Thursday
Clallam clams closed
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State halts shellfish harvest over biotoxin rise A5
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS May 12, 2016 | 75¢
Port Townsend-Jefferson County’s Daily Newspaper
PT focuses on disaster preparation
elting Mspot
Meeting tonight eyes residential checklists BY ARWYN RICE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT TOWNSEND — City residents can learn more about what they can do for themselves in case of a major disaster during a meeting tonight at the Port Townsend Library. The emergency preparedness meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. to help people prepare themselves, their families and neighborhoods. The meeting will be led by City Manager David Timmons, who will provide a checklist of things people need to have ready and pro- Timmons vide information on what the city will do in case of a catastrophic emergency, said Rachel Aronowitz, associate librarian at the library. “It is about disasters that are more likely to happen here and what to do after it happens, what first steps you can take,” Aronowitz said. The low elevation of Port Townsend makes the city particularly susceptible to tsunamis, she said. Aronowitz noted that Lords Lake, the city’s water supply, became very low during a record drought in 2015. The Pacific Northwest went through a series of serious fires in 2015 that threatened several communities in Washington state, burned more than a million acres and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses. Floods hit Jefferson County in 2015, resulting in homes and roads damaged along the Duckabush and Dosewallips rivers. This year, much of the West Coast is preparing for the Cascadia Rising earthquake drill June 7-10, which will simulate emergency response to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake off the Oregon coast in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The zone is a 700-mile fault line that runs parallel to the coast from Northern California to Vancouver Island, which last produced a major earthquake in the year 1700. When it breaks, it is expected to produce an earthquake and tsunami similar to those experienced in Japan in 2011. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is the only significant section of the “Ring of Fire” of connected faults around the Pacific Ocean that has not had significant activity in the past 50 years.
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Snow on Klahhane Ridge in Olympic National Park south of Port Angeles is melting faster than normal because of warmer-than-normal conditions so far this spring. SNOTEL is an automated system of snowpack and related climate sensors operated by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Spring temperatures reducing snowpack levels at record rates BY ARWYN RICE
report, he said. Pattee said with the early end to rain and snowfall, and with the remaining snowpack runoff expected to be exhausted by midsummer, water supplies should be fine through July, but there could be water shortages in some areas in August and September. The effects are not expected to be anywhere near the record snow drought that impacted the region in the summer of 2015, he said. The winter of 2014-15 produced the lowest snowpack on record when the mountain snow fell as rain and ran off before the summer peak water-use season. Lower-than-normal river flows and higher-than-average water temperatures damaged some salmon runs during last summer and autumn. Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency in May 2015, and by midsummer, several North Olympic Peninsula communities, agricultural users and businesses were put on voluntary or mandatory water-use restrictions.
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Record-high spring temperatures could trigger mild drought late this summer and raise the chances of another serious fire year in 2016, according to experts monitoring the region’s snowpack. “The whole Pacific Northwest [snowpack] is melting at record rates,” said Scott Pattee, Natural Resources Conservation Service water supply specialist. Spring temperatures averaging 6.4 degrees above normal are causing the snowpacks in the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges to melt at accelerated rates, Pattee said. Additionally, spring rains seems to have slowed down months ahead of schedule, he said. Snowpack runoff for May through September is expected to be 75 percent of normal for rivers with sources in the Olympic Mountains — considerably less than the 99 percent of normal that was predicted in the April 1 outlook
Dry conditions persisted through the summer, and some water-use restrictions remained in place through October. A wet fall and a snow-heavy early winter helped restore groundwater levels and build early snowpack.
Rainfall tapers Mike McFarland, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Seattle, said that after a wet winter, it has been a very dry spring. Olympic Peninsula locations received about one-half to one-quarter of the normal rainfall in March, and there has been almost no rain so far in May, McFarland said. On May 3, the Weather Service’s weather stations at Quillayute Airport measured seven-tenths of an inch of rain, Port Angeles’ official measurement showed nine-hundredths of an inch and the Quimper Peninsula got “drips and drabs,” adding up to three-hundredths of an inch, he said. TURN
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Carriers pick up and deliver for food banks Forks, PA collections planned BY ARWYN RICE PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Food donations can be made without leaving home Saturday during the 24th annual Letter Carriers’ Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. During the nation’s largest one-day food drive, U.S. Postal Service mail carriers will collect food across the Peninsula — except for Sequim. “Sequim does theirs one week later. That’s how big the Irrigation Festival is here,” said Jessica Hernandez, executive director of the Port Angeles Food Bank and a countywide organizer of commu-
Your Peninsula
nity food programs. Mail carriers are leaving reminder cards and donation bags in mailboxes this week for residents to fill with nonperishable food, which goes directly to local food banks. Donations left in or beside the mailbox will be collected by letter carriers during their regular rounds in Port Angeles, Forks and Port Townsend. When carriers are loaded down with food, other post office employees will meet them to take the food a distribution point, said Jeff Goodall, a Port Townsend postal clerk who has helped with the
drive in the past. “It’s a lot of food,” Goodall said. Other Jefferson County post offices are not taking part in the collection. Randy Swenson, donation coordinator for Olympic Community Action Programs, said food collected in Port Townsend-area ZIP codes will be distributed primarily to the Port Townsend Food Bank, but other Jefferson County food banks also will receive some of the wealth. On Saturday only, donations to food banks can also be made by check, written out to the food bank of the donor’s choice and left in an envelope in the mailbox marked “Postal Carrier.” TURN
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Craig Golden of the U.S. Postal Service, left, puts his collection of dry goods picked up during the Stamp Out Hunger food drive into his delivery truck last May at 12th and Peabody streets in Port Angeles. Donations left in or beside mailboxes will be collected during regular rounds in Port Angeles, Forks and Port Townsend.
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