Astoria
People lived in two Astorias on Wednesday. On the east side of town, there was power. That meant traffic signals, refrigerators, grocery stories and functioning gas pumps.
But on the west end, the lights were still out and shops remained closed. As the sun set on Youngs Bay, the outline of the unlit Astoria Megler Bridge stretching into Washington began to blend into the dusk.
Even as the pumps came to life at a 76 station on the eastern edge of town, gas was being rationed. A line of vehicles stretched for blocks on U.S. 30.
"We can only do $20 max for each customer," said attendant John Bowie Jr., adding that the next gas tanker wasn't expected to roll into town until Thursday. "We'll keep pumping until it's dry today."
With U.S. 26 to Portland closed during the day, westbound traffic on 30 extended form one side of town to the other.
State officials who had seen the damage around Astoria from a helicopter earlier in the day said it appeared that one of every five roofs in Astoria had been torn away by the storm.
The road to the Astoria Column overlooking the city remained blocked late Wednesday by tangled power lines and the remnants of massive firs, which looked as if they had been dropped from the sky.
A block from the "Road Closed" sign, Jan Nybakke, a retired school teacher, raked limbs from the street in front of her hillside house. The winds had uprooted eight trees on her property, each leaving a hole big enough to hold a car.
"I've experienced tornadoes in Indiana," Nybakke said. "But they were nothing like this. Tornadoes come and go. This cookie hung around for two days and left a mess everywhere."
-- Joseph Rose
Bay City
The Rev. David Hurd cast his eyes toward the heavens Wednesday afternoon. Rain had just begun to spit on his small town north of Tillamook, which meant it was time to throw tarps over the gaping hole in Bay City United Methodist Church, where he is pastor.
In the throes of the storm early Monday morning, wind had pushed the steeple clean off the church.
Utility workers noticed that the 129-mph gust that hit Bay City at 1:11 a.m. Monday had loosened the steeple. It swayed in the wind until about 4:30 a.m., when a lesser gust cut the steeple off the church as easily as an arborist might prune a tree limb.
Wednesday, it still lay in a heap of lumber, shingles and roofing at the corner of Fifth and D Streets.
With its double-ceiling construction, the sanctuary of the quaint white church built in 1893 survived the steeple blowout without any leaks.
"It's weathered a lot of storms," Hurd said, "but not this one."
Outside the church, the readerboard said: "A church is not a building. A church is not a steeple. The church is the people."
-- Katy Muldoon
Salem
Even without damage estimates in hand, Gov. Ted Kulongoski jump-started the federal disaster aid process Wednesday with a formal request to President Bush.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, whose state sustained massive disruption and damage from the storms, will wait for cost estimates from counties before submitting her request.
Kulongoski says Oregon needs help fixing roads, clearing debris and assisting 58,000 households without heat or power. A presidential disaster declaration will pave the way for federal money and waivers to help with cleanup and other costs.
"We cannot let red tape keep us from getting people the immediate help they need," Kulongoski said.
Gregoire said this week she expects storm-related damages to be in the billions of dollars. Kyle Herman, a spokesman for the Washington state Emergency Management Division, said he expects the governor to send her federal disaster aid request once counties report their losses.
"It's hard to really assess the damage when there's still water" on the ground, he said.
Oregon received federal money last year for damage caused by severe winter rains in December 2005 and January 2006. The state and counties also received disaster aid for snow storms in 2003-04.
-- Janie Har
Lincoln City
Mike Barnes, manager of the Price N Pride, figures his business lost at least $20,000 in fresh meat and another $3,000 worth of ice cream during the power outage of the past three days. And he hasn't even begun to tally up the losses to thieves who snuck off with goods as the store operated in the dark. But Barnes knows it could be worse.
One mile up the highway, Grocery Outlet remains dark, its doors closed, as workers toil to clean up the mess left when the roof collapsed. Manager Bill Browning was outside the store Sunday night.
"I was waiting in my car, basically looking for looters," he said.
About 5 a.m. Monday morning, he stepped inside and found part of the ceiling had collapsed under the weight of water that had accumulated when winds blew the tar paper from the roof and rain soaked into the insulation.
Now, they must drain masses of insulation sagging with the weight of gallons of water. After that, about 1,000 to 1,500 square feet of roof and insulation will have to be replaced before Grocery Outlet can open its doors, but Browning still found the bright side.
During last year's December storm, the store was without power for 36 hours and lost thousands of dollars of product. This year, Browning was ready for the outage.
"I drove to Portland and bought 700 pounds of dry ice, and then another 500 pounds, and I ordered freezer truck for out back. Produce-wise, we fared much better than last year. Most our product is safe," he said.
-- Lori Tobias
Manzanita
Chung and Judy Lee had to do something with the food in the refrigerated shelves and freezers of Manzanita Grocery and Deli.
With power gone, enough meat, produce and juice to feed their town looked certain to spoil. So, the Lees fed their town. Rather than throw out the food, the store's owners donated it to a community barbecue, where residents of the seaside village could gather to talk and eat in the storm's aftermath.
"It was heartbreaking to lose so much," said Judy Lee, "but look at all of the good spirit, laughter and community bonding that has happened."
A few feet away, about 50 people from as far away as Nehalam and Seaside congregated Wednesday afternoon around gas grills set up in the Pine Grove Community Club's parking lot. A few neighbors volunteered to spend the day wearing aprons, frying up chicken and hot dogs. Someone ladled chowder and stew into paper bowls.
Most of the people in line for lunch said they had plenty food in their pantries at home, but were happy for an opportunity to talk with their neighbors.
Finishing a hot dog, Jerry Vellutini walked to a donation can. "I came to help donate to Chung and Judy's generator fund."
The Lees said they have a generator, but it wasn't powerful enough to keep the refrigerators and freezer running. "We've lost about $30,000 in sales and food," said Chung Lee. "But I love seeing my community come together like this."
-- Joseph Rose
Northern coast
Oregon's northern coast reconnected to the outside world late Wednesday as residents were again able to make and receive long-distance phone calls on land lines and cell phones.
Communities from Astoria to Manzanita had been limited to calls within their region after floods and mudslides breached a major fiber-optic line in several places around Westport.
Repairs were repeatedly delayed as Qwest Communications International Inc. worked to locate breaks and fix the line. The outage also disrupted cell phone service and 9-1-1 emergency calls.
Qwest spent Monday locating three problem sites with the line, then all day Tuesday making repairs. It had anticipated restoring service late Tuesday night, but discovered a fourth break that had gone unnoticed where a tree had fallen through a roadway.
"We were just overwhelmed by the conditions," said Qwest spokesman Bob Gravely.
A pressurized gas line at that fourth break delayed repairs much of Wednesday, until state inspectors gave Qwest the go-ahead, Gravely said.
Service to other parts of the coast was back online Tuesday.
In weather-beaten Vernonia, Verizon Communications restored phone service to most of the town on Wednesday afternoon, a week ahead of the company's forecast.
Phone technicians who worked in chest-deep water to try and save Verizon's switching office Monday failed to keep the floodwaters out, but the phone company said the workers limited the damage. That smoothed the way for quick repairs Tuesday and Wednesday, though about a quarter of Vernonia's phones weren't working as of Wednesday night.
-- Mike Rogoway
Columbia River Bar
Two coastal weather buoys ripped from their seabed moorings during high winds Monday have stopped their wanderings and run aground, National Weather Service officials said Wednesday.
One, which had been anchored to the seabed off the Columbia River Bar, ran aground Tuesday on the central coast, north of Queets, Wash.
A second, which broke free Monday from its mooring at Stonewall Banks west of Newport, aalso ran aground Tuesday. In this case, it came to rest (and stopped transmitting data) south of the Columbia River Bar on the Oregon Coast.
Bill Schneider, science and operations officer for the weather service, said crews will retrieve the buoys -- which could explode due to the buildup of hydrogen -- but they won't be returned to their previous locations until early next year. The cost of the buoys' mooring systems is $150,000 apiece, he said.
-- Stuart Tomlinson
Cape Meares Refuge
They survived battering winds for three centuries, but Sunday's storm proved too much for much of the old-growth forest at the 138-acre Cape Meares Refuge.
The loss of numerous old Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlocks is particularly disheartening, said Roy Lowe, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, because there is so little as it is, he said.
"If we had a large tract of land, this would be a natural recycling process, but we are working with a postage stamp pieces of habitat right now and when it is gone, it is gone."
The forest is habitat for bald eagles and marbled murrelets that will have now have to find new habitat. But that may prove difficult, he said. "There's just not a lot of this habitat left anywhere."
-- Lori Tobias
Coastal mountains
In addition to landslides, washed-out bridges and damaged roads, Oregon's coastal forests suffered heavy damage in the storm.
Jeff Foreman, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said there was heavy "windthrow" -- when entire sections of forest mowed down -- in the Bay City and God's Valley sections of the Tillamook State Forest. In addition, the Edwards Creek Bridge on the South Fork Trask River is gone, as is the Salmonberry Bridge.
Officials on state forest land in the Forest Grove district said numerous roads, bridges and bridge abutments were destroyed or undermined by flood waters, and many culverts had failed. Foreman said storm damage there was greater than the damage suffered in the 1996 floods, and that flood levels were higher than had ever been seen before.
Many of the structures that failed were designed for a 100-year event, state officials said.
-- Stuart Tomlinson
Stub Stewart State Park
L.L. Stub Stewart State Park, on Oregon 47 near Vernonia, escaped damage in the storm and has become a base for emergency crews, said Chris Havel, a spokesman for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.
Parks officials expect some trees down on the 21-mile Banks-Vernonia Trail, which winds through the park, but they haven't finished inspecting it, Havel said.
About 100 inmates are staying in tents in an unopened campground in the park, while the staff supervising them are staying in eight of the park's cabins.
In addition, parks officials have let Vernonia residents know that campsites and potable water are available to them and a few have taken them up on the offer, Havel said.
-- Kathleen Gorman
Garibaldi
Greg Iseri stood back and watched Wednesday afternoon as a backhoe began to dig out the wreckage of a 50-foot-by-80-foot building he used for storage at the end of the Garibaldi Marina pier. Monday morning's wind had flattened it -- along with the motors, fuel tanks, spare parts and several fishing boats inside.
"It's the worst I've seen in 44 years here," said Iseri, who owns Greg's Marine on U.S. 101.
Behind him, Tillamook Bay at low tide looked like a super-sized lumber yard, with thousands of logs lined up along the mudflats and floating in the chocolate-brown bay, where not a breath of wind ruffled the glassy water.
In the marina, a handful of sportfishing boats had sunk or capsized in the storm. Three generations of the Burdick family -- all first-named Ken -- worked through the chilly afternoon to secure the eldest Burdick's fishing boat to its slip. The boat's mossy bottom faced skyward, its transom submerged.
Elsewhere in town, residents sat huddled around outdoor fire pits. Garibaldi still had no power Wednesday and it was cold enough to see your breath escape in puffs of white vapor.
Iseri said he had no idea what the dollar value of his wrecked storage building was, but as the backhoe worked, he snapped photos to send to his insurance company.
"Thank goodness," he said, "this wasn't my main business."
-- Katy Muldoon
Tillamook
Bernice Stephenson is a World War II veteran, a fisherwoman, a cyclist, a Volkswaker, a cancer survivor and a widow. Now, she's beat a flood and says she's not about to let the aftermath of mud and mold beat her.
Wednesday, 83-year-old Stephenson gathered belongings and took a stab at clean-up. Her trailer flooded Monday morning when churning brown water swept through the Wilson River RV Park near Tillamook. The same trailer park took a heavy hit in floods last winter, but many residents chose to remain. Stephenson moved there in March; firemen evacuated her in the throes of the storm early Monday.
Inside her trailer, lace curtains hung white as snow. A china plate bearing the message, "God bless our trailer home" was clean as a whistle, too. But below, pretty patterned rugs were soaked with water and a garden gnome in a corner of her living room looked like he needed a bath. The place reeked with the dank post-flood smell common this week at the coast.
"I like the fishing and the clamming," said Stephenson, who had moved into the trailer park in March.
Stephenson enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944; after the war, she worked with the military as an electrical engineer, retiring in 1966. Since, she's traveled and fished from Mexico to Alaska and beyond. This week's flood, she said, might be the push she needs to hit the road again.
"Anyway," said Stephenson, her black boots, sweatpants and rain jacket all caked in mud, "I'll make it."
-- Katy Muldoon