Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 1969)
LIBRARY u or o EU3ENE, ORE. 97 403 u u (d Bl)GMpfi)(g) Al Ullman Appeals For Project WASHINGTON. D. C Jum 10. Congressman Al Ullman tod or asked Houis Appropri ations Committee members lor urgent action n the Willow Creek Flood Control project Hood at Heppner. ' "I hare notified the mem bers of the House Appropria tions committee of the flood damage." Ullman said, "and hope that the Willow Creek protect will receive high pri ority in their current consid eration of public works fund ing." Ullman added. "It is now even more Imperative that funds be appropriated to get the Willow Creek project un derway at the earliest possi ble time. If the Heppner dam had been constructed, it would have helped protect the peo ple of Heppner and other Morrow county communities from damage and possible loss of life." Ullman also noted that a request may shortly be made by Morrow county officials to Gov. McCall urging that Heppner be declared a disas ter area. "Such designation will make damaged properties eligible for low interest federal loans and possibly other forms of assistance." Ullman said. "I intend to do everything possible to facilitate whatever aid is required," he added. Ullman's telegram to repre sentative Michael J. Kirwan. chairman of the House Appro priations subcommittee on public works, was typical of warnings that the Second Dis trict Congressman sounded. It read: "Last night another costly flood hit the town of Heppner on Willow Creek in Oregon. Fortunately, because cf telephoned warnings from upstream no lives were lost as in the deadly flood of 1903. Property damage may run higher than floods of 1937. or 1965. You will recall testimo ny before your subcommittee on Jroe 2 by Judge Paul Jones of Morrow county and myself in support of appropriations to initiate advanced engin eering and design studies of Willow Creek project author ized in 1965. I am sure you understand that events of last night make our plea even more urgent. Your help will be deeply appreciated." Judge Jones Tells Of Good Reception On Trip to D. C. (See page 1, section 2, for full report) Judge Paul Jones reports that he received an excellent recep tion in Washington, D. C, last week when he went there to appear before congressional sub committees on the Willow Creek project. Judge Jones had an appoint ment to appear before a House sub-committee only, but had the opportunity, upon arrival, to also appear before the Senate sub-commitee. Therefore, he made both appearances and while they were brief, he found that the committee members were interested and asked ques tions following his presentation. Judge Jones had high praise for the help and support given by Oregon's Congressional del egation. Both of Oregon's senators, Mark Hatfield and Robert Pack wood, gave excellent assistance, and Sen. Hatfield also made a strong appeal before the senate subcommittee. Judge Jones' trip, partly fi nanced by the county and part ly financed by the Heppner Morrow county Chamber of Com merce, was to urge that a pre construction appropriation be made for the project this year. Funds for such an appropriation were not included in the Presi dent's budget, and the admin istration has announced a pol icy of "no new starts" this year. However, the Willow Creek pro ject is regarded as one of high priority ranking among the top three in the State of Oregon. Mrs. Jones accompanied her husband, and due to the fact that they left on a holiday week end, they were able to spend some time sightseeing. They saw many of the attractions of the nation's capitol, and al though it was a work time for her husband, she said she en joyed "every minute of it." More Front Page News On Back Page, THIS SECTION 86th Year THE HM1 GAZETTETEMi Heppner, Oregon 97836, Thursday, June 12, r-- Zt'' WHILE FLOOD WATER hagen climbed over deposited debris to enter tne taken about 11 p.m. Monday night. 5 V LIGHTS OF A CITY fire truck reflect on flood waters on boutn Mam street late Monday night as it ploughs through the water. Firemen had a busy night and stayed on duty until 4:30 a.m. after clanger of more crests had passed. Conservation Field Day Set for June 18 As State Conservation Men of the Year, Bob and Herb Peter son, who ranch as Peterson Bros., will be honored at the annual Field Day on Wednesday, June 18. Many from across the state, including agricultural leaders, will assemble at the Peterson Bros, ranch. The event is sponsored by the Oregon Wheat Growers League and the John Deere Co. of Port land. At 10 a.m. the group will as semble at the ranch, which is located 16 miles from lone, near the Valby Lutheran church. E. H. (Tad) Miller, Jr., president of the Morrow County Wheat Growers and chairman of the tour, will introduce guests and present remarks. Bob Peterson will respond with a talk of welcome, after which the visitors will tour the Eight- mile place of the operation. Free lunch, presented by Paul and Helen Pettyjohn, Shell Oil .i A J- 'fit ''.-.'-" .t - ROLLED almost knee deep past his home on 260 J and chemical jobbers of lone, will be at 12:30. Louis Carlson, 1969 chairman of the selection committee, Tom Vaughan, Oregon Wheat League president, and Don Robinson of the John Deere Co., will speak briefly during the lunch hour. At 1:15 a tour will be conduc ted on the remaining part of the ranch operation. Sharing honors with the title awarded at the Wheat League meeting in December are Hen ry Peterson, father of the Peter son brothers, and Holmes GaD bert, who owns one of the ranches they operate. The total operation consists of 8,871 acres. All the cropland is planted and tilled on the con tour. Other major practices are stubble mulch, 17 miles divers ion ditches, 10 acres sod water ways, subsoiling 400 acres, ro tation grazing of 307 acres and deferred grazing 2,350 acres Anyone interested is invited to 1969 Cj.ttw'&t., evacuatea piace ana cnet - o vs.; mum i 1 T 1 attend the field day to see for himself what can be done in conservation. Heppner District Second in Contest Heppner Soil and Water Con servation district has placed second in the annual contest lor the Goodyear award, according to information received by the district. West Linn SWCD won first place in the contest and thereby earned the right to send two persons from the district to the Goodyear Farm at Mesa, Ariz. Heppner SWCD received a plaque for second place. The Heppner district won first in the state in 1964 and on a previous time in the 1950's. The competition this year included the 67 districts in the state. Number 16 EDEPPNEO Price 10 Cents , .1 i H i .i n t i u S. Main, Carsten Brand- K uainage. jtiuic wa0 MORE FLOOD PICTURES IPage 5, Sec. 1, and Pages 4 and 5, Sec. 2 Heppner's Monday Night Rain .89; Others up to 1.95 While focus of attention is on Heppner with a concentration of the mess after Monday night's flash flood, it didn't get the most rainfall, according to reports from Don Gilliam, Heppner weather observer, and from ranchers in the area. Gilliam's gauges recorded a total of .89 inch of rain, coming in two separate heavy down pours. Ranchers in outlying ar eas reported as much as 1.95 inches. Henry Baker of the lone area said his gauges showed this much. He said that he had never seen so much rainfall at one time. Roads were so extens ively damaged that he could not get to Columbia Basin Electric Co-op's open house, even though he was among those instrumen tal in organizing the coopera tive. Don Greenup reported 1.25 inches at his Hinton creek ranch. Gilliam said that the first del uge, coming just after 9 p.m., tallied .51 inch, and the second wave of the storm, occurring about midnight, brought anoth er .39 inch. Rainfall for June already to tals 1.65 inch, all coming in a three-day period, Su n d a y through Tuesday. This exceeds the normal for the month of June (1.40) inches by .25 inch. High temperature of the week was 96 degrees last Wednesday. The ensuing night's minimum held up to 71 degrees. Through the week's electrical storm, which was prolonged in termittently from Saturday eve ning through Monday night, the weather held warm and humid, like the steaming jungles. Complete report for the week is as follows: Hi Low Prec. Wednesday 96 57 Thursday 92 71 Friday 88 58 Saturday 81 53 Sunday 77 58 .30 Monday 81 60 .46 Tuesday 80 58 .89 Monday Night Storm June, 1903, 'Encore Just five days before the G6th anniversary of the Great Heppner Flood, another deluge hit Mon day night as if to revive memories of the great dis aster of 1903. Fortunately, the damage was only a fraction of the flood at the turn of the century. No one was hurt, and property loss was not nearly as devastating- . But as of Tuesday night there is still no real estimate on the total loss. In the aggregate, it may run high, although the flash flood was more of a nuisance than it was a destroyer. A torrent of rainfall, accompanied by an elec trical storm, broke about Late Survey Shows Damage On County's Roads , Damage to roads in Morrow county's road system is criti cal, far worse than the first evaluation indicated after the week-end storms, County Judge Paul Jones declared lust before press time Wednesday. He estimated that 50 of the county roads are damaged worse than they were in the devastating Christmas flood of 1964 and January flood of 1965. "We're lust about at our wits end," the judge said. "People will just have to bear with us." Members of the road crews had been out checking various parts of the county and their report was made at a meeting prior to working hours early Wednesday morning. Not all the damage was tione Monday night. Much of it was done in the Saturday night storm in various parts of the county with washes cov ering roads, some washed out, culverts lost , some small bridges gone and sections of oiled roads literally floated away. , . The county has asked Gov. Tom McCall to declare the county an emergency area and the county court is consider ing applying for a loan from the state to make repairs this under a new legislative act that empowers the county to borrow against revenues that it will receive from the state with repayment over a 5-year period. "In the 1964 flood we were able to borrow $400,000 which isn't available to us now," the judge said. Some roads are closed, such as the one from McNab to Olex, but a complete rundown of these was not available at press time. Clark's Canyon road Is bad ly damaged, according to late word from Mrs. Al Bunch. On ly a bare passage is offered by the washed out road which is covered with rocks and boulders. The Bunch's drain age ditches were cut down six feet by the flood waters, she said. Erosion Toll High And Hoy Hit Hard; Wheat Loss Light ' Ranches and farms of Morrow county have suffered damage in many ways from the week-end storm and Monday nigms flooding, but loss to tne oncom ing wheat crop is relatively liht This wns the assessment expressed by Harold Kerr, coun ty extension agent, ami uaviu McLeod of the SCS office and Aior, r.ahn nf thp Soil Conser vation Service concurred. Erosion toll was great, rep resenting a loss that cannot be . , . . n unA In repiacea. nay w "' the low areas witn-water Kuhik nTDF haled hav and some inai rveI 3 a na ihat naa mren wwu.ww. j was still standing generally win emerge nu.u u.e ""'6 s U tnrAirrr h - cut great problem unless u was washed out or covered with heavy silt. Abrams Has Surgery At Good Samaritan Bob Abrams, local attorney, is ":v residents were reported by his le,Matornany residents were be getting along very wen iu lowing major back surgery per- formed at Fortianas oooa sam- t-,A of PnrtlanrTe Cnnd ham- i"""1" - j j " aritan hospital last Wednesday mornine. The surgery involved per- forming a fusion for a ruptured disc condition. According to a 15" U" Tuesday, ne .expects w leased from the nospitai Dy June 18. but will remain in a Doay cast for some time. . His room number jro ior tnenus wno wish iu wimai.- with him. 9 p.m. In less than a half hour, the city's flood siren was sounded from warnings that em anated from Shobe canyon (ilong the Condon-Heppncr highway). The waters swept down the canyon, followed the creek chan nel and veered towards Chase street, a familiar pattern in sim ilar storms of 1937, 1961 and 1965. However, the volume became so heavy that it soon overflowed the channel banks and ran down ih. smith onri nf Main street. It engulfed the city's new swim ming pool just a aay aner u had opened for Its second sea- rr, attar holniT PnmnlpteW TC- built last year under a city bond issue. . At the height of the storm, Motor wm runnlnar ud to two feet deep on the street by the swimming pool. jLumDer, smaii logs, tree branches and all man ner of debris were carried along u.. v.a c.uiftHr mnvincr current. The water surged around homes in the area, went tnrougn tne m,i oroa nt the U. S. Forest Service, Heppner Ranger District, headquarters ana into us ware house and garage. Muck Reaches Foot Deep The flow was heavy with chocolate-colored silt, and it deposit ed as much as a foot of muck in places on Heppner's streets. One of the deepest deposits was on West Center Street and Chase Street by the Morrow County Creamery. Tha mater rnllpd over used car lots at Farley Motor Com pany and at Heppner Auto saies. It left mud at the service sta- tion area of Jerry's bheii. n swept through residential blocks south of the business district, fiiiinr. hacdimpnls and lavins waste to lawns and yards, al ways leaving the mucK in us wake. . , ronnnn Ktrppt. east Ol UJl VUU1IVM " ' Chase, the main damage again was from the mess ol tne iiooa. Little real loss was suffered by the home owners in this area, although most of them had some damage, uoyie ey s omn was swept away at the height tha finnH nnrt farms alonz Ul 11,1- ' - the canyon to the south were hard hit with loss to Dunaings, pastures, small bridges and oth er facilities. Firemen, under the direction of Fire Chief Forrest Burken bine, had assembled their regu lar fire drill when the danger became apparent. Many of them worked straight through the night to patrol streets, notify residents ol tne lmpeiium uau- ger, check out leaas oi uiuei waterspouts, ana periorm uin services. Four-Foot Head Dissipates Report came in from the Wil bur Gourleys that a four-foot head of water was coming down C Lr i nnaf n ran IT which flows into Willow Creek. This was after the , crest of the iiooa irom snoDe canyon, and by the time it ar rived at Heppner it had dissi pated enough so that it did lit tle harm. ,, City Police Officer Dean Gil man first noticed the impend ing flood when he drove up the Condon Highway during the downpour on the theory that it might cause a flood. "I switched the spotlight on r.nA niavoH it nvpr the fields. I could see that dark mass real t'- '"" ;h "hit- th sir ly rolling," he saia. unman saia m: iuim " T" en anu auunucu that rPKnitpd in the sounding of -"-",,." J elMn me rhbwi "i Many residents at first con- I ..i'T ",- hut siuereu ii a hT Th many others headea ior nign erouhd. Some never heard the siren at all. In the pitch aarKness anu with little knowledge of what Aiimlnn OVfOTit tn knOW WX3 UVt.UlllUA, v. - that sirens were sounding ana hn rain u9 mmin? QOWn III ------ those who ven- what to ,ao wen t " onrt saw the river ol water pour- and saw tne "ver o v aiiu oa r. tin. - - - - -- t i,j0 tnwn had no way amount of damage "B ?r ,ni Hi. lha Avrpnr 1 1 iiit- iiimiu- r;""" Many left their homes, how- evpr. unt 1 they were re sure ii to return. 3ad shap Roads in Sad Shape foi,in nunishment. Roads were Mpflnwhile. rural areas were , damaged. Judge (Continued on page 8)
