requested or tasked to assist in major disasters. We then rode out to the USS Anchorage on a hovercraft to see firsthand the capabilities the Navy could bring to bear. It’s extremely important for all of us to consider emergen- cy preparedness with person- al responsibility in mind, as well as reasonable expecta- tions. We should be ready and able to survive for at least two, if not three, weeks after a ma- jor event. What does that mean to sur- vive for at least two weeks? I mean to survive, not thrive. We can live quite some time with- out food, but water is vital. That said, if you pack enough water and food for two meals a day for two weeks in a backpack, it would be unwieldy. One week alone would be too much. So let’s look at preparedness with a practical lens: Recommended daily wa- ter intake for thriving is 64 ounces. That’s half a gallon each day, or 3.5 gallons a week. At 8.34 pounds per gal- lon, that means if you packed just a week of water in your backpack it would weigh 29 pounds! Two weeks is just about 60 pounds! To survive, you need to con- sider how far the evacuation zone is from your home or place of work. Using that in- formation, determine what you can reasonably carry with- in the time window for the tsu- nami that will affect you. Free tsunami evacuation maps are available at City Hall if you don’t have one. The map out- lines the evacuation routes and areas that will be affected in a nearshore or distant tsunami. I’ll stop short of recommend- ing a pack for legal reasons, but I’ll tell you what suste- nance I have in my pack and the philosophy of use behind it. This isn’t everything in my pack, just the water/food. I have two bottled waters (about 32 ounces) and an empty wide-mouth Nalgene bottle. I have both a cheap LifeStraw (for direct filter drinking) and a Katadyn water filter for pumping water into empty bottles. So I can drink with the lifestraw out of water sources directly, or I can pump filtered water into bottles to save. I’ve also got purification tablets in case a filter breaks. I carry enough electrolyte packs to have a dose each day for three weeks — the brands are Nuun and DripDrop. I also have two Solas ration packs (same as found in emer- gency kits on lifeboats). Am I going to thrive in bad conditions with these? No. Will I survive? Yes. Any more and my pack with all the oth- er items becomes too heavy to travel on foot to safety. We live on the coast because we love the place where we live. Our choice to live here has con- sequences, good and bad. The place that provides beautiful sunsets and great clam-digging is the same place that has the potential to suffer catastrophic natural disasters or big windstorms as in 2007. Every individual has a re- sponsibility to be prepared for themselves and their family. 3 Summer programs kick off with sign dedication Warrenton Community Li- brary kicked off its summer reading program last week- end with the dedication of a new sign and about 40 chil- dren and adults pledging to read books. “It went off quite well; we had quite a few people there,” site manager Nettie-Lee Ca- log said. The county’s other libraries participate with summer pro- grams as well. Children and adults have a chance to win prizes for reading. “We want to keep kids so they don’t forget stuff over the summer,” Calog said. The library recently pur- chased new chairs and tables for the children’s area, with money for part of it donated by Human Bean, which held a fund-raiser for the library’s children’s programs. The cedar planks for the sign were donated by War- renton City Commissioner Alissa Trotter of Hu- man Bean coffee in Warrenton presents a $210 check to Mayor Henry Bal- ensifer on Saturday, after the company held a fund-raiser to support children’s programs at the library. At left is Rick Newton, who do- nated wood for the sign. Courtesy Warrenton Community Library Rick Newton and Coast Hard- ware donated brackets for the project. Warrenton High School graduate and resident Dennis Thomas designed and made the sign. Thomas also made the sign in front of Warrenton Fire Department. “It’s interesting that the sign cost $350 and the permit for it cost $350,” Newton said. The sign permit fee came out of the city’s library fund. “It comes out of the big- ger budget we have,” Calog said. “It’s fair that we pay our share, too.” Fisher/cable cooperative wins state award Oregon Fishermen’s Cable Committee, an Astoria based nonprofit group that works with commercial fishermen and fiber-optic cable provid- ers, received the Department of State Lands 2018 Partner- ship Award from the State Land Board on Tuesday in Salem. The award is based on in- novation, consistency, effort and setting a good example for partnership with state agencies to protect natural resources. The award recognized the OFCC’s more than 20-year history of working coopera- tively with submarine cable owners and installers. The installations have been done in a way that minimizes impacts on coastal seas and the Oregon fishing industry while providing significant benefits to the state. Chairman Scott McMullen, left, and founding member Terry Thompson re- ceive the Part- nership Award from Gov. Kate Brown on Tues- day in Salem. Courtesy OFCC “This ongoing collaboration has resulted in responsible, sustainable stewardship of the territorial sea and the nat- ural resources it contains,” Oregon Secretary of State Bev Clarno said. The increasing number of undersea cable landings in Oregon has meant a more robust internet backbone for the state, development of data centers and cloud stor- age facilities and better con- nectivity for tech companies, she said. “Working together, the OFCC and submarine cable owners have achieved what neither could accomplish alone — making Oregon a very successful place to land west coast fiber-optic cables while maintaining a vibrant fishing industry,” Clarno said. The group’s work has been held up as an example global- ly, not just for marine spatial management, but in other in- dustries as well.”