Page 16
The INDEPENDENT, December 13, 2007
Community gets flood of assistance from much wider community
By Christian Gaston of the
News-Times. Reprinted by per-
mission.
While western Washington
County largely dodged the del-
uge of last week’s storm, busi-
nesses and community groups
across the region have opened
their pocketbooks to provide re-
lief to the water-logged town of
Vernonia.
The Columbia County city,
located north of Buxton on
Highway 47, is less than 20
minutes from Banks — but it
looked more like a coastal com-
munity last Monday.
Wedged into a valley at the
confluence of the Nehalem Riv-
er and Rock Creek, the timber
town was inundated with mud-
dy floodwaters, putting up to 40
percent of the town’s 2,340 res-
idents under water.
On Saturday, the federal
government declared Oregon’s
three hardest-hit counties, in-
cluding Columbia County, a
federal disaster area, making
federal disaster assistance
available to the citizens of Ver-
nonia.
Long before the federal dec-
laration, however, truckloads of
goods were being trundled up
Highway 47 from western
Washington County to help in
the rebuilding effort.
Michelle Gilbertson, branch
manager of West Coast Bank
in Forest Grove, has lived in
Vernonia for 19 years. She re-
members the last time the city
was covered in mud, in 1996.
Then, the city banded to-
duties there, but instead be-
came drafted as interim city ad-
ministrator. Howard said city
administrator Dick Kline got on
a plane Tuesday to honor a
family commitment on the East
Coast.
The task Howard inherited is
staggering.
“It’s going to take a while to
get everything out of here,”
Howard said.
All of the city’s schools were
affected to some degree by the
packages for Vernonia.
Michael Doherty, sales man-
ager of Doherty Ford in Forest
Grove, sent a 2006 Ford F150
loaded with supplies on
Wednesday and has been col-
lecting donations at the dealer-
ship’s sales office since last Fri-
day.
“They faxed us a list of sup-
plies that they need and we
headed over Bi-Mart,” said Do-
herty, who said his employees
raided the shelves for every-
gether in what was mostly a
homegrown aid effort to mop
up
after
the
“100-year
flood.”This time around, it’s a
different story. As Gilbertson
headed into Forest Grove Sat-
urday, she was stunned to see
a convoy of 20 big rigs heading
north to her hometown.
“Everything that was coming
in, it was unbelievable,” Gilbert-
son said. “It turned the town
into a traffic jam but it’s helped
in getting things cleaned up.”
Aldie Howard, former Forest
Grove planning director, head-
ed into Vernonia on Tuesday to
assume his part-time planning
flood, but the high school may
be a total loss.
“The school was destroyed,”
Howard said. “It’s just inundat-
ed with water.” (While younger
students are taking up tempo-
rary classrooms in a local
church, high schoolers began
commuting to Scappoose this
week.)
By Wednesday, it was clear
that the floodwaters which had
threatened homes in Gales
Creek and Forest Grove and
made transportation tricky
around Gaston were receding,
and local business leaders
were busy putting together care
thing from sleeping bags and
knit caps to duct tape and
ibuprofen. “It was a lot of the lit-
tle things that you don’t think
about.”
Doherty’s crew returned but
left the truck for local residents
to use. “We’ve got a lot of long-
time customers out there,” Do-
herty said. “They had a need
and we had some resources.”
The Forest Grove Chamber
of Commerce’s holiday lighting
committee put together a quick
supply drive. Chamber Director
Teri Koerner said the business
group managed to gather a half
a trailer of goods and $700 in
cash.
Lyle Spiesschaert drove the
chamber’s donations to Ver-
nonia in a truck still decked out
from the Forest Grove Holiday
Light Parade. Spiesschaert
said the truck rolled through
town playing Christmas music,
a sort of double-dose of good-
will.
“We came in just after dark
Please see page 17
Run with Extra Confidence
with Chevron
DELO 400 ™ PLUS
MOTOR OIL
The name you
trust for:
• Gasoline
• Diesel Fuel
• Oils • Solvents
• Additives • Greases
Winter is here… see us for
A NTI F REEZE
H EATING O IL
CALL
(503) 429-6606
WILCOX & FLEGEL
720 Rose Avenue • Vernonia
Your Painting & Interior Specialist
Vernonia, Oregon 503-830-6057
CCB#
159353