My sister AK has lived in Malibu California for about 25 years now, in an area called LaCosta. Their house sits about halfway up the mountain and has a grand view of the Pacific Ocean, Santa Catalina on a clear day, Malibu Pier, and daily sunsets. Great view, but I would not say this is an easy place to live. It's extremely hilly and designed without consideration for pedestrians, so just going for a walk is not a casual decision. Forget about riding a bike here, unless you're at the level of Lance Armstrong. The infrastructure isn't great. Houses are on septic, and the electricity periodically goes out. The city is sliced by a major high-speed state highway, locally known as PCH. If you want to get to the beach, it must be crossed, just like Caesar crossed the Rubicon. And it would help to have the Roman Army to escort you safely across, because you have about a 50-50 chance of coming out alive.
Periodic brush fires damage or destroy parts of the city, the boundaries of which stretch about 28 miles east-west. Fire in one end of the city might not be much noticed by those in another area. Floods generated by heavy rains cause trouble, especially after a bad fire season has burned off the root system that holds soil in place.
On January 7th 2025 the worst happened. About 10:30 a.m. a fire erupted in Pacific Palisades, east of Malibu, on a day when the devil winds--the Santa Anas--were screaming off the desert (and they really do scream). By 2:30 p.m. AK's family saw the writing on the wall and left for safety. For several days they knew nothing of their house or neighborhood until a helicopter's video showed up on the news. From a distant camera shot they could see their house still stood.
A "happy" ending for them was not shared by thousands of other homeowners. On January 23 AK's family was allowed back in to the neighborhood check on their house. Miraculously there was no damage to the structure. The fire burned around all four sides of the house. The house close to them next door burned to the ground. All of the patio furniture on their back porch was incinerated. Yet there is little ash or soot inside. Utilities are fried so they won't move back in until the infrastructure is repaired, or rebuilt. Six of the 10 houses on their street are gone, as are most on adjacent streets.
I stole the following map from the website www.ktla.com, which is a long-time Los Angeles area news station. The map was created and distributed by the LA County Fire Department. It covers the entire area of the Palisades and Altadena fires, and the portion below is centered just on my sister's area of LaCosta in Malibu. Each of the marks represent a structure, and if you were looking at this online, you could click on each and a pop-up window will give you a few details plus some photographs of what each structure looks like since the fire. Fire investigators have done a fascinating on-the-ground investigation.
Damaged or Destroyed Structures
Destroyed (>50%)
Major (26-50%)
Minor (10-25%)
Affected (1-9%)
Inaccessible
No Damage
This screenshot shows AK's neighborhood area in Malibu. The houses right along the beach in the lower part of the pic [the red row] were almost entirely obliterated. In the center of the row is a black square representing their beach club, which survived.
The beach club exterior is stucco (a concrete coating) and the roof is tile; AK's house is also built of those materials. Those 2 elements may be a common denominator in structures that survived. Someone will surely do a scientific study of exactly what saved one structure and not another. Then surely, Malibu will adjust its building codes accordingly. Surely. Sure they will. Sorry, in my observation Malibu is not proactive in enhancing or protecting the lives of its citizens whether it be pedestrians attempting to cross the 4-lane-death-trap PCH, or in providing reliable utilities, etc.
The above map zeros in on AK's immediate area. The devastation is profound; most of her neighbor's houses are gone. Will the area ever return to its pre-fire self? Will people rebuild or sell out and leave? 25 years ago AK said, "I know my house will burn someday," because that is a fact of life in Malibu. Well, her house survived the 93 fire and now the Palisades Fire.
One more map, this one showing the devastation further east in Pacific Palisades. Neighborhoods are denser here so the results of the fire are horrendous. Not only are entire streets wiped out, but entire sections of neighborhood. So many questions. What to do? Where to start? How to repair? Who will pay? How long will it take? All of those questions will have answers, eventually. But the biggest question cannot be answered: When will the next conflagration hit?
The Forest Service has said that the Gorge trails will be closed until at least next summer. What a damper that puts on next year's hiking season. I hope the closure doesn't last too far into summer.
The alternative is to hike on the Washington side, which was not much damaged in the conflagration. The drive is further; the hikes are wonderful. Wildflowers come to the Washington trails earlier than the Oregon trails--Washington basks in sunshine. Coyote Wall, Dog Mountain, Hamilton Mountain, Cape Horn, and other trails are delightful. Waterfalls are not as profuse there, but open views abound.
On another note, those who are responsible for the fire have been charged. I hope their sentence involves working to re-build trails and restore the environment in the Gorge.
another frequented trail in Oregon
this one takes you to Triple Falls and beyond
Dog Mtn is a Washington favorite; it is one tough hike and has killer views from the top at 3000 feet
Hamilton Mountain: I hike up here annually and never tire of the view from the top
(www.adventurestrong.com)
Cape Horn extends into the Columbia River on the Washington side and makes for a pleasant hike
Our famed Columbia Gorge, a magnet for hikers, climbers, sailors, swimmers, skiers and sightseers, transformed this fall from a mecca to a monster in one short afternoon. Over Labor Day weekend, a foolish, careless group of teens threw a firecracker into the parched forest near Punch Bowl Falls (pictured above) on the Eagle Creek Trail, causing an explosion of flame that consumed 50,000 acres in the beloved Gorge.
The fire burned for six weeks. Even 30 miles away here in Beaverton, we choked on smoke. Only the first rainfall of the season put a damper on the spread of the flames, despite the efforts of hundreds of firefighters working like crazy with tons of equipment. Interstate 84 was closed for three weeks; the river was closed; towns were evacuated. The fire burned to the highway and jumped the wide Columbia River into Washington. After the fire, thousands of trees in danger of toppling were removed. Special teams climbed the burned-over slopes to dislodge rocks that no longer had vegetation to hold them in place. Mudslides are expected once the rainy season gets going. Firefighters miraculously saved the iconic CCC structures, including Multnomah Falls Lodge.
Flames spread so rapidly that 150 waterfall enthusiasts at Punch Bowl could not hike down to the trail head that afternoon. Dressed in skimpy summer clothing and even flip-flops, and without much food or supplies, they were ill-prepared for the ordeal of spending a cold night on the trail. The following day the group hiked 12 miles and a grueling 3500 feet up the mountain (through flaming embers) to where the Forest Service could transport them back to their cars.
Last week I drove through the Gorge and saw the devastation. Stands of healthy forest blend in with swaths of brown trees and blackened spars, tunnels are burned out, roadside railings are smashed from fallen trees. "Thanks" to the fire burning off vegetation, it's easier now to catch a glimpse of majestic Multnomah Falls from behind the wheel of a speeding car.
More thoughts tomorrow.
Before and after photographs:
(photo from traveljapanblog.com)
Crown Point on the right
Multnomah Falls
(photo from ecoecoequa.wordpress.com)
hikers stranded near Punch Bowl were guided out the next day by Forest Service
(from the Spokesman Review)
from the Washington side of the Gorge
(Portland Tribune)
above Oneonta Creek
I'm pretty sure that knob on the right is Angel's Rest, which is one marvelous hiking destination; from that point you can see downtown Portland on a clear day
trail to Angel's Rest
(www.fireengineering.com)
highway crews using the interstate as a work area; note stumps on hill
what the sun looked like from our home during the fires
Here's one hiker's account of being trapped on the trail by fire
A common motivator for the influx of Californians relocating to Oregon has been to reside in a safe area, particularly a place without earthquakes. Well, the joke is on them. They have traded their land of devastating transform strike-slip and dip-slip faults, for a land with a history of catastrophic subduction-zone quakes. I would prefer the former. And so should you.
A quarter century ago a local geologist discovered a feature on the Pacific Coast he called "sunken forests." This astonishing find indicated a drastic, sudden change in coastline elevation. He found that on January 26, 1700, Japan suffered a tsunami that was not preceded by ground shaking. In other words, a tsunami had struck Japan without an earthquake to cause it, or so they thought. This is termed an orphan tsunami.
Geologic evidence shows that on January 26, 1700, the Pacific Northwest experienced a mega-earthquake of about 9.0 on the scale. The quake caused local tsunamis and sent a tsunami thousands of miles across the Pacific to Japan. It caused coastal subsidence in Oregon, resulting in sunken forests, in which the trees all die at the same time from sudden immersion in salt water. In the Columbia Gorge a mountain cleaved in half, tumbling the land into the river, now the foundation for Bonneville Dam. A subduction zone quake is extremely powerful, and this isn't the place to describe the science of it, but I will mention that this type of quake lasts from 4-5 minutes at magnitude 9. Yikes.
the halved Table Mountain
Bonneville Dam and beyond showing the tumbled half of Table Mountain
Late this summer the New Yorker published an article about the Pacific Northwest's next 9.0 quake, which is "overdue." In geologic terms that means it could happen today, or in a hundred years, but it will happen. The Pac NW has had 40 mega-quakes in the past 10,000 years, with the most recent being the one mentioned above, in 1700.
A wave of panic swept through our area as a million people were hearing about this for the first time. Even though the information has been around for over 25 years, it had remained in the background, like the low, steady hum of a refrigerator. Suddenly cities were holding meetings to train officials, and meetings to educate the public and meetings to plan for seismic upgrades, and meetings with other cities to create a regional disaster master plan.
The gloom and doom prediction says that over 10,000 people will die in the predicted quake, with 3 times that many injured. Bridges will be destroyed. Tsunamis will devastate the coast. Jobs will be lost, people will move away. In general, widespread aid will not be forthcoming quickly, because aside from Portland and Seattle, there are no major population centers within hundreds of miles that can offer help. The shocking reality that hits home is that residents will be on their own for survival, for at least two weeks.
The odds are the quake won't happen soon, and I would be happy if it didn't happen in my lifetime. But we will never go wrong by being prepared with food and water storage, fuel, medicine, and other emergency supplies. We have had these items stored for years, and in the next few months we will do a better job organizing them. And that's what we can do: be prepared and then hope it doesn't happen.
We teenagers growing up in a small community sometimes had to invent something to do. In the Santa Clarita Valley in the 60s and early 70s, there were no malls, (hardly any stores period), few restaurants, no miniature golf, roller rink or other recreational activities. There was the Plaza Theatre that we went to once in a while. At our small high school clubs and sports were limited, and if you were female, which I was (and still am), you were barred from sports anyway, except for a girls' club that met after school. But if you were me and were terrible at sports, the choice of activities narrowed further.
Sometimes my friends and I would just walk around for something to do. When we were old enough to drive and lucky enough to have a turn with the car, we would drive around for something to do. We explored Hart Ranch and remote wilderness roads. I rode my friends' horses after school, or went to farm auctions with a particular friend.
The more daring among us bragged about going to Colored Sands Cave on weekend nights. I didn't know what they did once they got there, but we can be sure it wasn't looking at the stars. Another place teens gushed about was the Chinese Graveyard. Everyone talked about how scary it was and how gutsy you had to be to go there. Even the upright Mormon kids talked about the mysteriously creepy haunted ghostly Chinese Graveyard.
So, when I worked the late shift at newly opened Magic Mountain, sometimes that's where a few of us would go. It was always after midnight when we got off work. Out to San Francisquito Canyon we would drive. Back in the day this was almost the middle of nowhere. There were a few ranches on the narrow curvy road. No lights. The graveyard perched on a hill on the west side of the river but we parked on the east side, because the cemetery was on private property, so we couldn't go cruising up the long rutted driveway in the middle of the night.
Once parked, we hiked across the broad shallow river bed, which was usually dry. We counted on there being moonlight enough to see. I'm surprised we never stepped on any rattlesnakes. The graveyard was easy to spot even in the dark because the only trees in the vicinity grew among the headstones. We headed straight for the looming spectral pine and pepper trees.
I should comment on the name of this place. Why it was called the Chinese Graveyard, I have no idea. There are no Chinese buried there. We heard that the graves were those of flood victims from the 1928 dam break upstream. The truth is, there are some victims buried here, and most of the graves are related to the Mexican Ruiz family. 6 of the Ruizs were wiped out that terrible day of the flood. I only recently found out the place is rightfully called the Ruiz Cemetery.
Ruiz family, flood victims who died March 13, 1928
Even though the graveyard is on private property, we had no qualms about sneaking up there under cover of darkness. I never participated in shenanigans such as hiding behind a tree to spook someone. Or draping white sheets in the trees to frighten newbies. I never saw a ghost up there or felt the frosty chill that kids believed signified the ghostly presence of a mournful flood victim. It was a place of fascination and reverence to me, because every gravestone represented a life. And every life has a story that intertwines with the history and landscape of a place. Sometimes the stories are upbeat and lengthy. And at times they end prematurely, as with the Ruiz family which has lain here together for most of 90 years. Their holy terror probably lasted only a few moments as they heard the thunderous crashing and felt the rumble of the approaching water. It enveloped them and their terror was swiftly over.
The cemetery is now abutted by development. It is still on private property though. Even though my nocturnal visits there were illicit, I am glad to have spent some meaningful moments there so many years ago.
William S. Hart (kneeling in center) and his cowboy friends place a memorial marker in Ruiz Cemetery to the 1928 flood victims
To complete the saga of the gifted water-engineer William Mulholland. . .
In 1926 an additional water storage reservoir and electrical power facility in the Los Angeles system was added, the site chosen by Mulholland. The new dam was christened the St. Francis Dam, and it was located in San Francisquito Canyon (near Saugus CA) not far from where I grew up. Only, by then the dam had not been in existence for decades. The St. Francis Dam had failed in 1928, a scant 2 years after its completion. It was a catastrophe that has never been surpassed in California, in terms of number of lives lost in a man-made disaster.
the completed dam and filled reservoir
Multiple problems contributed to the failure of the dam, most importantly its placement against unstable rock and a fault line. Water leakage occurred through cracks in the concrete. Repeated inspections called for minor repairs but the experts were not alarmed by what they saw. Pipes were installed to divert spillage from leaks in and around the concrete.
Downstream from the dam, farmers and powerhouse employees became concerned, then nervous, as anyone would, knowing 12 billion gallons of water was precariously perched not far above ones head. On March 12, 1928 an additional leak was discovered by the dam keeper, Tony Harnischfeger. He called for the experts and that afternoon William Mulholland and Harvey Van Norman arrived from Los Angeles for an inspection. They found about 20 gallons per second rushing from the latest leak. Yikes, I say. They expressed that repairs could be done in the future.
But there would be no future. Less than 12 hours later--at just about midnight--the dam failed. Its collapse unleashed a torrent that few would escape that night. A mile below the dam, Powerhouse #2 was wiped off the face of the earth, and along with it, nearly 70 people, all employees and their families. Harnischfeger, the dam keeper, and his son Coder were never seen again. Churning over farms and fields down the canyon, the towering, thundering deluge followed the Santa Clara River bed 54 miles west to the sea. Along the way it drowned whole families, buckled railroad tracks, wiped out structures, agriculture, livestock, cars whose drivers were unfortunate to be on the road that night, and it carried away a work camp full of men sound asleep in tents on the riverbank (84 of them drowned).
fallen dam sections
The Tombstone what remained of the dam (looking downstream from where the reservoir used to be)
Heros were abroad that terrible night. A switchboard operator 40 miles downstream got the frightful news and stayed at her position until the last possible moment, phoning the alarm to families in the path of the water. She also alerted the police. Two motorcycle policemen traveled east with their sirens blaring, towards the oncoming water, to shout warnings to citizens they aroused from their beds. Hundreds of lives were saved.
Victims and debris were washed out to sea, and others were buried by deep layers of mud. Over the years bodies attributed to this disaster were occasionally recovered, including one as recently as the 1990s. About 450 bodies were recovered. It is thought that about 500 were killed.
the disaster was news around the country; this is a New London CT newspaper, March 13 1928
Strange stories circulated after the disaster, and even when I was a teen in the late 60s. About 5 people had separately passed the dam that night. Some heard eerie sounds--tumbling rocks and moving earth--others heard nothing. The dam keeper's girlfriend's fully-clothed corpse was found wedged in concrete just below the dam. How did she get there? Was she on top of the dam when it collapsed? Remember, the keeper and his son were never found. Weeks before the collapse one downstream resident had taken to sleeping in his barn on high ground because he knew the dam was going to fail; that night he heard the thunder of the water from his safe refuge. Other folks expressed premonitions of disaster. One woman rode the flood down the canyon on a board from her demolished house. There is the mystery of a ladder found wedged in a portion of the dam. Survivors were found in the tops of trees. Supposedly one survivor was found stuck in muck up to his neck. Weird. The dead were dug from the mud over a period of many years. Tomorrow I'll write about the haunted graveyard of some of the victims.
What about William Mulholland, the creator and engineer of this major disaster? How did he react to the shock and devastation? Remember that connected to the dam was a power facility, which generated electricity for Los Angeles. It is said that when the city went dark that night, everyone employed by the LA Department of Water and Power knew exactly what had just happened. Including Mulholland. He and others hurried to the dam site that night, reaching it 2 1/2 hours after the collapse. I'm sure he desperately wished there was a way to turn back the clock a mere 12 hours. He later said, "I envy the dead," and "The only ones I envy about this whole thing are the ones who are dead."
Mulholland and Harvey Van Norman at the tragic site, March 15 1928
During the subsequent investigation, Mulholland eventually took the blame; that could not be avoided. "Fasten it on me. If there is an error of human judgement, I am the human." You've got to give him credit for manning up to his drastic error. In the aftermath of the flood, a sign popped up urging "Kill Mulholland." That was hardly necessary; he probably died inside a hundred times, or maybe 500, once for each of the dead. He resigned his position, crushed and disgraced, and died 7 years later, his brilliant career in ashes. Mulholland's charmed career made it possible for Los Angeles to become what it is. It ended horribly tarnished by failure and death.
Mt. Hood. A glorious shining sentinel, Mt. Hood is the tallest peak in Oregon, reaching 11,249 feet. The Cascade chain of volcanos snakes from British Columbia on the north to northern California on the south. Mt. Hood is about halfway along the chain. Mt. Lassen and Mt. St. Helens are the only two that have erupted in recent memory, although Mt. Hood routinely puts out steam and produces clusters of tiny earthquakes.
Back in the day, Mt. Hood was a formidable obstacle to early-19th century pioneers who intended to make Oregon City or the Willamette Valley their home. Sliced with deep canyons and pitted glaciers, and strewn with enormous boulders in fields of slippery scree, no way could wooden wagons forge over its flanks and remain in one piece. Pioneers were forced to stop at The Dalles to build rafts to for a precarious journey down the Columbia and Willamette Rivers to their new settlements. That is, until Mr. Sam Barlow built a rough road across its southern flank in 1846. And then the rush to Western Oregon began.
Now, thousands of climbers strive for Mt. Hood's summit every year. The typical climb involves departing from Timberline Lodge (6000 feet) around midnight and reaching the summit no later than 10 a.m., before softening snow begins releasing entrapped rotten rock. Plenty of climbers have been injured by rock hurtling downslope. Other dangers involve avalanches and mountain-generated storms that can swoop down on climbers in an instant.
This map shows the glaciers on Hood. Most have receded dramatically the past few decades, but they still carry the danger of crevasses that have contributed to climbing accidents and deaths.
When you look at Mt. Hood from a distance, you might think of it as a serene, friendly mountain and a great place for a rigorous but do-able hike to the summit. The photo below shows that not to be the case. A climber is faced with obstacles, one of which is the bergshrund, a large crevasse climbers must cross before reaching the summit (shown a bit lower than center of this photo).
Accidents occur every climbing season, and frequently someone dies on Mt. Hood. Some of those are never found. The list below shows the fatalities that have occurred in recent memory. Another one occurred this morning (May 13) when a Catholic priest from New Jersey stood on the summit, not realizing he was standing on a cornice (a large pileup of snow that clings to a ridge and is suspended over thin air). He went right through it 1000 feet down, landing on Elliot Glacier. I guess you could say he was one of the lucky ones--his body was retrieved. Many are encased in ice somewhere on the slopes. The worst accident ever was in 1986 when seven high school students and two of their teachers were caught in a 3-day storm on the mountain. Searchers risked their lives big-time to rescue them. They probed up and down the mountain in a gale-force whiteout to find the bodies. Two of the students lived; the rest froze to death. The most dramatic accident was in 2002 when 3 separate climbing parties went sliding down the mountain and plunged at high speed into the bergshrund. Three were killed. The rescue helicopter lost its lift and it too plunged down the mountain (video below). Other fatalities have involved a man who tried to snowboard down from the summit, a woman who looked over the edge of the summit and fell off, the Polish amateur climber who died on a quest to plant his country's flag on the summit, and the three men who climbed Hood in bitter December weather while training for an Everest climb. One was found dead in a snow cave and the other two have not been found. This video shows the 2002 accident that killed three men who fell into the bergshrund, and then the dramatic helicopter accident (sorry, it's annoyingly overly dramatic) (and if it doesn't play google it on youtube):
List of fatalities 1959-2013 (from The Oregonian): NOTE: I have not included the multitude of skiing and snowboarding fatalities that have occurred at the ski resorts. February 2018: climber stranded in storm on upper slopes of Hood. Six others rescued. August 15, 2017: Two hikers fell 150 off PCT (Emma Place / Emily Lang, both 19). May 7, 2017: Climber fell near Hogsback (John Thorton Jenkins). June 4, 2015: Climber fell on Mazama Chutes route (Ward Maxwell). August 12 2014: A hiker was swept away when the Sandy River bridge gave way on the Ramona Falls Trail, during a flash flood (Brent A. Ludwig).
August 11, 2013 - Sebastian Kinasiewicz, 32, died while trying to summit the mountain alone when he plunged over a thousand feet at Cooper Spur. He was a novice climber visiting the mountain while on a break from drone training in Oregon.
August 3, 2013: An ice tunnel collapsed on Collin Backowski.
June 30, 2013 - Kinley Adams, 59, of Salem, was found dead 8,400 feet up the mountain, a week after he attempted the summit. He was described as an experienced climber who had climbed many mountains.
June 14, 2012 - Mark Cartier, 56, an experienced and well-known local climber who'd climbed Mt. Hood a hundred times before, suffered a fatal fall near Crater Rock while descending the mountain.
February 6, 2012 - Jared Townsley, 32, of Tigard was found dead below Crater Rock after what was believed to have been a fall in icy conditions.
June 16, 2010: Canadian fell 700 feet on Coe Glacier (Robert Dale Wiebe). December 2009 - Reid Glacier: Luke T. Gullberg, 26, of Des Moines, Washington is found dead at the 9,000-feet level of Mt. Hood after a fall on the Reid Headwall. The bodies of Gullberg's two climbing partners, Katie Nolan and Anthony Vietti, were found the next summer.
January 2009 - Hogsback: Brooke Colvin, 31, is killed after being struck by falling ice in the area below the Pearly Gates and knocked several hundred feet down the mountain. She was climbing with her husband, 33-year-old Thad Stavn.
July 28, 2008 - Cooper Spur: Gary Lee, 55, is descending from the summit on the Cooper Spur route when he's struck by a falling rock. His body is located 1,000 feet below, just above the Elliot Glacier. Climbing w/ son.
December 2006: Cooper Spur: Kelly James, Brian Hall, and Jerry Cooke attempt to scale the difficult north side of the mountain and perish in a storm. James' body is later found in a snow cave near the summit. Hall and Cooke's bodies are not found.
June 2005: Climber fell 2000 feet at Cooper Spur (Todd R. Englehardt).
November 2004 - Sandy Glacier: Kenny D. Kasselder, 37, dies after falling into a crevasse about 30 feet deep on the Sandy Glacier on the west side.
August 2004: A backpacker was swept away while crossing the Sandy River on west slope of Mt. Hood (Sarah Bishop). Her 60-pound pack was securely strapped on; it is recommended that when crossing a river that pack straps be left loose.
May 13, 2004: Climber fell off summit's north side when a snow cornice collapsed, plunged 700 feet (Rev. Robert J. Cornier).
March 6, 2003 - South Side: Fred Frauens, 49, leaves Timberline Lodge on a solo snowshoe hike up the south slope. He is last seen at 9,500 feet.
May 30, 2002 - South Side: Three groups of climbers -- nine people in all -- fall into a crevasse on the south slope. Rick Read, 48, and Bill Ward, 49, both of Forest Grove, and John Biggs, 62, of Windsor, Calif., die from the fall.
May 24, 2002 - Cooper Spur: Snowboarder Juancarlos Munoz, 30, attempts to snowboard from the summit but dies after falling 2,500 feet onto Eliot Glacier. Munoz, an Argentine, was living in Government Camp and working at Timberline Lodge.
September 2001: Karoly Janos Orsi, 26, a Hungarian exchange student, disappears on a solo day hike.
August 2001: Evan Clark, 15, of Hinsdale, Ill., dies after a chunk of ice crushes him near the Cloud Cap hiking area.
June 4, 2000 - Summit: Diana B. Kornet, 29, of Portland, who had reached the summit, slips as she looks over the mountain's northeast side and falls more than 2,500 feet to her death.
May 23, 1999 - Cooper Spur: Carey Cardon, 31, and Tena Cardon, 29, of Hillsboro, who reached the summit, die shortly after starting their descent, falling together about 1,500 feet along the northeast face. One of them slips and pulls the other as they descend the Cooper Spur route.
May 31, 1998 - West Crater Rim: Tom McGlinn, a 39-year-old climbing with a Mazamas climbing class, is buried and killed when snow and rock give way on the mountain's west side near Illumination Rock.
September 6, 1997 - Cooper Spur: Mark Fraas, 40, dies after falling 1,500 feet while climbing the Cooper Spur route on the northeast face.
September 1995 - Cathedral Ridge: Ken Budlong, 45, of Portland disappears on a solo climb via the Cathedral Ridge route in Hood River County.
July 1994 - Cooper Spur: Four climbers roped together fall 700 feet down the Cooper Spur route, stopping at the lip of a crevasse on Eliot Glacier. Ole Groupe, 16, of Pendleton and Jerry Milton, 51, of McMinnville die in the fall. The other climbers are rescued by helicopter.
July 18, 1991: John Pospisil III, 14, dies when he and his 12-year-old brother, Luke, lose control during an intentional slide and fall into a canyon while descending during a family outing. Luke Pospisil survives.
June 1990: The body of George W. Ott, 76, of Corvallis, is recovered from the face of Mount Hood after he dies of hypothermia. Ott's widow, Marian, says she did not expect her husband, who had terminal cancer, to return from the trip he had chosen to make by himself.
July 11, 1987 - South Side: Arthur Andersen Jr., 59, of Sherwood, dies when he and two other men fall into the Bergschrund crevasse.
May 13, 1986 - South Side: Seven students and two adults from Oregon Episcopal School freeze to death after being trapped in a whiteout while ascending. Killed are Tasha Amy, 15; Alison Litzenberger, 15; Richard Header,16; Erik Sandvik, 15; Susan Elizabeth McClave, 17; Patrick Francis Mcginness, 15; Erin O'Leary, 15; the Rev. Dr. Thomas Goman, 41, and Marion Horwell, 40.
June 20, 1982 - Leuthold Couloir: While in Leuthold Couloir a large avalanche came down from above and caught one rope team of three climbers. One climber was killed by the crushing action of this type of avalanche.
June 21, 1981 - Cooper Spur: Five people in a group of climbers die in a fall from Cooper Spur while descending. Killed on Mount Hood are Jim Darby, 35, Newberg; Garth Westcott, 35, Bend; Larry Young, 30, Corvallis; George Anderson, 36, Boring; and Leah Lorenson, 39, Vancouver.
June 6, 1981 - Cooper Spur: David H. Turple, 51, of Portland and Bill Pilkenton, 17, of Newberg die in a fall from Cooper Spur to Eliot Glacier.
April 26, 1975 - White River Canyon: A Mazamas mountaineering class attempted to cross White River Canyon and some were caught in an avalanche. One died.
June 20, 1959 - South Side: A group of Explorer Scouts were caught in a wet snow avalanche above the bergshrund and carried into it. One died
Last Sunday a well-known Oregonian passed away. If I mentioned his name you would not recognize it, because his fame did not make himself a household name. But if I tell you what he did, you will laugh and nod your head and say pitifully, "oh yeah--that poor guy."
I'm referring to the 1970 Adventure of the Exploding Whale. And George Thornton was the man responsible. George was 84 at his death last week. In 1970 he was an Oregon Department of Transportation [ODOT] highway engineer, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because all of his associates had conveniently ditched town for deer-hunting season, you could say he drew the short straw. And this straw was downright stunted. George was given the job of removing a deceased 8-ton beached sperm whale from the lovely south coast town of Florence Oregon.
You are probably wondering why an ODOT highway engineer, of all people, was given the job of removing a dead whale from a public beach. Back in 1913 Oregon beaches were declared to be state highways, that's why.
The beached whale was a tourist curiosity for about 2.5 days. Then it deteriorated into a rancid reeky rotting carcass, so ol' George was called in to take charge. The carcass could not be buried, for the tides would uncover it. . . could not be dragged to sea as it was already decaying. . . could not be burned because yikes, can you imagine the aroma of burning rancid whale?
But never fear, for George had a great idea--dynamite the thing! It would take only a half ton of explosives to do the job. And once the carcass was blown to smithereens, the seagulls, crabs and other hungry sea scavengers would dispose of the leftovers in no time. Problem solved . . . mmmmm.
November 12 1970 was the big day. Spectators were kept at a quarter-mile distance on the surrounding dunes when the plunger was pushed. I won't say too much more because this video tells it all. Let's just say that the ODOT crew, the spectators, and the news media went home that day plastered with foul, putrid bits of dead whale all over their clothes. And one spectator struggled to explain to his insurance company why he needed a new car. When humor writer Dave Barry first heard this story in 1990, he said it was the funniest story he had ever heard (and he hears lots of funny stuff).
Poor beleaguered George Thornton never lived down the incident. Every November on the anniversary somebody from somewhere contacted him for comment, and he could only say that his method was effective and the media ruined his life, basically. May you rest in blissful peace, George.
The year 1995 closed with a gale when on December 13, our area was hit with a hurricane of sorts. Schools closed, trees crashed, cars were crushed, and roofs were launched, never to be seen again. We couldn't know there was more drama just around the corner in the form of a 100-year flood.
Almost twice as much rain as normal fell that winter, and in January 1996 the mountain snowpack was above average. In late January low lying areas such as ours (we're at 242 feet) were hit with a decent snowfall--meaning about four inches over our usual dusting. The snow never had a chance to melt. We were plunged into a deep freeze when temps sunk into the teens, the wind kicked up to gale force, and we heartily wished we had wintered in Florida. It was so bitter outside that I just had to get out of Dodge . . . actually, I left town for a family wedding that was to be held February 3 in balmy Southern California.
That very day, February 3, one of Portland's notorious ice storms paralyzed the city for 3 days. You haven't seen chaos until you've been here during an ice storm. The fear (and reality) is that you will be stuck wherever you are when the ice starts falling, so you've got to drop what you're doing to get where really want to be for the next few days. Because once you get there, you're going to be trapped for the duration. So, everyone ditches work and errands to rush to their desired destination. Only, while they're en route, the roads become un-driveable because they're, um, coated with sheets of ice. Portlanders take leave of their senses at times like this. They abandon their cars on the freeways, highways, and byways. And somehow, I guess they skate home on the ice. And of course they can't get back to their cars until the ice melts at which time no one can navigate the roads because of all the abandoned cars parked topsy turvy. But I digress . . .
So we have the greater Portland area stuck in a deep freeze until the morning of February 6, when a "pineapple express" air mass migrated into the area bringing a deluge and temperatures in the 60s. The lows were well above freezing in the mountains forcing instant snow melt. Over the next few days 7" of rain poured in my area, 11" on Mt. Hood, and 20" on Saddle Mountain near the coast. The rain joined with the speedy snowmelt swelled creeks and rivers to immediate, raging flood stage.
Suddenly Portland was in danger of water spilling over the sea-wall into downtown. The river rose 14 feet in a few days (the Willamette River crested at 30 feet on Feb. 9) and the mayor called for volunteers to build a flood wall to keep the water out of the city. It was successful, only because the water topped the seawall by only a few inches. Houseboats were ripped from their moorings and off they raced down the Willamette towards the Columbia. Furniture, full-grown trees, and miscellaneous debris floated through the city on its way to the sea. Landslides blocked roads.
Portland's flood wall consisting of plywood, visqueen and sandbags--it worked!
I knew nothing of the flooding until I flew in from California early on the morning of February 6, and my husband didn't show up to bring me home from PDX (cheers to the pre-light rail days). I called him repeatedly from the pay-phone (cheers to our pre-cell phone days) but he was never home. I finally got smart and turned on my walkman, only to find PDX was in the throes of a major flood. After a couple of hours Craig was finally home. He had tried every route possible to get to the airport but all roads were closed by slides or flood damage. Buses were running from the airport on a few routes, so my best choice was to take one downtown and figure out what to do from there. Once downtown I changed to a bus heading for Beaverton, hoping there would be one open road, and there was, but only going west. Craig picked me up at the Beaverton bus depot a good 4 hours after my plane landed.
The focus was on downtown PDX, until one reporter got smart enough to investigate outlying areas. Poor Vernonia in the Coast Range suffered a lot. There was everything from furniture to firewood stuck high in the tree branches, attesting to how high the water had flowed. Schools were destroyed, then rebuilt.* Even worse, Tillamook was ruined and hundreds of dairy cattle drowned. Unaffected farmers in the dairy co-op each donated a cow to those who were wiped out, to give them a fresh start.
The flooding Willamette River
a canoe on Interstate-5 in SW Washington
NW Oregon and SW Washington had been caught in the throes of a perfect storm of heavy snowpack, an ice storm, then a deluge of tropical rain. Chances of a repeat in my lifetime are remote. "Old-timers" still bring up the flood of '96 once in a while. A "newbie" was recently asked if she worried that the creek 8' below her house would flood her place. Of course she wasn't--the creek is waaay down the hill. But she hadn't witnessed the great flood of '96 . . . and how could she ever imagine the terrible possibilities?
*And in 2007 Vernonia had another 100 year flood that destroyed the rebuilt buildings. Their schools have now been replaced on high ground.
Dog Mtn is a Washington favorite; it is one tough hike and has killer views from the top at 3000 feet
