Evacuations validate tsunami plan - radiation poses little risk to west coast

Evacuation order was a good one say emergency managers…

This was one of the events they’ve been planning for.
210 – “We’re really fortunate in this community that a number of organizations got together and formed the Western Lane Emergency Operations Group to plan for events like this.”

That’s Florence City Manager Bob Willoughby who spent much of Thursday night and Friday morning working as part of the team that was monitoring the tsunami warning and ordered the evacuation of low-lying areas around Florence.
211 – “I think everything went very smoothly. We learned some things from this, we’ll do some things better next time. We may make some changes. In fact we had a tsunami drill planned for October that may not be necessary now. We can learn from a real event like this one.”

Willoughby said the planning paid off, things went smoothly, but he did come away with some concerns.
212 – “I would say my one disappointment is that, even during the event, we had some criticism about overreacting, or crying wolf, or this was really a false alarm and we shouldn’t have disrupted people. I have to say as strongly as I can that if we had the same information in the future that we had last Thursday night and Friday morning… we’d make the same decision.”

Emergency managers say they want to have a public debrief and talk about how they arrived at the decision to evacuate and what the dangers were.

Nuclear energy experts say the events in Japan around those reactors that continue to release radioactive materials are indeed scary, but they’ll remain in Japan and won’t impact the west coast of the United States. Kathryn Higley, professor and director of the OSU Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics says no radioactive contaminants from the incident have been detected and none are expected. Higley says the contaminants that may wind up airborne will end up raining out of the atmosphere into the Pacific Ocean where they will be diluted and absorbed. She says the incident may ultimately be similar to that of Three Mile Island in the U.S. in 1979.

Florence’s Environmental Management Advisory Committee is accepting nominations for the second annual ‘Greener Florence Awards”. Area businesses or services that have made significant efforts towards a more environmentally friendly Florence in one or more areas of reduce, reuse, recycle or compost will be considered. Nomination forms and guidelines are available on the city’s website or in the Community Development Department… they’re due back by April 15th.

Populations of the Sacramento River Chinook Salmon off the Oregon Coast are expected to be at or near “average abundance” this year. That means sports anglers will have plenty of opportunity beginning today as the 2011 spring ocean salmon season gets underway. West Coast fishery managers are still working on other decisions about salmon seasons off the Oregon Coast.

Here is the latest Oregon news from The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A grand jury in Portland has returned a
23-count indictment against a 61-year-old man accused of seriously
wounding a city police officer on March 6. The Oregonian said
yesterday that Ralph Clyde Turner is charged with 12 counts of
attempted aggravated murder, 10 counts of unlawful use of a firearm
and one count of assault. Officer Parik Singh remains hospitalized.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Oregon's Attorney General is making his case
for changing the state's public records law. Democrat John Kroger
told a state Senate committee yesterday that the open records law
is a convoluted legal mess that should be cleaned up to help both
the public and government agencies. He's proposed a bill that would
slash the number of government records that can't be publicly
released.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon's February unemployment figures are
due out this morning. In January, the state's jobless rate was 10.4
percent, continuing a slow downward trend since the depths of the
Great Recession in mid-2009. Economists say the month-to-month
changes aren't statistically significant, showing just how weak the
recovery has been.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Oregon lawmakers will hold a hearing today on
a ban on plastic baby bottles containing the chemical bisphenol-A.
The measure would ban the chemical which is commonly used to harden
plastic and make it shatterproof. Proponents of a ban argue that
the chemical disrupts hormones in young children.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian
Lanker has died at his home in Eugene, Ore. The 63-year-old Lanker
won the 1973 Pulitzer for feature photography while working for The
Topeka Capital-Journal. He was director of graphics for The
Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene from 1974 to 1982.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - The Oregon House has voted down a bill aimed
at making it easier to open a charter school. The bill would have
allowed charter seekers to get around opposition from local school
boards. Supporters say it was designed to stop school boards from
throwing road blocks at proposed charters. But opponents say it
would have removed local control from the process.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon environmental regulators have
proposed nearly $35,000 in fines against the company incinerating
chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Eastern Oregon.
The Department of Environmental Quality said the hazardous waste
and air quality violations include storing 30 drums of waste
contaminated by mustard agent in a concrete igloo that wasn't
properly vented.

ENTERPRISE, Ore. (AP) - Wallowa County commissioners have
approved a compensation fund for Oregon ranchers who lose livestock
to wolves. The East Oregonian newspaper in Pendleton reports that
supporters hope the fund will become a model for the rest of the
state, which lacks a compensation plan.

TAKING A LOOK INTO COAST RADIO SPORTS:

The Siuslaw Vikings started the 2011 prep baseball season with a big stick, scoring 13 runs on 12 hits and downing the Cottage Grove Lions 13-3 yesterday in Cottage Grove. Ryan Smith was three-for-four with a homerun and two doubles, driving in three runs. Hagen Holmes also had a homerun in the win. Jake Thompson threw two innings, allowing only one hit and Smith closed out the game on the mound.