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About Cannon Beach gazette. (Cannon Beach, Or.) 1977-current | View Entire Issue (July 31, 2015)
4A • July 31, 2015 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com One year later, police chief remembers tragedy C ANNON S HOTS O ne year ago, on Friday morn- ing, Aug. 1, Cannon Beach police received a call seeking assistance for a “disoriented female” at the Surfsand Resort. Police Chief Jason Schermer- horn, who had been on the Cannon Beach force for only 18 months af- ter a 26-year career in Seaside, was QRWSUHSDUHGIRUZKDWKHZDVWR¿QG When he and Cannon Beach Fire Captain Matt Gardner broke their way into the hotel room, they found a dead toddler, 2-year-old Isabella Smith, and beside her, in shock, her older sister Alana Smith, 13. Ala- na was lying in her own blood, se- vere cuts on her body, blood spread throughout the room. Their mother, Jessica Smith, 40, from Goldendale, Wash., was impli- cated in the attack and apprehended after a two-and-a-half-day search. She was arrested and taken into cus- tody by the Cannon Beach Police Department and the Clatsop County Major Crime Team. She is currently in Clatsop County Jail awaiting trial in summer 2016. It was an incident no cop ever wants to experience, but few are spared. Schermerhorn took time out Tuesday to share his thoughts at the approach of the one-year anniversa- ry. The early morning of Aug. 1, 6FKHUPHUKRUQZDV¿OOLQJLQDW WKHRYHUQLJKWGHVNIRUDQRI¿FHURQ vacation. He’d been covering since 3 a.m. when at 9:40 the emergency call came in from a housekeeper at the Surfsand Resort, who was un- able to gain entry to the room. Schermerhorn arrived at the scene with Matt Gardner. “We didn’t know what we were going into,” Schermerhorn said. “We ended up cutting the dead bolt to get in.” Schermerhorn entered the room ¿UVW The “disoriented female” who had been reported, Schermerhorn re- alized, was 13-year-old Alana Smith. Medix responded and she received treatment at Seaside hospital. Mean- while, Jessica Smith was at large. Cannon Beach City Council chambers on Gower Avenue were turned into a war room, with local, state and federal agencies coordinat- ing the search. headlines made that impossible. “My son saw his dad on the front cover of the newspaper and asked what was going on,” Schermerhorn recalled. “He was 10 at the time. That’s just a hard thing to explain. Why would a little girl’s mom hurt By her? It’s very hard to explain to any- R.J. one, much less your own child.” MARX Community support made a big difference during the healing process. “The fact that our community was so supportive shows we can live through things live through ‘Everybody knows things like this,” Schermerhorn said. as small as we are, “They’re scary at the time, but those things make our community stron- everything can still ger, and our relationships with the happen here.’ community and the police depart- ment stronger. When they under- Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn stand and are working with us ask- ing what they can do, that develops a good camaraderie and partnership. “The FBI came down and intro- “Cannon Beach is a great town,” duced themselves and said, ‘We’re he said. “There was a lot of sup- here to help you. If you want us port afterward, people who brought here, we’ll accept that, and if you thank-you cards. People who said want us to leave, we’ll respect that.’ they were thinking of us. That’s im- There was no issue, they were great. portant. Law enforcement is such a “Each day I would come in at 6 thankless job most of the time. When a.m. and work until midnight, pop- you do get thank-yous and kudos for ping back and forth to see where doing your job, it’s appreciated.” they were and see what they need- For Schermerhorn, the process is ed,” Schermerhorn said. far from over. A year later the attacks ³7KH ¿UVW GD\ WKH\ GLGQ¶W ¿QG are something he “constantly thinks anything. The second, they didn’t.” about.” The third day, Jessica Smith’s car In trying to understand the mo- was found on the logging road off tives for the killing, Schermerhorn Highway 26. said he believes this was Jessica “Interesting thing — Alana had Smith’s “last hurrah” before she was said she thought her mom would go supposed to give her children over to to a park or logging road,” Scher- her divorced husband. merhorn recalled. “We adults become controlling Jessica Smith was apprehended during a divorce,” he said. “There’s without incident, taken for medical got to be a better way of handling it. evaluation and transported to the There needs to be better counseling, county jail. and family check-ups.” After her arrest, Schermerhorn Schermerhorn praised the work remained at police headquarters in of District Attorney Josh Marquis, Cannon Beach. Assistant District Attorney Dawn Meanwhile, the press from Port- Buzzard, and Victims Assistant Unit land and beyond descended on Can- Coordinator Marilyn Reilly. non Beach. “The great thing about it — if Schermerhorn found himself be- there was any good about it — was fore the microphones. the community partnerships we de- “You really can’t say ‘no com- veloped,” Schermerhorn said. “Ev- ment,’” he said. “Having a prepared ery one of the agencies we worked statement is important, but having with stepped up.” knowledge of what’s going on is im- Can future tragedies like this be portant as well.” prevented in Cannon Beach? Schermerhorn said despite ef- “You can do your best to do forts to keep his two children away prevention and be visible, but there from the news, the steady stream of are things you can’t stop from hap- CANNON BEACH GAZETTE Headlines in the Cannon Beach Gazette one year ago. Th e case has left a lingering impact on both law enforcement and the community. pening because you can’t see them coming,” he said. “That’s something you see with a tourist population, transient population, people coming back and forth on weekends. You do deal with a certain criminal element. It may be somebody who’s never committed a crime before in their life. For some reason they make a poor decision, or a poor choice.” One year later, young Isabel- OD UHPDLQV D KDXQWLQJ ¿JXUH LQ KLV mind. “I know Isabella’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “That’s just sad. Her family will nev- er get over it. Alana can get counsel- ing, and all the love you can give her, but it will still be in the back of her mind, having lived through that. “The hard part is we’ll be go- ing through the whole thing a year from now when it goes to trial,” he VDLG³,W¶VGLI¿FXOWIRUPHWRXQGHU stand how they can make Alana go through it then. Why not get it done as soon as possible? That is the most KRUUL¿FWKLQJIRUPHWRVHHEHFDXVH she just needs to get past it.” Schermerhorn admits he, too, may never fully get “past it.” “It’s something that never leaves our minds,” he said. “I still have a picture of Alana in the hospital, ZKHQVKHZDVUHOHDVHGLQP\RI¿FH That picture reminds me of why I’m doing law enforcement. The reason SUBMITTED PHOTO “Missing” alert issued by Cannon Beach police aft er a tragic killing one year ago. we go into this thing is to help peo- ple. The medics and crew who were on scene that day saved her life. That’s something that explains why we do the things we do. “We didn’t have anybody say, ‘How could this happen in our town?’ You wonder that, but every- body knows as small as we are, ev- erything can still happen here. “It’s something you’ll never get used to,” he said. “When you do get used to it, it’s time to get out of law enforcement, because you’ve just kind of lost your heart.” 5HÀHFWLRQV ELAINE TRUCKE Th e megathrust quake that changed Cannon Beach With the recent article in the New Yorker making the rounds, I thought this would be a good time to look back on what happened in 1964. Some of you are probably saying, “OK, I get it, tsuna- mis. The coast is a dangerous place.” Insert eye roll here, but the thing is a tsunami is a real possibility. And for some of us a constant threat in the back of our mind. Could what happen in 1964 be worse? Could Cannon Beach handle it? On March 27, 1964 a megathrust quake (some- times referred to as the Good Friday earthquake) shook Anchorage, Alaska, to its core. The term megathrust refers to a quake that occurs when one tectonic plate is forced under another, other- wise known as subduction. This type of quake can ex- ceed 9.0 in magnitude; the Good Friday quake was a 9.2. Tremors lasted for four minutes and set into motion a tsunami that swept along the North American shoreline. Many coastal commu- nities were unaware of the strength of such a quake, or of the tsunami heading their way. In the early morning hours of March 27 a group of six poker players had gathered at Frank Hammond’s house. A “big bet” of $15 was on the table when the phone rang. Bill Steidel, one of the poker players, recalls, “The phone rang and one of the men got up and answered the phone. ‘They said there’s a tidal wave coming,’ he said. We all ignored it, because we heard that every winter, that there were some big waves coming. It wasn’t unusual to hear that.” Then the second call came. The wave had hit. As Steidel recalls in his 1995 Cannon Beach History Center oral history interview, “We said to Hammond, ‘Where are you going?’ Hammond says, ‘The last wave broke over, you know that tree in my drive- way — the last wave broke over the top of that tree.’” The tree was 30 feet tall. Steidel describes the scene as a “Laurel and Hardy pic- ture.” Every man ran for the door at the same time. Then they scrambled into their cars and made for their families as quickly as they could. The news of the quake in Alaska and tales of an approaching tsunami was rebuffed by some, at least DW ¿UVW 7KH FRPPXQLW\ RI Cannon Beach was prepared for any number of Northern VTXDOOVÀRRGVDQG¿UHVEXW this was something different, something unexpected. Bridget Snow and her husband had a unique view from one of the bluffs in Can- non Beach. As they scanned the sea they noticed the wave approaching, curling to shore and rising in height about a foot a second, about 10 feet in all.” %\WKHWLPHWKH¿UVWZDYH made it to shore it was a 30- foot wall of water. Elsewhere in Cannon Beach — Margaret Sroufe glanced out her window and was shocked to see dancing blue and green orbs right before the power went out. Intrigued she made for her porch. Sroufe and her hus- band had an unprecedented view of the damage caused by the tsunami from their home on west side of Elm Street. “There was a little duplex down the street, and the duplex started to move,” Sroufe remembers. “It hit the telephone pole, and went around the telephone pole, and ended way back up in the pasture. And the bridge lifted up and moved on back into the pasture. It came right up to the edge of our driveway. We just stood there with our arms around each other watching the water come up.” Those who were heading for high ground via the Ecola Creek Bridge were shocked WR ¿QG WKDW LW ZDV JRQH 6WHLGHO ZDV WKH ¿UVW WR DU rive. “The bridge was gone,” ELAINE TRUCKE he said, “The water was all around me, and then a house went by. The house went over into the meadow and settled down.” The tsunami only picked up speed as it moved further down the coastline. In Cres- cent City, California it moved with such strength and veloci- ty that when hitting the shore. Seagulls were caught in mid- air by the rushing 30-foot — or more— waves. Witnesses have referred to these waves as “walls of water.” The north end of Cannon Beach was the hardest hit by the ’64 tsunami. Homes were torn from their foun- GDWLRQV RU ÀRRGHG ,Q DGGL tion, the Ecola Creek Bridge was completely destroyed leaving behind only skeletal pieces of wood hanging from the road on either side. Tsu- nami debris was distributed throughout the town. Though Cannon Beach did not expe- rience the fatalities or devas- tation of other coastal com- munities, it was a shocking occurrence that changed how those who live at the coast re- act to a tsunami. The 1964 tsunami wasn’t WKH ¿UVW QRU ZLOO LW EH WKH last time that the coast is hit by a tsunami. The threat of a tsunami has always been a threat. There is extensive archaeological evidence and geological records that in- dicate past severe seismic events that have caused dev- astation along the entire west coast. Native American oral traditions of the region further FRQ¿UPWKDWVXFKHYHQWVKDYH impacted ancient populations CANNON BEACH HISTORY CENTER/SUBMITTED PHOTO A bridge is out during the 1964 tsunami. in the past. Archaeological work done in areas around Port Townsend, various parts of Oregon and northern Cal- ifornia have shown that the Cascadia subduction zone has been and will be respon- sible for earthquakes and tsunamis. One such event occurred on Jan. 26, 1700. How can we be so accurate on this date? The tsunami of 1700 was so devastating that it reached the shore of Japan and the time and date were recorded there. In addition to the records in Japan, den- drochronology and Native American oral traditions fur- ther substantiate a devastat- ing tsunami in 1700. Nearly every year new information becomes avail- able to the public thanks to the hard work of geologists, archaeologists, and other scientists. This information does not fall on deaf ears, which is why tsunami safe- ty and preparedness has be- come synonymous with the 2UHJRQ FRDVW VSHFL¿FDOO\ Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach has had a strong emergency prepared- ness program for years. In fact, on April 14, 2010, The New York Times commend- ed Cannon Beach for the city’s tsunami preparedness plans and proclaimed the town to be at the forefront CANNON BEACH HISTORY CENTER/SUBMITTED PHOTO Potential earthquake sources in the Pacifi c Northwest. with their policies. Despite some of the claims in the in- famous New Yorker article, many hotels in the area have evacuation plans outlined for guests, signs throughout town direct inhabitants to the safety of high ground, and local businesses have begun to construct tsunami and earthquake safe buildings. The best part is, the City of &DQQRQ %HDFK DQG WKH ¿UH and police departments are willing to change and adopt new policies as new informa- tion becomes available or as QHZ FRQFHUQV DULVH 6XI¿FH to say, the town of Cannon Beach does not use the “let’s just put that off” policy when it comes to being prepared for a natural disaster. Education is still the num- ber one combatant against casualties related to tsuna- mis and earthquakes. Safety drills, workshops, and com- munity forums have led to a well-educated community. If you would like to know more about the tsunami that oc- curred in 1964, or even about the one that occurred on Jan. 26, 1700, then stop by the museum. We’re open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Tuesday.