10 years ago this week — 2012
As winter finally arrives, it brings with it roads covered by snow and ice and a National Weather Service hazardous weather advisory that will be in effect until Wednesday afternoon.
A cold onshore flow pushed snow showers inland during the early afternoon and late evening Sunday, with flurries continuing throughout today.
LONG BEACH, Wash. — With a sharp jerk of the strings, Ian Willoughby lifts his kite airborne and expertly guides it through spins, flips and long, sweeping circles before letting it fall downward to skim inches above the wooden floor before snapping it back up overhead. The kite flits past basketball hoops that rim the wall of the Long Beach school gym and hovers near the ventilation pipes that serpentine across the ceiling.
The 12-year-old from Medford, New Jersey, was the youngest of 22 competitors to participate in the Windless Kite Festival on Saturday and Sunday.
Individuals, duos and teams put on choreographed air routines to music, earning points to qualify for the American Kitefliers Association’s 35th annual Convention and Competition in Enid, Oklahoma, in October.
The event featured many of the sport’s elite, including national winner Connor Doran, of Bend, who put the little-known sport in the national spotlight as a semifinalist on “America’s Got Talent.”
Some call it the Safeway block — but Safeway hasn’t occupied the block for years, moving to the newer location on Marine Drive in Astoria.
Some call it the American Legion block — which is accurate, given that the American Legion building sits on the same block, but doesn’t really represent the subsided portion closest to Duane Street that has sparked the most discussion in the past year.
So the city wants to name the block officially, once and for all.
The block will now be referred to as Heritage Square.
And whatever you do, don’t call it the hole in the ground.
“I move that we rename the American Legion, former Safeway block, Heritage Square,” said Astoria City Councilor Arline LaMear at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The motion passed unanimously, and the City Council approved the renaming of the square after more than a month of discussion that included a public hearing — one that heard no testimony.
50 years ago — 1972
Longshoremen resumed a strike at 24 West Coast ports today after negotiators failed to reach a settlement. Negotiation sessions broke off but the union said they would be resumed later.
The first orders to resume picketing came at San Francisco and Los Angeles-Long Beach harbors after an 8 a.m. deadline expired.
Longshoremen pickets were not yet in evidence at the Port of Astoria docks entrance this morning, but there was no activity to be picketed.
The last two ships to work cargo, the Van Union and Rondeggen, had left the port docks Sunday and the piers were “virtually clean” of cargo except for a little lumber that has accumulated on Pier 2 and three-fourths of an elevator full of grain, assistant manager Harvey Wardrip reported.
There are 25 cars of grain on the railway siding awaiting unloading into the elevator.
Wardrip said the railways have declared an embargo on further movement of grain to Northwest ports while the longshoremen’s strike is on, and the Port is accepting no cargo for storage.
Going against the state as a whole, voters in Clatsop County defeated the cigarette tax increase by almost a 2 to 1 margin Tuesday.
The increase went down to defeat in all but one precinct in Clatsop County. Cannon-Beach-Necanicum-Arch Cape precinct voters approved the increase, 194 “yes” to 182 “no.”
The proposal to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes from 4 cents to 9 cents was approved in the state by 51%. Only 12 of the state’s 36 counties approved the measure but counties of large population in the Willamette Valley turned the tide. The increase will become effective Feb. 17.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will not narrow the Columbia River in the Longview Harbor area and will go ahead with plans to dredge a 40-foot channel and turning basin in the harbor.
The announcement brings to an end a controversy extending back five years. At various times, the Corps proposed building an island in the middle of the river, building a wing dam from the Oregon shore and filling in behind it and a modified version of that plan.
The storm toll mounts.
More roads closed. More flooding and high water. And one house in Astoria knocked off its foundation by sliding mud.
That was part of the tally this morning as more than 2 inches of rain Wednesday and today complicated clean-up operation in Clatsop and Tillamook counties after last week’s storm.
A marine biologist from Bellingham, Washington, Dr. Wallace Heath told a Clatsop County audience Wednesday night that “this generation could be the last to enjoy the good life.”
The speaker, sponsored by the Clatsop Environmental Council, said he was not a disciple of doom. “Let’s be realistic, as world population grows, so must our food production. And so must industry and pollution. We will destroy faster that we conserve,” he said.
75 years ago — 1947
Despite warm weather predictions for the weekend, furnaces were stoked, overcoats were turned up and even the Doughboy Monument in the west end faced the frigid northeast blast decked out with a new muffler as Astoria received its first snow blanket.
State police issued warnings to motorists, advising the use of chains on either of the inland highways. Several cars skidded from the pavement as a result of the slippery condition of highways.
WARRENTON — Fire early this morning destroyed two auxiliary buildings of the San Juan Canning Co. fish processing plant, damaging the main building and for a time threatened to destroy the entire plant.
U.S. Rep. Walter Norblad, of Astoria, has won one of two vacant appointments on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, he said today from Washington, D.C.
The Armed Services Committee replaces the military and naval affairs committees under the Legislative Reorganization Act, which went into effect with the present session of Congress.
Astoria women took the bowling team honors. Saturday night’s team play saw Helen’s Ice Cream of Astoria take a hotly contested game from Smith Henderson of Vancouver, 2,166 to 2,128.
The U.S. Navy has offered its services to relieve the isolation of Frankfort, Washington, the tiny north shore community which has been without communication and mail service for the past several weeks due to the discontinuation of weekly service by a cannery launch.
Chamber of Commerce officials in conference with Captain L.B. Ard, commanding officer at Tongue Point, made arrangement for an expedition tomorrow by the Tongue Point crash boat to Frankfort.
