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Bay City Development In the Works
THS Student Soaring to New Heights
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 6
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www.TillamookHeadlightHerald.com
Winter weather disrupts Tillamook County County A
Staff Report
strong atmospheric river combined with temperatures below freezing to cause significant disruptions in Tillamook County from Tuesday, February 4 through Thursday, February 6. All three of the county’s school districts cancelled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday in response to light snowfall and icy conditions, and again on Thursday after temperatures dipped into the high 20s overnight, causing moisture on the roadways to refreeze. Tillamook’s County Government also closed its offices on Tuesday, before opening late on Wednesday and Thursday. The storm system began to impact the Tillamook area on Monday night, when temperatures dropped below freezing as the atmospheric river brought precipitation to the area, blanketing low lying areas with one to two inches of snow by the morning, with up to eight inches at 1,500 feet. Initially, school districts and the county planned to open late, but as snow continued to fall and secondary and higher elevation roadways remained treacherous, all made the call to close for the day. As temperatures crept into the low 40s for several hours in the afternoon and the sun shone,
most of the snow melted in low lying areas, as the districts and county preemptively announced a two-hour delay for Wednesday. Another round of precipitation and brought around an inch of new snow to the area’s valleys Wednesday night and a low of 32 led the previous day’s snow melt to refreeze on the roadways, triggering a full-day closure by the schools and a four-hour delay by the county. Mixed wintry precipitation continued to fall intermittently throughout the day, with the National Weather Service registering .75 inches of accumulation at Tillamook Airport. Another round of preemptive delayed openings came from the school districts and county as residents braced for the coldest forecast evening of the week so far. The temperatures overnight on Wednesday dipped as low as 27 and the ensuing slick roads triggered a third consecutive full-day school cancellation. Weather and the roads remained dry for the rest of the day on Thursday and though temperatures fell throughout the night, reaching as low as 26 degrees after 4 a.m., all three school districts were able to return to normal operations on Friday.
considers tourism grants WILL CHAPPELL
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Photo courtesy of Shannon Driggs
With the recent winter storm, some took advantage of the show. Children and a Tillamook Police Officer took time out to build a showman in Goodspeed park.
Garibaldi Fire helps in Southern California recent conflagrations WILL CHAPPELL Headlight Editor
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aribaldi Fire District Deputy Fire Chief Blake Paulsen took a truck and crew to southern California for three weeks in January to help fight the large wildfires in the area. The crew was part of a Lincoln County strike team, one of 21 from Oregon and 50 from across the west that responded to the fires, in what Paulsen said was a prime example of the benefits of mutual aid response systems. “It’s really amazing how the state can work,” Paulsen said, “we have a very good mutual aid system within our state that in three hours that order can come out and in three hours it’s filled. So, I think it’s a really good testament to not only our local fire jurisdictions, but our state and how quickly that can work.” The call for help came fast, with Paulsen receiving a phone call from the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s
Photo courtesy Blake Paulsen
Boos, Paulsen and Bailey (left to right) during their three-week deployment to southern California.
office at 9:30 p.m. on January 7, the first day of the fires, asking for crews. By the time Paulsen called back to volunteer a Garibaldi truck and his and Apparatus Operator Ryan Boos’s time at midnight, the office had instructions, telling them to rendezvous with a Lincoln County team the next day. Paulsen and Boos, driving a Class 3 wildland-urban engine, met up with the strike team and Firefighter Talon Bailey from the Lafeyette Fire Department in Lincoln City the next day and began the long drive to southern California. After arriving at Zuma Beach County Park outside Malibu and undergoing a safety inspection of their engines, the strike team was first assigned to the community of
Topanga, where they placed 4,000 feet of hose along a handline in their first 24-hour shift. They then spent their next two shifts manning the line and protecting the homes in Topanga, a community of about 500 residences, helping to stave off the inferno and save the buildings. “It came right up to it though, I mean there was fire right up to the homes, so it was definitely a close call,” Paulsen said. After dedicating their next shift to removing the 4,000 feet of line they had placed and 3,000 placed by another crew, the strike team moved on to Los Flores, where they helped suppress fires in burned up homes that were still smoldering. Following that assignment, their
last three shifts were spent with urban search and rescue teams from around southern California going through burned over areas searching for casualties. Paulsen said that the crews on which they were working, which had a lot of younger fighters, were diverted away from some of the worst areas and did not find any remains but that the experience had still been intense. “Just to walk through and looking in cars and homes, just that trying to prepare yourself for what you might find sometimes is worse, but the destruction was unreal,” Paulsen said. While they were deployed, the strike team stayed in a commercial building near the Santa Monica Airport that was under renovation, with shower and toilet trailers stationed outside. Paulsen said that the local community came together to support firefighters, with food donated by In n Out burger and Paramount Pictures catering, among other. “People just donated catered food all the time; we ate really well,” Paulsen said. “There are no complaints about how we were treated down there.” Paulsen said that the experience had also given him a renewed appreciation for certain aspects of firefighting in Oregon, especially the state’s efforts to promote fire resiliency programs. Paulsen said that programs to create defensible space free from flammable materials around homes in Oregon had paid clear dividends, with only 50 structures lost across last year’s fire season even though more than two million acres burned, while the Los Angeles area saw more than 12,000 structures destroyed across 40,000 burned acres. “There is no fuel mitigation around homes and stuff, so we See FIRE TO, Page A3
Headlight Editor
illamook County commissioners began a discussion and signaled their intent to follow most of the county’s tourism advisory committee’s recommendations for $700,000 in Tourism-Related Community grant funding on February 5. Commissioners signaled that they wanted to support 13 of the 14 recommended projects, with the sole exception being an upgrade to lighting at the fairgrounds’ tennis courts, which they believed should be supported by a different funding mechanism because of the county’s ownership of the property. The community grant funds are generated by the county’s transient lodging tax and part of the 70% of those revenues that are dedicated to supporting tourism promotion or tourist-related facilities. Each year, businesses and organizations across the county apply for the funds, with the Tillamook Coast Visitors Association overseeing the process and the tourism advisory committee (TAC) making recommendations for funding to the board of county commissioners. Nan Devlin, the executive director of Tillamook Coast Visitors Association, appeared at the meeting to detail the committee’s recommendations. Devlin said that the committee had received 20 applications for this year’s grants and were recommending funding for 14 based on a ranking system that weighed factors including their benefit to tourists and locals, the impact of funds and total investment in the projects. This review led to the funding recommendation for 14 projects, in order of their score: The State Forest Trust of Oregon requested $10,501 as part of a $47,527 project that will extend the Wilson River Trail in the Tillamook State Forest from 26 to 30 miles. The TAC recommended awarding a grant for the full amount requested. The Port of Garibaldi asked for $25,000 towards an $82,500 restoration of Lumberman’s Park, including the replacement of the park’s fence and the addition of a two-to-five-year-old play structure and an ADA accessible merry go round. The TAC recommended granting the full amount. Nehalem’s city government requested $75,000 to put toward the creation of a park at the corner of H Street and Highway 101. The project has a total estimated cost of $150,000 and was made possible when the property was deeded to the city by its former owners. The TAC recommended granting the project $70,000. The Salmonberry Trail Foundation requested $67,472 to help with the $120,472 construction of a portion of demonstration trail in Wheeler. The project would see a section of trail a little over a third of a mile long built on the bayside of the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad’s tracks in the city. The TAC recommended an award of $62,472 to the project. Bay City applied for two separate grants, one for $75,000 to supSee GRANTS TO, Page A3
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