Water under the bridge: May 11, 2021 | Water under the bridge
10 years ago this week – 2011
For Karen Eland it was the first time as one of more than 150 vendors lined the street on the opening day of the Astoria Sunday Market.
“I love it! There are so many stalls and the weather turned out great,” said Eland as she watched hundreds of people clog a busy 12th Street on Mother’s Day.
CANNON BEACH – Given the new information from Japan about the damage that earthquakes and tsunamis can cause, should a construction oratory be passed in Cannon Beach?
Local resident Charles Hillestad is of the opinion. Until scientists can analyze the data that surprised even the experts and use it to update local building and zone codes, a building oratory should be in place, he said.
But a moratorium should go beyond Cannon Beach and extend to tsunami-hit areas along the entire coast, he added.
“If a house is already built, OK,” said Hillestad. “On the other hand, should we increase the risk (by adding additional buildings) until we have more information?”
Hillestad, a real estate attorney in Cannon Beach, is in the center of the opposition building on a small, vacant lot south of his Midtown home, one block from the beach.
He called on the city council to revoke the planning commission’s approval to reduce the setbacks in the front and back courtyards by half so that a two-story house with an area of 1,029 square meters could be built on a 1,750 square meter property. However, the Council voted unanimously to maintain the Commission’s decision.
The usual lot in Cannon Beach is 5,000 square feet. But Hillestad fears that the plots in the city are getting smaller and the apartments denser.
Ryan Barnes and the rest of the crew aboard their 38-foot sailboat had just found their groove when it happened.
They were in an offshore race about 2 nautical miles southwest of the tip of South Jetty for half an hour and were heading to Victoria, British Columbia, moving quickly north in a south wind when a crew member found a dark mass underwater near the Page was looking from the boat, said Barnes.
In an instant, a 30-foot whale catapulted itself out of the rolling waves on the starboard side of the boat and came almost entirely out of the water.
“It hit his head one-half to three-quarters of the way up the mast,” said Barnes.
The eight people on board watched in disbelief from the cockpit as the whale landed on the boat – water streamed from the massive mammal – before it rolled back and forth into the sea.
It was a coincidence that no one was on the whale’s path right now, Barnes said.
“It just happened that we didn’t have any problems on deck,” he said.
50 years ago – 1971
The spring commercial fishing season opened on the Columbia River on Sunday evening. Returning packers reported a disastrous start.
Salmon were rare from the river mouth below the Bonneville Dam by the cut-off date.
Margaret Maki, 17, of Svensen, was named Queen of the Clatsop County Rodeo in 1971. She is a senior at Knappa High School.
Vladimiar Nuraev, 43, from Sverdlovsk, Russia, was in good condition at Columbia Memorial Hospital after an extensive rescue operation involving two federal agencies.
Nuraev, refrigeration technician for the large Russian trawler Pechenga, fell from a ladder and cut a cut in the back of the head and another in the back while the Pechenga was about 600 miles offshore.
Nuraev reached the hospital after a helicopter trip to the US Coast Guard Air Station, where he was placed in an urban ambulance.
When John Jacob Astor VIII arrives at Astoria with his wife Fiona tonight, it has been 10 years since his last visit.
Then, 14, John was here with his parents and grandparents in 1961 to celebrate Astoria’s 150th anniversary. In a historical picture, John, his father Gavin, and grandfather John Jacob Astor V posed with descendants of Chinook natives. The Chinook lived at the Columbia Estuary when the first John Jacob Astor landed men who set up a fur trading post on the site of what is now Astoria. The meeting took place together with the then government. Mark Hatfield, on the site of the Astor Fort, recalls a marker on 15th Street and Exchange Street.
A “mini ship”, the newly built Greek freighter Mini Leaf with 1,586 tons, has loaded a full load of 3,000 tons of wheat for Corinto, Nicaragua at Pier 1 of the port of Astoria in the last few days.
The 214-foot-long Mini Leaf is powered by two automatic 750 hp diesel engines that operate twin screws.
The small ship has a crew of nine. This includes three officers, three sailors, a cook and two engineers.
The tug Louie III of the Knappton Towboat Company sank in front of the Samuel Elmore Cannery. Larry Morgan, a crew member, fell into the water but was reportedly rescued. There was no loss of life. Company officials said they did not have any further information.
The Louie III was busy towing another ship at the time.
A first edition of Washington Irving’s “Astoria” was presented this week by Joseph Saari of Vancouver, Washington, at the Astoria Library. Coinciding with the visit of John and Fiona Astor, the gift is an important addition to the library’s rare book collection and an appropriate way to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Astoria’s founding, said librarian Bruce Berney.
The time published in Philadelphia in 1838 with an edition of 5,000 copies reduced that number considerably. Saari bought this two-volume book in 1950 from a burned bookstore in Yakima, Washington. The volumes miraculously escaped with little water damage.
75 years ago – 1946
Captain EF Galkpen, Inspector General of the 13th Naval District, was the third senior naval investigator to visit the city on US Representative Walter Norblad’s food waste charge in Astoria. He was from Portland and is expected to return soon to continue the investigation into the area. Admirals Van Hook and DW Mitchell continued to interview Navy personnel and finalized plans to visit junk dealers and other individuals dumped by the Navy in the town’s dump.
Industrialists and citizens of the Northwest had a firm warning that a blackout had already occurred north of Puget Sound and that by 1952, at the current rate of generator installation and dam construction, there would be significant bottlenecks in the entire Bonneville Power Administration system.
Since sea ships from the sea were decommissioned quickly today, there were 84 such ships in the port of Astoria, reported the maritime authorities.
Ten ships were anchored in the stream off Astoria’s shore. The rest moored at the naval station at the port terminals.
The 84 ships contained 16 classifications of naval vessels, mainly auxiliary and landing craft of various types. In addition, other ships are temporarily anchored in the port of Portland.
The decommissioning is progressing steadily, with 60 ships going through the process at a time.
The first measure to restore civilian control of Astoria Airport was taken Tuesday night by the Port of Astoria Commission when it passed a motion asking the U.S. Navy to declare the airport and all of its facilities as a surplus.
If the Navy takes the requested action, the port must notify the Civil Aviation Authority of its willingness to sponsor the airport as a public project. The Civil Aeronautics Administration will examine all properties of the airport upon acceptance of the sponsorship and hand over all objects given to the sponsor that are of practical use for the maintenance of the airport.
The US Navy request that the cruiser Astoria visit its homonymous city on May 30th and 31st instead of June 10th as planned, is submitted by the Chamber of Commerce through US Senator Guy Cordon.
Chamber officials wrote Cordon today asking for the changed dates so the cruiser could attend the Astoria memorial services. The chamber is planning a full observation on Friday the 31st in collaboration with the local maritime authorities.