OPINION/NEWS
A14 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019
Warming Station needs volunteers to open
Opening could be delayed
if helpers aren’t found
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Despite temperatures already
dropping below freezing, the
Hermiston Warming Station
won’t be opening any time soon
if more volunteers don’t sign up.
Teesie Hill, chairwoman of the
nonprofi t’s board, said she needs
about 200 volunteers before they
can start taking guests in need of
emergency shelter.
So far she has about 30 ready
to go.
“Last year we trained 200 peo-
ple. We had about 165 actually
volunteer for a shift, 145 return
for another, but only about 90
volunteers who volunteered con-
sistently,” she said.
The station has three volun-
teer trainings left: Thursday at
9 a.m., Tuesday at at 6:30 p.m.
and Thursday, Nov. 21 at 6 p.m.
All trainings are at the warm-
ing station, a house at 1075 South
Highway 395 across from Tower
Apartments. Interested volunteers
don’t need to sign up in advance.
Returning volunteers won’t
need to go through trainings or
background checks again, Hill
said — they just need to drop by
and sign some updated paperwork
to be approved for another year.
Volunteers can sign up online
for whatever shifts or days they
would like. Check-in shifts are
from 7-9:30 p.m. Operations
manager and kitchen manager
shifts are from 7 p.m. to mid-
night. Overnight volunteers can
work from midnight to 4 a.m., or
manage the kitchen or check-outs
from 4-6:30 a.m.
Volunteers working with
guests must be over 18, but vol-
unteers younger than 18 can
come during the day to assist with
tasks such as cleaning or sorting
donations.
The Warming Station’s season
has been set to go from Nov. 25
through February, but Hill said
they will start later than the 25th if
they don’t have more volunteers.
For people interested in donat-
ing items, she said their biggest
need is cases of bottled water and
packages of hot chocolate mix.
For more information, call
541-289-2150 or visit the Herm-
iston Warming Station Facebook
page.
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Hermiston Warming Station board vice chair Addie Zumwalt paints a sign
at the shelter in preparation for opening during last year’s season. This
year could be delayed due to a lack of volunteers.
COLUMN
Hermiston School District
leaders take community’s
investment seriously
t’s a humbling expe-
to help create a list of pri-
rience to be entrusted
ority projects, we’re now
with nearly $90 mil-
looking for an oversight
lion to build new schools
committee to help carry out
for a generation of Hermis-
the vision. Applications will
ton students. The Hermiston be available on the school
School District is
district website this
grateful to this com-
week and 10-15 peo-
munity for support-
ple will be selected
ing our mission of
by the Hermiston
providing a premier
School Board.
education to every
Project manage-
child.
ment requests for
But we know this Tricia Mooney proposal will also
is also more than
be posted on the
just an opportunity to con-
district website this week,
struct new buildings. This
and we will use the web-
is our chance as a district to site to deliver project time-
earn and build the trust of
lines and updates as they
the community. We intend
become available. Once a
to follow through on the
project management team
promises we made when
is selected and work begins,
putting the school bond
the oversight committee
before voters. Whether you
will meet monthly to review
voted in favor or against the progress and expenditures.
bond, or even if you didn’t
With the help of the elected
vote at all, we want to show school board and volunteer
you in the coming years that committee, we will account
we value your investment.
for every penny the district
Our main goal now is to
spends on these projects and
plan, develop, and complete report back to taxpayers.
these construction projects
But simply fi nishing on
in a way that welcomes the
time and under budget isn’t
public to join us as partners. enough. We want to honor
Just as we asked for input
the commitment of vot-
from a facilities committee
ers and taxpayers in every
I
step of the process. You
entrust the school district
with the education of your
children and the expendi-
ture of your tax dollars. We
will earn that trust with a
straightforward account-
ing of our progress in both
areas.
This is an exciting time
for the Hermiston School
District. We are eager to
roll up our sleeves and get
to work on projects that
will make a tangible impact
on our students as it gives
them the room they need to
learn. We are proud to be
part of this community and
are happy to answer ques-
tions you have as we move
forward.
From the Hermiston
School District, our teach-
ers and administrators, and
especially the thousands
of students who will ben-
efi t from your support,
thank you. It’s this com-
mitment from our commu-
nity that makes Hermiston
a great place to live, work
and grow.
Tricia Mooney is the
superintendent of the Herm-
iston School District.
Record cold October in Idaho;
close in Washington, Oregon
get in September,” he said. “It set up an
unsuccessful October.”
Klickitat County, Wash., rancher Neil
Kayser said the September rain was good
for pastures.
“Then October came and froze every-
thing back, and now we’re short on pas-
ture,” he said.
Washington and Oregon’s coasts were
cooler than normal, and temperatures got
even colder than usual inland.
Idaho’s average temperature for the
month was 36.7 degrees. That was 7.4
degrees before average. It broke the record
of 37.5 degrees set in 1919.
Idaho’s minimum average temperature
of 24.7 degrees also set a record, breaking
the old mark by 7.1 degrees.
In Washington, the average tempera-
ture of 43 degrees was the second-lowest
on record. The average temperature was 4.2
degrees below normal and the coolest since
1905.
In Oregon, the average temperature was
43.2 degrees, the coolest since 1946 and 4.9
degrees below normal.
Northern California — on the coast and
inland — was cooler than average, but aver-
age temperatures were not close to setting
records. The north coast had its 34th cool-
est October, while the Sacramento drainage
region had its 31st coolest.
The odds favor warmer than average
temperatures in November, December and
January throughout the West, according to
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
By DON JENKINS
CAPITAL PRESS
Idaho shivered through its coldest Octo-
ber on record, while Washington weath-
ered its second-coldest October and the
coolest in more than a century, according
to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
Oregon was chilly, too. The month was
the fourth-coldest October for the state,
according to records that date back to 1895.
The extended region-wide cold snap
defi ed the odds. NOAA’s Climate Predic-
tion Center forecast in September that the
outlook favored a warmer than normal
October.
Unusual atmospheric conditions caused
frigid air to blow down from the Gulf of
Alaska, Washington State Assistant Clima-
tologist Karin Bumbaco said. Normally,
warmer and wetter air from the south fl ows
into the region, she said.
“It was really different than we would
typically see this time of year,” Bumbaco
said.
The cold damaged some crops, and the
northern winds “made farm work outdoors
miserable,” according to the USDA’s late
October crop report for Idaho.
The cold October followed a wet and
cool September.
The combination was not good, said
Snohomish County, Wash., organic farmer
Tristan Kelsick.
“We didn’t get the growth we normally
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