Posted on 07/07/2002 5:53:33 AM PDT by Snow Bunny
 The tow boat Coos Bay helps a freighter move through Coos Bay and dock in the Bunker Hill area recently. With homeland security concerns, the U.S. Coast Guard is shifting from safety and rescue to national security. Port officials from around the Northwest have concerns about changing U.S. Coast Guard directives without providing adequate funding and resources that could compromise lifesaving missions. - World Photo by Lou Sennick |
By Andrew Sirocchi, Staff Writer
As Congress begins to draft legislation intended to make the nation's ports safer from terrorism, the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay is warning that changing U.S. Coast Guard directives without providing adequate funding and resources could compromise lifesaving missions.
"Search and rescue stations are very important in the Pacific Northwest," said Mike Gaul, the port's operations director.
Hazardous, choppy waters make Oregon's and Washington's seascape among the most dangerous in the world, Gaul said at a Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine hearing, held in Portland early this week. The subcommittee hearing, chaired by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and attended by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., has been charged with helping develop legislation to enhance port safety.
Gaul urged the group not to forget, as it develops strategies for protecting national security, that the Coast Guard's role in ensuring the safety of commercial and recreational boaters on the South Coast is imperative.
"Port security is one of the Coast Guard's missions but to go to the heightened alerts and do the things they have to do to make that their topmost priority they certainly have to, with their resources, have appropriate increases in personnel and resources," Gaul said.
Major port and security officials told Oregon's two senators on Tuesday that federal funding will be needed to make ports safer. Industry representatives also cautioned that any safety regulations should be crafted to avoid hindering trade.
"Many ports simply do not have the resources to comply with potential provision of a new federal law," Bob Hrdlicka, the marine director at the Port of Portland, stated in his written testimony. "Uniform federal funding is the surest way to secure maritime ports."
"In terms of port security legislation currently being considered by Congress, Nike would measure success in terms of implementing a process that sends relevant shipping information to U.S. Customs as the containers move toward the United States and in maintaining an effective in-bond program," stated Nike Director John Isbell in his written comments advocating for maintaining free and easy commerce.
Gaul agreed with both points.
"We have to have funding to go with any security that goes into place," Gaul said. "We want to maintain the level of service of commerce and trade and we certainly want to voice our concerns of any loss of the Coast Guard."
Gaul speaks from experience.
As a former master chief in the Coast Guard and manager of the Charleston Life Boat Station in the past, Gaul said he knows fatigue can set in and compromise the efficiency of operations when personnel are overworked.
"I just think that the threat is there," Gaul said; "that the priority may be national security and there may be a time when there's a search and rescue call that the Coast Guard may not be able to answer because of their primary mission."
The port representative said he is talking about future concerns and doesn't have any current worries.
"That's the reason for our comments," he said. "We wanted to alert the Coast Guard and alert the Senate Committee that they need to take these things into consideration."
Gaul presented the subcommittee with three concerns from the Port of Coos Bay, including:
-- committing to full federal funding for all security requirements imposed on ports. "As our agency has learned in managing the North Bend Municipal Airport (the only full commercial service airport on the Oregon coast) many ports do not have the financial resource necessary to comply with federal mandates. Federal funding is imperative to the success of any maritime security law, and we believe this applies to publicly-owned and privately-owned marine terminals," Gaul wrote.
-- committing to continuing free trade and commerce unhindered. "It is important to gear the regulation to the perceived problem rather than simply applying a blanket approach or to treat all ports in all situations the same," Gaul wrote.
-- and ensuring the historic mission of the Coast Guard in the Pacific Northwest is not altered from search and rescue and any changes to the Coast Guard's responsibilities should include increases in personnel and other resources.
The Port of Coos Bay was one of three from Oregon that was asked to be represented at the hearing. The other two ports included the Port of Portland and the inland Port of Umatilla.
Among the industry and agency personnel also invited to speak were Coast Guard Vice Admiral Terry Cross; Douglas Browning, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs Service; Nike Director John Isbell; and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
While the Port of Coos Bay may not feel the impacts on trade as much as larger ports that can handle containerized cargo, Gaul cautioned against de-emphasizing risks to the Bay Area.
"We're probably a lower-risk port as far as bringing in some type of personnel or weapons or bomb," Gaul said, "but I think we're equally important as all other ports because we are a deep draft port."
King Edward I ..The "Longshanks",
Played by Patrick McGoohan.
Watched a documentary recently on Richard the Lionheart King of England.
Often Romanticised....Richard bumped his own father off to be King....the Guilt tormented him for the rest of his life.
There's much at the White House website about saluting our veterans, here are some of the ones I have found there.
(And, Snow Bunny - once again - your first post is so breathtakingly beautiful - it is just awe-inspiring!)
And to those serving our country today and those who have served, deep gratitude and love forever!
"President George W. Bush salutes a veteran during a Memorial Day service at Notre Dame De La Paix Church at Normandy, France, May 27, 2002. The President and Mrs. Bush visited the beach and an American ceremony in honor of D-Day veterans. "
(from last year)
"President George W. Bush salutes the Navajo Code Talkers during a ceremony at the U. S. Capitol July 26, 2001. "In war, using their native language, they relayed secret messages that turned the course of battle. At home, they carried for decades the secret of their own heroism," said the President who presented medals to 21 Native Americans who served during World War II."
Many Veterans were in the audience and on the podium for the July 4th West Virginia SALUTE to our military and our nation!
(Just posting here on this "Remember our Veterans" USO Canteener thread....)
'What are the odds it would happen again?'
07/06/2002
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas - George Kapidian knows that lightning can strike the same place twice. He just didn't expect it to happen so quickly.
Friday morning, the Guadalupe River rose 20 feet, raging out of its banks to tear off Mr. Kapidian's garage door and run chest deep into his lovely brick home in northern New Braunfels.
Mr. Kapidian, 72, bought the house only last August. He knew it had been built on the foundation of a house washed away by the disastrous flood of 1998.
"We thought, 'What are the odds it would happen again?' Bam! Then the rains came," he said. "This is a big disappointment."
Dozens of homes in the charming riverside neighborhood in New Braunfels about six miles downstream from Gruene were awash to their rooflines Friday after Canyon Dam, gorged with rain from four days of thunderstorms, spilled torrents of water over its spillway for the first time in its 37-year history.
One such home, a wood house built on 8-foot stilts owned by Linda Coble, washed away Friday morning. Incredulous residents watched it float downriver past the Common Street bridge.
More than 50 people gathered along the roiling brown waters of the Guadalupe, taking photos as the river swept the house away. The water churned violently, carrying away tree branches, tires and other debris.
"It's just gone," said Dan Ackerman, who lives on higher ground in the neighborhood. "It got washed away in '98 and they rebuilt it. But it's gone again."
Ms. Coble's house had been built on the foundations of a stone home destroyed when the Guadalupe blasted out of its banks four years ago after record rains over a 24-hour period.
Ms. Coble was able to get most of her valuables out of the house and loaded onto a rental trailer. She later took shelter with family members, neighbors said.
In October 1998, when the skies opened up and dumped about 20 inches of rain on the region, the Guadalupe went on a rampage.
This time, after four days of continuing rainfall, Canyon Lake became engorged with upstream runoff. A new round of thunderstorms Thursday was too much.
Normally, the Guadalupe runs at an average flow from 300 to 500 cubic feet per second. By Friday afternoon, as 6.59 feet of water flowed over the spillway in a torrent, more than 61,000 cfs of water flowed through the Guadalupe.
"We're anticipating a flow of 84,000 cfs through New Braunfels by Friday night," said Comal County Judge Danny Scheel. "At the peak of the 1998 floods, the flow was 120,000 cfs. If we get a substantial amount of rain, it will be just like 1998."
Thursday and Friday, officials ordered about 200 to 300 homes along the Guadalupe to be evacuated. Many of those same residents had been washed out in the record-breaking floods of 1998.
"In 1998, many of the homes affected were outside the 100-year flood plain line," Mr. Scheel said. "They were victims of circumstance. Now, it seems, lightning strikes twice. And it's not over yet."
Many residents, who found life along the river too valuable to give up on, took a chance that Mother Nature wouldn't strike again so quickly.
"That barricade is about has high as it got in '98, so I think my house is safe again," said Trudy Wendler, whose pink brick home barely dodged the flood four years ago.
She points as chocolate-brown water laps five feet or so beyond an orange-and-white striped barricade that sits in the street only one house away from hers.
"It's been a little scary but the flood in 1998 was the worst ever and I've lived here for 17 years and in New Braunfels all my life," said Ms. Wendler, 80. "A lot of people got washed away, and they built again. Now they have to go through all that all over again."
Ms. Wendler doesn't plan on leaving anytime soon. "This is a really lovely part of town when the weather is good," she said. "I don't want to leave. This is my home."
A few blocks away at the Kapidian home, Mr. Kapidian and his wife, Mary Ann Kapidian, are now engaged in salvaging her mother's furniture from the flooded home next to theirs.
As a light rain falls, neighbors join in to wade through knee-deep water to remove heavy oak furniture. Other neighbors assist by covering tables, chairs and glass-front chests with blue tarps.
At Mrs. Kapidian's feet sits a small collection of wedding photos, family portraits and other framed photos. Her husband, a retired damage estimator for State Farm Insurance, lights a cigarette and sighs.
"The police came knocking on the door at 7 a.m. Thursday, saying we had to get out ASAP," he said. "That stretched to the afternoon, so we had enough time to get our important papers and some photos, and move out some of our valuables. But the other stuff ..." he gestures with his hands, like shaking something away.
That "stuff" includes woodworking tools, a new refrigerator and a new large-screen high-definition television that is now soggy.
"We're from California, but we moved here to be close to her mother," Mr. Kapidian said. "I fell in love with the place. It's really a great place to live. The question now is: What will we do next?"
A moment later, he answers his own question. "You know, it may sound stupid, but we'll probably tear it all down and rebuild," Mr. Kapidian said. "In California, you get used to living with earthquakes, mudslides and other disasters. We can do that just as easy in Texas."
E-mail dmclemore@dallasnews.com
Toby Keith
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