MIDWEEK EDITION
Back in the Day: Chetco River Rail Road Bridge see pg A4-5 Wednesday September 18 2019
www.currypilot.com
Brookings, Oregon
SERVING CURRY COUNTY SINCE 1946
Fire training site eyed
11,000 lose power
Linda Pinkham Staff Writer
A
parcel of land near Brookings Regional Airport is being considered as a prime training area for the Brookings Fire Department. The Brookings City Council is continuing to work on a plan for the site that already has involved significant groundwork, following a presentation Sept. 16 by Brookings Police Chief Kelby McCrae and Brookings Fire Operations Chief Jim Watson. At the heart of the proposal is creating a single site where local firefighters can learn and hone their skills. The facility would provide live-fire training opportunities, as well as a place to practice vehicle extraction, water pumping, collapsing structures and wildland firefighting. McCrae said the training currently takes place at a variety of locations around the city, which “affects the amount of training that can be accomplished in an evening.” Having all of the training components in a single location would make it possible to do more-extensive simulations. Beyond the training value, a single site could More Studied on Page A7
Staff Report
E
lectricity was disrupted for an estimated 11,000 Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative customers, from Gold Beach south to the OregonCalifornia border, from 2:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to utility spokesman Jacob Knudsen. “A switch opened up at a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) substation north of Gold Beach,” Knudsen said. “The switch opened after detecting a ground fault in a transmission line. That could be a broken pole, a tree on a line, or a downed pole.” Crews from Coos-Curry Co-Op and the BPA were dispatched to locate the outage and repair the break. Meanwhile, motorists driving through rainswept Brookings were struggling to cope with darkened traffic signals, as intersections jammed. Knudsen said the utility was able to track the outage to a broken insulator on a BPA transmission line about two miles north of Gold Beach. “We worked with BPA to transfer the load to an alternative line,” Knudsen said. “Once that was completed, we reenergized the seven substations impacted by the outage and began staggering electricity back to our customers.” Knudsen said full power was restored to all customers by 6:30 p.m. The Tuesday outage followed on the heels of a similar incident Sept. 16 in Crescent City that affected 1,400 customers. That outage was caused by a tree limb that fell across a power line.
Firefighters exit a training facility, similar to one that would be used by Brookings firefighters, using a Conex container during flashover fire training in Colorado. Photo courtesy Airman 1st Class Rose Gudex.
Brookings quilter shares national prize A
Jeremy C. Ruark Pilot Editor
resident of Brookings and her partner in North Dakota are the winners of the Janome America Best of Show Award for their quilt, Diamond Effervescence. Beth Nufer of Brookings and Clem Buzick of Fargo are sharing $20,000 in prize money. The award came during the American Quilters Society Quilt Week, held Sept. 9-13 in Fall Paducah, Kentucky. The event features nearly 700 quilts on display from around the world, according to spokesperson Alyssa Ragsdale. “The high point of the show recognizes the artistry of today’s quiltmakers,” she said. “Hundreds of quilters compete for $121,250 in cash awards.” Ragsdale said that following the judges’ selection of the top seven winners, the public has 24 hours to vote online for their favorite quilt. The next day, the winning quilt is put on display at the event. “So when people walk in, that quilt is the first thing they see at the show,” Ragsdale said. Neither Nufer nor Buzick attended the
event in Kentucky, receiving word of their accomplishment by phone. “We were both taken by surprise,” Nufer said. Their vision for the guilt had been to create a three-dimensional image using silks and an ombre sateen background fabric, said Nufer. It took some nine months to complete. Nufer said she searched for a new quilting partner after the Brookingsbased woman she had been working with gave up the hobby a few years ago. After trolling major quilting shows, Nufer found Buzick’s quilts on display. The two arranged their partnership about five years ago. “I do the piecing and she does the quilting,” Nuder said. The two said there are challenges inherent in their quilting hobby, including trying to create an original piece of art. “This is accomplished with long hours of using graph paper, compasses, rulers and protractors,” Nufer said. “And the reward is that we get to pretend we are artists during the process.” Nufer said her inspiration came in part from her husband. “He purchased some silk fabric, which allowed me to start and buy a heck of a lot more fabric,” she said. “I am also very grateful to the people who have either inspired me or helped me
along the way, especially Michelle Fallert, who encouraged me to enter international and national quilt shows,” said Nufer. Her mother, Barbara, also a Brookings quilter, said her daughter became interested in quilting in about 2002. A second daughter, Dianalee, also quilts. “Beth has become a nationally known quilter and we are real proud of,” said her mom. For more information about quilting, contact the president of the Azalea Quilters Guild in Brookings, Kathy Dedmore, at 541-469-8928. For more information about the American Quilter’s Society, visit americanquilter. com, or call 270-898-7903.
(Top) Beth Nufer of Brookings and Clem Buzick of Fargo, North Dakota are quilt contest winners. (Inset) This quilt won the Janome America Best of Show Award during the recent American Quilters Society Quilt Week, which included a $20,000 check. Courtesy photos.
Near-record ocean warming along Pacific Coast
R
Jessica Goddard Staff Writer
esearchers say the Pacific Ocean is seeing the second-largest marine heatwave tracked since the 1980s, touching from the Alaskan coast to Hawaii. Having developed early in June, the heatwave is 50
Index
Classifieds.................B3-6 Crosswords...............A5 Obituaries.................A6
to 100 feet thick. It stretches for hundreds of miles along the coast, about two-thirds of the distance of the U.S., said Nate Mantua, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center. For that matter, said NOAA, the summer of 2019
Weather HIGH LOW
Past four days
Tues 59 63
5-day forecast: Page B1
Mon 63 53
Sun 62 55
Sat 69 56
was the hottest on record for the Northern Hemisphere. And last month was the second-hottest August worldwide. Because of the coastal upwelling of deep, cold water, the heatwave has stayed mostly offshore. But along the northern Pacific Coast including northern California
Tides HIGH LOW HIGH LOW
Call us 541-469-3123
Thurs 3:33 AM 9:07 AM 3:15 PM 10:10 PM
- its edge reaches within 10 to 20 miles of the coastline. Its temperature is 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit - higher than the usual ocean temperatures. Scientists haven’t seen a heatwave like this since its predecessor, nicknamed “the blob,” in 2014. “The warming that we’re
Fri Sat 4:32 AM 5:46 AM 9:47 AM 10:10 AM 3:56 PM 4:48 PM 11:09 PM
Fax 541-469-4679
seeing is similar to the amount of warming that we saw at the surface during ‘the blob’ years, but the difference is that this heat wave we’re seeing develop right now, it’s still pretty young,” said Stephanie Moore, a research oceanographer with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
That “blob,” the largest marine heatwave scientists have tracked since the 1980s, lasted for three years and caused havoc in marine ecology. It covered some 7.8 million kilometers. The current heatwave More Warming on Page A7
Sunrise/Sunset RISE SET
Thurs 7:02 7:18
Online www.currypilot.com
Fri 7:03 7:17
Sat 7:04 7:15
Sun 7:05 7:13
$1.50