10 years ago this week — 2014

Winter storms pounded the North Coast with gusts up to 60 mph and 1.15 inches of rain Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

To some, it was only fitting for Fort George’s Festival of Dark Arts and carnival of stout, which gathered more than 2,000 attendees in the gloom to bask in the darkness, be it artistic or alcoholic.

“It’s just like Brew Cup,” said Fort George co-owner Jack Harris about Astoria’s last big drinking event, which was washed off the waterfront and into the Astoria Events Center. “It’s good to have a storm during the festival, or it wouldn’t be Astoria.”

And it would not be the carnival of stout without a lot of dark beers — 55 of them, to be exact, including 15 from Fort George and another 40 from across the United States.

Volunteers checked IDs, passed out wristbands and sold tokens to festivalgoers, who drank throughout the campus while taking in all the “dark” artistic talent the North Coast could muster.

Some of the first salmon of 2014 to be caught and processed by Fishhawk Fisheries was delivered last week by Mark Fick.

His brother, Steve Fick, the owner of the company, said the catch is worth about $15 per pound for fishermen.

At this time of year, commercial gillnetters are setting their nets in select areas instead of the main stem of the Columbia River. On the Oregon side of the river, the areas include Youngs Bay, Tongue Point and Blind Slough. Washington state’s site is Deep River.

The lower Columbia River now has a new source of waterborne firefighting and search and rescue capabilities, courtesy of the federal government.

The Port of Astoria recently received its federally funded quick response vessel, the Trident, which shoots thousands of gallons of water per minute, can scan the river bottom and sees heat signals as well as in the dark.

“It was handling pretty good out there,” said interim executive director Mike Weston last week, after he, Port staff members and pilots from North River took the vessel out for a spin in front of Pier 39 to test the water cannons, also known as water monitors in nautical terms. “We were able to maintain position while we were firing both cannons.”

Three more liens have been filed against the Flavel properties, including two commercial buildings in Astoria and a 15th Street home.

Mary Louise Flavel already owes the city $1.4 million after a judgment was issued late last year. The new charges, totaling $35,900, come from vacant building fees imposed by city code.

“The city has been liening these properties, one of them as far back as 1983,” City Attorney Blair Henningsgaard said. “At some point, the city will need to consider whether it wishes to enforce these liens, to be done by a sheriff’s sale. That will probably require some future discussion.”

The properties are in violation of the city’s derelict building ordinances in several areas, including roof damage, broken windows and failing facades.

50 years ago — 1974

The mudslide, which severed U.S. Highway 101 south of Cannon Beach, became a tourist attraction last weekend.

Hundreds of curious people arriving converged on both sides of the slide under blue skies to see the crumpled highway and deep crevasses caused by the slipping Earth.

A concession stand would have done a booming business, a state highway division crewman remarked at the scene.

One might imagine for a moment, given America’s penchant to make a buck out of anything, what might have happened if the state hadn’t begun work this week to fill the 1,000-foot-long break and carve out a temporary gravel road.

Within a week or two, the concession stand would have become a reality. Eventually, a concrete lookout point would be constructed nearby, complete with a short history of the slide and the pertinent geological causes simply stated beneath diagrams etched in steel plates.

Private industry by then also would have seen the possibilities.

The concession stand would become a massive motel and restaurant complex neatly cantilevered over the slide area with “every room providing a perfect view of the slide and ocean to the west.”

Small shops selling tiny plastic replicas of the slide and color postcards would spring up around the area.

Water might even be fed into the hillside above the site (2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays) to delight visitors who could watch the spectacle from their rooms or the veranda bar.

A Clatsop County grand jury was “shocked and appalled by the conditions in the Clatsop County Jail,” according to a report just released.

The grand jury said a new jail facility is “desperately needed,” but added that the present jail was unsanitary.

“We found conditions to be unsanitary throughout the building,” the report said.

“If the facilities of the Clatsop County Jail cannot be maintained in a proper sanitary condition by the present personnel, it is the suggestion of this grand jury that a janitorial service be employed,” the report said.

Janitorial work in the jail is done by the sheriff’s department personnel and inmates.

75 years ago — 1949

Jack Joseph Ray is in the city jail awaiting a hearing on a charge that he used his “right hook” too freely on the city parking meters.

Police Chief C.M. Leding said Ray was arrested at about 4 a.m. Sunday when he was caught in the act of smashing the glass faces on city parking meters.

Ray’s right hand is amputated and he has a hook on his hand. He used the hook to smash at least 19 meters, Leding said.

Winter continued its costly show in Astoria and the vicinity this weekend, pulling off tricks that brought sleet, hail, snow and glaze and sent the temperature skidding down to 21 degrees Saturday night and to 27 degrees Sunday night.

If a dry dock is obtained for the new maritime commission reserve fleet basin here, it will be used only for cleaning and painting the bottoms of ships at periodic intervals to prevent rust and deterioration, according to Capt. E.E. Thorne, reserve fleet superintendent here.

Capt. Thorne said no repair program is contemplated.

“To perform repair work on the ships’ bottoms would require shops and cranes and facilities far more extensive than anything we are planning,” he said. “Right now, there are no bottom repairs needed, but if there were, we would send the ship to a yard.”

The National Male Quartet, which wowed Astorians for a second time at a concert Monday night, was hauled out of this area by ambulance.

Although the quartet sang a program of vigorous music, interlarded with numerous encores and repeats, the ambulance was not called into use because the quartet was exhausted.

It simply happened that the only transportation which the foursome and their accompanist could find to Kelso, Washington, was an ambulance.

Seaside is faced with a serious water supply problem, Councilman John Royce, chairman of the water committee, declared at the meeting of the City Council.

Royce said the 16-inch pipeline from the railroad wye, at the cemetery road north to the newly installed 24-inch pipeline that was just completed, is in bad condition. He said steps to eliminate the condition should be taken immediately.

Should a serious break occur in the old line the city would be without fire protection, he warned.

Washington state’s Legislature today was considering building a $300,000 highway from Megler to Knappton at the Columbia River mouth, opposite Astoria.

The road would link Megler directly with the Knappton-Astoria ferry and would be a two-lane thoroughfare, according to its co-sponsor, Rep. Chet King. He said the route already has been surveyed.

“There is no direct route now between the two cities,” King said, “but building the road will depend on whether the legislature adopts a 10 or 15-year road-building program.”

Train service between Astoria and Portland was cut for the second time in a week today when a runoff of floodwaters at Rocky Point, near Scappoose, inundated a small section of track.

Roy Baker, Astoria agent for the lines, said bus and truck service had been chartered to handle passengers, mail and baggage.

He said his reports from the area indicated that floodwaters were rising in Scappoose. He didn’t know how long it would be before rail service was restored.