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
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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,
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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
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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.”
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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-
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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
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stand how they can make Alana go
through it then. Why not get it done
as soon as possible? That is the most
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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,
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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
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Cannon Beach was prepared
for any number of Northern
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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.”
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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
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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-
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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
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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
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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
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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
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and police departments are
willing to change and adopt
new policies as new informa-
tion becomes available or as
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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.