August 9, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of Our Community, host Candice Michel speaks with Wes Bruning about disaster preparedness in Curry County and the broader Cascadia region. They discuss the unique risks the area faces and introduce his upcoming Cascadia Strong radio show which will focus on strategies for disaster readiness. The conversation highlights the importance of local […]
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Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Hi. I'm Candice Michelle, and this is our
community.
You know, we live in one of the
most beautiful spots in the world.
We have everything right here. The Pacific Ocean
with both sandy and rocky beaches,
pristine clean rivers for fishing and kayaking.
(00:32):
I mean, there's nothing like drifting down the
Checo.
Magnificent redwoods and wilderness areas
almost within walking distance.
Our air and water are clean, our climate
is mild, and our population
is small.
It's a little slice of heaven, and I'm
not planning on leaving until they carry me
(00:54):
out feet first.
But as with anywhere,
there are natural disaster possibilities.
We don't get hurricanes or tornadoes
yet,
thank goodness,
but we are perched on a couple of
fault lines in the Earth's plate.
And they are constantly shifting,
(01:14):
except when they aren't. And then the pressure
builds up along the fault line as the
two plates that are next to each other
try to get past each other, or one
tries to go underneath
or tries to go on top,
and everything suddenly breaks loose, and the plates
shutter.
That's an earthquake.
And we do get some here.
(01:36):
Normally, they're small enough that we don't even
feel them,
but the one that happened just off the
coast of Russia a few days ago was
a big one.
It was
8.8,
I believe,
and there was some damage.
The whole topic
of disaster preparedness and recovering
from natural disasters
(01:58):
is a subject that my next guest is
very interested in.
I'd like to welcome Wes Bruning to the
show. Hi, Wes. How are you doing? Good,
Candace. Thank you very much. I'm doing quite
well. Thank you. It's great to have you
here, and we are having a beautiful day
today. It is a gorgeous day today. And
we sometimes
don't get as much sunshine as we're getting
(02:19):
today. I'm just saying. It's
been, in in fact, it has been so
foggy
that in my yard,
one of my trees has mold on the
leaves. Oh, my goodness. I know, right? Well,
maybe the wind will blow it off. It's
been pretty windy. It's been
extremely windy.
And and I keep trying because I'm I'm
(02:40):
about one lot back from the bluff. I'm
very close to you, actually. You you're probably
getting more wind than I am. You get
a lot of wind. Yes. So I've I've
been trying to plant
intelligently.
Mhmm. So I plant things that
will grow up and hopefully shield me from
those crazy north winds when they come in
(03:00):
in the winter.
And really, mostly what's happening is that the
wind has just beaten the crap out of
everything.
It's like,
okay, that didn't work out too well. There's
no stopping the wind. When it comes, it
comes.
And boy, does it come down sometimes. And
I noticed that my hydrangeas
seem to be doing okay. They seem to
withstand the wind fairly well,
(03:23):
but,
yeah. Some of the other stuff is just
like. Our biggest threat, beyond the natural disasters
is the deer. The deer just devastate everything.
Okay. I have a fence. You have a
fence. That's a good idea. I'm just saying.
Got protection from something. Exactly. I've been here
since 02/2004,
(03:43):
and I love to garden, I love to
plant. Well, that's that's the reality. I love
to plant. Mhmm. I don't plan ahead really
well in terms of how much space
they're gonna take up when they get big.
I, yeah, I'm just, I don't plan well.
But I love to plant,
and I recognized
(04:04):
right off the bat that if I was
going to have any plants at all in
my yard, I had to have a fence
that the deer
were not going to breach. Mhmm. And so
I do,
and so I have all kinds of things
that actually grow in my yard. That's impressive.
Yes. It absolutely is. And I recommend
I recommend a fence if you have anything
(04:27):
that you actually want protected. You don't have
to fence the whole yard, but, you know,
like a
a space, particularly if you've got fruit trees
or something like that. I look at it
as we're nourishing the wildlife.
Absolutely. Somebody's gotta feed the poor animals. I
absolutely agree. Step forward and help that out.
My wife and I both do. I just
love that. Yeah. And I do feed them
you know, my apple tree usually produces
(04:50):
10 times more apples. Love apples. Yeah. Yeah.
So I just I pick them up from
the ground when they fall or whatever and
put them out in the front of my
house, by the driveway,
and I notice after a few days they're
gone. Yes, they do that.
So, Wes,
tell me a little bit about yourself.
Who are you and what have you done
(05:13):
in your life and
how did you find Brookings?
Well, we've been down My wife and I
have been down here just a little over
three years now. Okay. We moved down from
Oregon City, up near Portland.
K. I don't know where Oregon City is.
Just about twenty, thirty minutes south of Portland.
Okay. Yep. K. And, well, Oregon City has
a history. It used to be the, the
(05:35):
seat of government for the entire Northwest.
As a matter of fact, the plat map
for San Francisco
was filed in or the courthouse in Oregon
City. Okay. I'm shocked. Yep. That's a surprising
event.
Wow. So it's been around a long time.
It has.
Well,
Hudson Bay Company had their office there in
(05:56):
Wow.
John McLaughlin had his house in Oregon City.
Unbelievable. So yeah. Yeah.
So is it still a big
place or has it kind of decreased in
Yeah. It's kinda decreased inside. Yeah. It's just
there's no border between it and the next,
municipality
Right. Store. Right. It's one
(06:16):
continuous line of houses. Yeah. So we moved
up there in '77. I moved up to
'77
from San Diego.
Oh, where were you in San Diego?
Well, I lived in La Mesa. Yeah. And
a couple places. I was going to San
Diego State University. Mhmm. Got a master, a
mechanical engineering degree there. Yeah. Excellent. And then
came out to work for Tektronix in 1977.
(06:38):
Excellent. So I was an engineer for them.
Yeah.
I I lived in San Diego in
the seventies. I think I left
kind of '76,
'77, something like that. San Diego was gorgeous
back in the seventies. It was incredible.
The first time I got there was '67.
Oh. And,
it must have been heaven on earth. I
(06:59):
got there just at the tail end
of no smog, no crowds. Yep. And I
just it was just incredible. Yes. So
so I left in '69, went in the
army, and then, got back in about '65,
I guess,
and then, '75, excuse me, '75,
then graduated in '77.
(07:19):
So were you in the army for all
those years? For three of them. Yeah. Yeah.
Three of them. And you were in the
army. I was. Were you in Vietnam? I
was, yes. How how did you find that
lovely experience?
I'd say I didn't find it. It found
me, actually.
Lovely. Well, that's the eyes and lovelies in
(07:41):
the eye of the beholder. Exactly.
I didn't have it all that bad.
There were guys a lot worse than me
that have you up there. I used to
watch those fellows come back from long term,
long range patrol. Mhmm. And they were some
of the sorriest looking fellows I've ever seen
in a while. They've been out there for
a month slogging around in the jungles. Mhmm.
(08:01):
Oh, my gosh. That was terrible. And it's
such a completely different environment
from
anything that we have here. Oh, yes. The
jungles are amazing. Yes. They're terrible. So you
have no clue. You you get dropped into
a jungle. It's like you've never been in
a jungle before. Mhmm.
Yeah. No. Yeah.
(08:22):
So, yeah. So I was actually in a
pretty I was in army intelligence, military intelligence.
So I wasn't out
slogging around in the jungles myself.
And so I'd get reports from what was
going on out there and
then I'd
do it. I was what was called a,
analyst.
(08:42):
Mhmm. So we analyzed
order of battle. Yep. Where the units are,
the enemy is, and what kind of strengths
they have, what are they doing. Right. All
that sort of thing. So it's quite an
interesting job. Yeah, I bet it was. Did
that for a year. Yeah,
yeah. So you came back? I did. There's
only about, I just did some research on
this not too long ago that of all
the guys that served on the ground in
(09:03):
Vietnam,
about 3,000,000 of us, thereabouts,
there's only about 300,000
left, about 10% left.
Yeah? Wow. Ninety percent of us are dead.
Wow.
Due to Agent Orange or who knows what.
Yep.
Yeah. Yeah, because,
I mean, blah. The chemicals and
(09:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Not great. And plus which it
it could not have been
fun, you know? So, I mean,
the stress must have just been.
Right. Yes. It was. You'd get to take
the random rocket or mortar or something, you
know, which but, you know, I used to
teach up at Clackamas College up in, the
(09:45):
Oregon City area.
And I, after
desert storm, a number of the soldiers came
back. There was a unit in Tigard, a
fairly large unit in Tigard, and the soldiers
came back from desert storm. And I had
someone in my class. It was interesting.
And I'd asked him, I said, you know,
I see the, on television,
you know, you guys have, you know, full
uniforms on,
(10:06):
you know, and you're out there in the
heat. And I'm saying, and when I was
in Vietnam, we were stripping down where our
skivvies just about because it was hotter and
blazes and a humid. I said, how do
you do that? And he said, well, it
wasn't easy. You know, they carried water on
their backs with what they call a camel
and they'd suck water all day. But the
interesting thing that I learned about that was
that they had a high,
number of heart problems with the felt coming
(10:28):
back. I bet. And I said, why might
that be? He says, well, he says, the
heart, while you're over there, you're constantly pumping
adrenaline
through your body because you're in urban warfare.
And he says, you're constantly pumping adrenaline and
that adrenaline is very bad for your heart.
So a lot of those guys came back
had heart problems because of that. Wow.
So a little bit of a difference here.
(10:50):
Yep, not great. And Afghanistan,
that's pretty
dry heat, isn't it? Well, I guess so.
I haven't been there. But, yeah, certainly in
Vietnam we had a wet heat. Yes. It
was very humid. And that's far worse as
far as I'm concerned. I grew up back
east,
and
that was the kind of heat we had,
was wet,
muggy heat. Ninety ninety degrees and 90%. Exactly.
(11:13):
And there, I my brain just
switches off. Mhmm. You know, it gets to
a certain point and I can feel it
cooking. Mhmm. And it just says, no. I'm
So that's why Brookings is so good. Oh,
I know. It's heaven out here. It is
amazing, isn't it? Truly. I mean, wow. So,
okay. So you came you get got an
engineering degree? I did. Mhmm. And
(11:35):
what what were you doing? What kind of
work was that? Well, I worked for Tektronix.
Now Tektronix was a electrical instrument instrumentation company.
Okay. Oscilloscopes in particular,
as well as other instrumentation.
But I was a mechanical engineer.
So I did a lot of work on,
building the cases for instrumentation.
We actually had a computer line. We made
(11:56):
PCs. Tektronix was one of the first PC
companies in the world. I thought that sounded
familiar. Yeah. We had a desktop PC long
before the IBM PC came out. Wow. At
fortyfifty.
Wow. That's amazing. It is.
And,
so I went for work with them. And
I eventually ended up in the inkjet
area. I helped develop the inkjets for printers.
(12:18):
Good for you. Many years ago. Yeah. And
you have a patent? I do. I have
a patent on inkjets,
from Tektronix. So they owned a patent,
and I got to keep my job. Which
is just the best. Which is a good
thing. I know.
I'll take that. Thank you very much. Absolutely.
So, so that was an interesting thing to
get a patent, on inkjets. Yeah. It's kind
(12:40):
of exciting. Because they're still happening, aren't they?
They are. And not to inkjets have come
so far from what we were doing way
back then. We had eight colors.
Eight? We had eight colors. Yeah. Cyan, magenta,
cyan, magenta, and yellow. And then you had
red, green, and blue. Then you had black
and a white. Wow. Eight colors.
Wow. And we thought it was just fantastic.
(13:01):
Look at this. I mean, all we had
to print out. Well, it was, it was
better than black and white. Black and white.
And then we'd sit around and say, what's
anybody ever gonna do with with a color
inkjet printer? Why would you ever want color?
Yeah. Why would you? Why would you ever
use that?
Oh my gosh. Little did we know.
Isn't it funny? I mean, I I think
about this all the time that
(13:21):
where we started out in our lives, I
mean,
when I was born in 1950,
I don't think there was television yet. I
don't think
television
happened
in terms of, you know, being in people's
homes until
I think I was about four. Mhmm. So
(13:41):
and and I distinctly recall that I used
to go downstairs
when I was a little girl, and we
had a fishbowl on top of the TV
with usually a Goldfish or two in it,
and I thought I was doing the Goldfish
a real
solid. I would take it out of the
fishbowl
and go sit down and let it watch
TV with me.
(14:03):
My mother
kept saying,
well, because eventually I'd put it back in
the fishbowl, right, because
it wasn't moving anymore,
and my mother would say to me,
why are the fish dying? Can't understand that.
I can't understand.
It's like, I don't know either. I don't
(14:23):
know. I'm I'm kind with them. I know.
Yeah. The things we don't know. Indeed. Indeed.
The things we don't know. They come back
and bite you. I know. They really do.
So you got interested in patents as well.
I did. And,
as I got a I had a patent
and with the patent, the actual patent document,
(14:45):
there is a drawing, a line drawing, just
black and white ink.
And,
so I started looking into that and I
found a book that had a bunch of
famous patents in it and patents by famous
people.
And it had these beautiful drawings.
So there's some draftsman, you know, back in
a back room,
(15:06):
cranking out these gorgeous pen and ink drawings.
Wow. And nobody ever sees them.
And, so I said,
I like this. Mhmm. So I started doing
some research on it and found out there's
a lot of famous people who have patents,
interesting enough, that you wouldn't think about. I
actually talked about this on
Doc and Jock show Yeah. A week or
so ago. So name me a couple of
(15:27):
famous ones that I wouldn't know anything about.
Well, Abraham Lincoln has a patent. On what?
Well, when he was a young man,
as a young lawyer, he traveled up and
down the rivers,
Ohio and the others,
and the steamboats, the river boats, would, run
under the sandbar in the river. Right. So
in order to get the boat off the
(15:47):
sandbar, they'd have to unload all the cargo
Oh, no. Float it up Oh, no. Get
it off the sandbar, and then load the
cargo back on. What We'd take a day
or two. That's so pain. That'd be a
big job. Yeah. So what he developed was
a couple of pontoons
that you could put on either side of
the boat and inflate them and lower them
into the water and lift the boat up
with more buoyancy
(16:07):
and float off the
He was a smart guy. He was a
pretty smart guy. Wow. Now, it never went
anywhere.
It never was commercially adopted. Yeah. It's too
bad. But he made it.
But he handmade a model of it and
it's in the Smithsonian Institute. You can see
it when you go back easy sometime. Wow.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
(16:28):
I'll tell you another one was Hedy Lamarr.
You remember her? I do. Movie star. Yes,
absolutely.
Well, she was more than just a good
looking woman. She had brains.
She used to say that all a girl
has to do to look glamorous is to
stand there and look stupid.
That was in one of her sayings. That's
awful.
But she developed,
(16:49):
what's in your cell phone right now today.
She developed part of it. She developed technology
for that. She did. She developed frequency hopping.
And that's a method of encrypting or encoding
your transmissions
by changing the frequency that you're broadcasting on.
And so it was used
as a guidance system in a Mark four
torpedo in World War two.
(17:09):
Unbelievable.
Edna Lamar of all people. Yeah. Wow.
And she was gorgeous. She was. Yeah. She
did more than stand there and look stupid.
Yeah. Yeah. Nice that she had a really
good brain too. That's nice.
Wow.
Okay. So
let's talk a little bit about you coming
to Brookings.
What what brought you here? Total accident.
(17:33):
I love that. My wife did actually. Yes.
Uh-huh. We were we were camping up there
at Harris Beach in an RV. Mhmm. And
my wife said, well, let's go ride around
Brookings to see what it's like. I said,
okay. Fine. So we hop in the car,
we're riding around. She goes, oh, let's go
in the neighborhoods and see what they're like.
Okay, fine. So we're driving around neighborhoods. Oh,
look, there's a house for sale. Let's go
see what that looks like.
So we ended up buying it. Wow. And
(17:55):
when was that?
January three years ago. Wow. Wow.
I almost bought that house. Did you now?
Yes. Well, actually, probably about 80% of towns
walked through it Mhmm. At one time or
another. Mhmm. Because everybody we talked to said,
oh, we looked at that house. Mhmm.
As I recall, and because we moved here
in 2004
(18:16):
Mhmm. And it was on the market,
but
I think the realtor said that the roof
wasn't
was gonna have to be replaced or something,
and my husband just wanted to be able
to move right in and not have to,
you know, do major work. Mhmm. So we
Well, that was the least of the problems.
Oh. Yeah. We had a lot of work
to do on it before we could even
(18:37):
move in. I
saw a lot of the work being done
because I'm, like, four houses away from you.
Yes. That's right. So I'm watching all the
work and I'm thinking, oh my
goodness. That's what I said. Oh my goodness.
Wow.
Wow. But it's a beautiful location. Oh, it's
a gorgeous location. Yes. Yes. Do you sit
and, like, watch the birds all the time?
(18:59):
I have a large part of my life
that's involved in that. Yep. Keep track of
the seagulls and the penguin or the pelicans
and I mean, I'm glad that I don't
have that view because I would get nothing
done. Very little does get done with me.
Now, my wife is very industrious. She's That's
great. One of us has to be. Right?
Somebody has to be. Yeah. Exactly. I keep
track of the seagulls. Yeah. Now, she feeds
(19:20):
the seagulls. Does she? That she can call
them. Oh. She calls them. She gives them
entrance calls when they come and Oh. Fly
around, and she gives them bread. Oh, that's
just great. It is. And you've done a
lot with that property too, just in terms
of the landscaping.
Little by little. Yeah. It's all attributed to
her work. Looks great. She's very good at
that. Looks great. Do you have any idea
(19:41):
who cut the trees down?
Like, who owns that lot, Daniel? They,
there's a couple an older folks back in
Kansas, I Right. Actually owned a lot. Right.
And, actually, I cut I had the trees
cut down. Did you? Yeah. They were threatening.
They were. I was quite sure that one
of those branches was gonna come flying into
my yard. One of those branches did come
(20:02):
down. Did it? And, it was shortly after
that that I contacted them and said we
got a problem here. Yep. Yep. Then they
were agreeable that we'd take them out. Yep.
Now it looks so much better. Oh, it's
so nice. Yeah. No. It's gorgeous.
Okay. So you're in Brookings and
you get inspired
to
do something about
disaster preparedness?
(20:24):
Indeed. Indeed, I did. Talk to me about
that. Well, it's something that I've been interested
in for quite some time.
When I was in Oregon City, I had,
solar panels.
We were pretty much off grid. Mhmm. We
were connected to the grid, but we could
operate outside the grid. Mhmm. And, just
concerned about just security
(20:44):
and what happens when everything falls apart.
Which it will. And you live through it.
Yeah. That sort of thing. Right. So we
moved to Brookings here, and, we're somewhat at
risk.
Somewhat? Somewhat at risk,
indeed.
You mean because we're sitting astride
the
Cascadia Fault? That could well have something to
(21:06):
do with it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And indeed
we are.
So, yeah, we're at risk for that. We're
at risk for the winds we talked about
earlier. Absolutely. Fires that we were talking about
earlier that just three three or four years
ago, we had fires almost coming over the
hill. Yes.
We're fairly
isolated.
Yep. So if we do have a serious
problem,
(21:26):
we're one of the last people to be
addressed by any aid, you know, government aid.
You have to want to get to Brookings.
Get to Brookings. Really bad. You know? It's
not like you're, yeah, you're not gonna stumble
across it. Absolutely.
And we've got exactly one road
going in and out of our fair city.
(21:47):
And then a bridge on each end. Exactly.
Yeah. I mean, how does that work?
Well, it works good so long as you're
still standing. Yes.
Yes.
But in the event that it's not standing,
it's we're we're in a bit of a
pitfall. Yes. Mhmm. We are. Yeah.
So along those lines then, I started we're
(22:08):
about to start a radio show
just like this one that we're talking about
now. Love it. Yeah. And it's called the
Cascade
Strong
radio talk show. Perfect.
So Cascadia, excuse me, Cascadia Strong.
And the idea is Cascadia is the Northwest
Coast area.
So you're looking
at Southern all the Oregon Coast, Washington Coast
(22:31):
up into British Columbia and maybe even Northern
California.
But as a this area has special risk
associated with it. You mentioned the Cascadia Fault.
Indeed, that's out there. Yep. And not far
out there. From what I understand, it's, you
know,
it's right out there. Not very far. No.
Yeah. So,
(22:53):
we're
those who know these things say that we're
due for another major earthquake.
Now, I've been hearing that ever since I
was a kid,
which is not that long ago. Okay.
Yes, it is. It was centuries ago.
Thank you very much. Yeah. Just a minute.
Well, listen. You're probably about my age, so
I'm just sitting.
So,
(23:13):
really?
You've been hearing about that since you were?
Oh, yeah. When I left Virginia when I
was 19 years old,
my mother would tell me, now California's gonna
break off and fall in the ocean. Everybody
knows that. Exactly. It was San Andreas, you
know? Yes. Now, she didn't know anything about
the Cascadia. No. But San Andreas was certainly
gonna California was gonna No. I got I
got the same thing from my family too.
(23:34):
Yeah. So it's all it's all part of
the same idea. Mhmm. Even though they're named
different folds. Yep. Probably
associate with each other somehow. Yep. But, we're
at risk here with the Cascadia Fault as
well as in our isolation, as well as
fires,
which we experienced recently,
earthquakes, tsunamis, the whole ball of wax. You
drive up and down the coast, you see
(23:55):
tsunami signs. Yep.
You are entering.
You know? Tsunami's over. You are finally leaving.
When you're leaving. Yes. I know. Exactly.
And were were you aware when that first
tsunami warning
went back in March, I think it was?
So
everything broke down. I mean, they they didn't
(24:16):
have nothing worked the way it was supposed
to work. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I
had Jeff Hughes, who's the emergency manager up
at the county
come on the show and talk a little
bit about Mhmm. What their,
you know, protocol is and
preparations and stuff like that. And I noticed
(24:37):
that
the tsunami warning that we got,
when was it, a few days ago,
worked much better. I mean, I I was
I was on a a Zoom call, and
my phone was blowing up. I just, you
know, and these were the notifications from the
sheriff's department
that we were
(24:57):
under an advisory for a tsunami. Mhmm. And,
obviously, the earthquake was
off of Russia, so it was gonna take
hours for it to get the tsunami to
get here, but
but better we have some warning than than
none.
That's one of the good things about the
tsunami is we generally have, I believe, some
(25:18):
time. Yep. Now, in some cases, like if
the Cascadia
happens, we've got like ten or fifteen minutes.
Yeah. But if it comes across from Japan,
we've got hours. Yep. So that's that's kind
of a nice thing. Whereas in an earthquake,
it happens right now. Yep. You have really
no warning whatsoever.
Yep. And they are saying that
(25:38):
the big one
for the Cascadia Fault,
happens
every
three hundred years or so,
and it's been a while. It's been a
little over three hundred years. Yeah, we're overdue.
But, you know, in the meantime, while we're
anxiously anticipating that,
(25:58):
we have other things to deal with as
well, like forest fires. Yeah. Exactly.
And
so the whole idea of the Cascadia
Strong Radio talk show is to look at
preparing.
See, my philosophy is I've got two basic
fundamentals that I'm working off of. One is,
(26:20):
the idea that
if you know something is coming
and it's unavoidable
and you don't prepare for it, you're really
not thinking too well.
Yeah.
And I got to admit that some of
us don't think too well. Well,
Well, I think one of the problems is
that it's such a huge thing. Be prodded.
(26:41):
It's just such a huge thing. It is.
That it's better to avoid it. So we
just kinda pack it away and say someday,
you know? And who knows? Like I said,
I've been hearing about this since I was
a kid. Yep. So that's not gonna happen
tomorrow. Right. So what the heck? Right. So,
you can look at it that way. So
the thing of it is if you just
put your head in the sand
and think, oh, it won't happen to me,
(27:02):
that's not a good idea.
Not a good idea because it just might
happen. It just might happen. Yeah.
So, you know,
when I think about it along those lines
is that the
cascade
rupture happening in the next couple hours, the
probability is virtually zero.
But the cascade rupturing
in the next thirty
(27:23):
years, rupturing in the next thirty years
is extremely high.
So every day that it doesn't, the probability
of it occurring just gets a little tiny
bit more.
Because it's gonna happen, we just don't know
when.
The other thing that guides me
is that
knowledge
and preparation,
(27:44):
tend to eliminate fear. Mhmm.
Yeah, because you know what you're gonna do.
We know what we're gonna do. Exactly right.
So in preparing for these things, even though
they're almost mind boggling, you know, you don't
wanna deal with them. But you buy car
insurance. You don't wanna be in a car
wreck. Right. But you buy insurance just in
case. Right?
And Homeowner's insurance. I mean Oh, that's Exactly.
(28:05):
So the idea of of preparing now
in anticipation of this happening, hopefully it won't,
maybe it would be wasted money. That'd be
nice, wasted effort. That's wonderful. Mhmm. But to
not have done something and then have it
occur,
you say, gee, I wish I woulda. Yeah,
exactly. You're kicking yourself. Yes. Exactly. And that's
not a good position. So in
(28:27):
preparing, we can develop confidence. We have a
plan.
We, we can kind of face it with
less,
without fear, put it that way. Right. Maybe
some anxiety, but certainly, we know what we're
doing. Right. And, that's the whole idea. Those
two things are kind of what guides me.
So I'm I'm assuming you're gonna have lots
of guests on your show to to talk
(28:49):
about their various areas of expertise. Well, not
only that, but also, we have a lot
of people in this town that have been
through through stuff. Yeah.
I know two families in town that were
burned out
five years ago.
Their houses were destroyed and they lost everything.
Here in town? Here in town. Yeah. So
the Checo Bar Fire up there? Well, it
(29:11):
was in they were they were living in
Southern Oregon at the time. Okay.
And Yeah. We had lots of fires. Mhmm.
Yeah. And their their houses were destroyed. Yep.
So we have people that have lived through
the the forest fires. We've had,
there's a a couple in town
that, the woman was in the,
the Northridge earthquake Oh, yeah. California. A huge
(29:32):
one. Yes.
I can remember that. Yeah. The freeways fell
down and everything. Yep. She was there for
that. Wow. We'll talk to her Yeah. Excellent.
About that. I know there's a paradise survivor
here. I there's probably a lot of paradise
fires Mhmm. Survivors
here. But I ran into her the other
day, and, yep, she lost everything. That was
Theresa.
(29:53):
Yeah. It's just
awful. So they'll be on the show. Good.
Yeah. We'll be talking with them. Great. And
the idea is to say, okay, and there's
another couple as well. And the idea is
to say, okay,
you knew this was coming.
How was it? What happened? You know? And
kinda get a view of the disaster through
their eyes because they experienced it. And then
(30:14):
how'd they recover?
How's life been since? You lose everything.
So how do you start over again? I
don't come back from something like that. And
what kind of emotional turmoil did you experience?
And then have have a psychiatrist
or psychologist on the show talking about how
you deal with trauma. Yep. Yep. So that's
part of it as well. Yep. That's excellent.
(30:35):
Yeah. So there's gonna be a lot of,
human experience. Mhmm. We're gonna talk to people
about what what preparation have we done. Mhmm.
It's example. If you have if you require
medication
and all of a sudden now we're isolated
for some reason, how are you going to
get your meds?
What is Fred Meyer doing to help prepare
for this thing that we know are coming?
(30:56):
Yes. The pharmacy companies.
What about the electric company? What have they
done? Yep. What about the water company? Yep.
What are they doing to help us deal
with this? Because you're three days without water,
you're done for. Yep. So there there's a
every time you you take one aspect of
this and you poke at it a bit,
it just fractures into
five or six more topics. Yeah. It does.
(31:19):
It's huge. I know. And that's one reason
people say, I'm not gonna deal with that.
Yeah. Because
it feels like it's so big. It's just
so big. But there are things that we
can do to start.
Small things we can do to start step
by step Mhmm. Preparing for whatever's headed our
way.
Hopefully, it never we never use them. Right.
But to not do something, to not start
(31:40):
doing something
is just sticking our head in the sand.
And I I kinda think that,
in
the last six months, we've had two tsunami
warnings,
and that's a lot. Mhmm. We don't usually
get two
in six months. I mean, if we get
one every four or five years, that's a
(32:01):
lot.
So
and and I have heard that the whole
ring of fire is very active right now.
And that's all the way that big circle
all the way to Russia and back.
So,
yeah. I mean, I I think it's
more likely than not
(32:22):
that we're gonna see something,
and
we need to be prepared in some way,
shape, or form, I would think. One thing
that I've been very interested in, or very
excited to hear, was there are organizations
in place
that have been preparing for this for quite
a while. Yeah. So we're not alone in
(32:42):
this. People have been thinking about this. Organizations
have been thinking about it, been stockpiling food
and water and
tents and survival gear and that sort of
thing that,
may be available and able to get to
us fairly quickly if it's indeed required. And
the Red Cross is, like, number one on
that list.
I had Karen
Johnson
Dagenet in here for the,
(33:04):
for an interview as well, and she's Red
Cross. And she was telling me about all
these stashes that they have of, you know,
equipment and food and stuff like that.
And Red Cross,
they know what they're doing, you know? Emergency
hits and they are on the ground, like,
immediately.
Because they've been through it a million times.
(33:25):
I mean, I think Karen is in Texas
right now helping with
the flood stuff. So,
it's, yeah. Well, I hope they have Karen
on the show. Yeah, she's great. And she's
actually, her specialty is the, the psychological trauma.
Yeah.
So that's That'll help. Definitely be talking to
her about that, you know. Yeah. Definitely. Because
PTSD is a real thing. It's a very
(33:46):
real thing. And if you've been through,
like, let's say a wildfire,
like some of those people from Paradise
or
the people who live on top of Gardner
Ridge
when the Checo Bar Fire was coming down.
I mean, they could see that fire coming,
and
a couple of them lost some structures.
(34:07):
Mhmm. I mean, it's just like
Yeah. So
there is a whole aspect of,
you know, you see the smoke in the
air, you smell the smoke, and
suddenly
it brings it all back up again, and,
you know, you're reliving the trauma. And,
you know, I I have a friend who
lives up on Gardner Ridge, and and her
(34:29):
son,
was pretty young when the Checo Bar fire
was coming, and they had to they had
to get out of there,
And they were
they couldn't go down the regular road because
that was closed off. And, I mean, it
it turned into a real thing, and and
for several years afterwards Mhmm. You know, he
(34:50):
was he was traumatized if he saw smoke
in the air or,
you know.
I was talking with a
fellow the other day who
was talking to another fellow. Now you're getting
this hearsay,
so third hand. But unless he was talking
to this fellow and his wife was pretty
much a recluse in the house.
And the fellow asked him,
(35:10):
What's the matter? Why is your wife so
traumatized?
Well, she was in a severe earthquake
and a lot of her china
fell out of the china cabinet and crashed
and broke.
And it was China that had come across
on the Oregon Trail
with her grandmother, great great grandmother.
And that just totally
(35:32):
devastated her that she had lost those family
heirlooms. They were so precious to her. Yeah.
So it you never know what's gonna
affect how people are gonna be affected by
various things. No. That's right. You know? That's
right. And so these these things do have
a psychological effect on us.
So
I was thinking about neighborhoods
because,
(35:53):
I mean, I I'm sure that
there is some kind of,
area wide plan,
although I haven't seen it.
So you never know.
But neighborhoods are gonna be really important
because,
(36:13):
I mean, I was thinking about this the
other day, if if all of us in
our neighborhood, we get the
the call that you, you know, gotta head
for the hills because the huge tsunami's coming,
we're all gonna be on that same road
trying to head for higher ground.
We're not gonna make it. I mean, we're
we're gonna be in a a parking lot.
(36:34):
It'll be it'll be a traffic jam. Well,
yeah. If you try to drive, I think
that'll probably be the case. Yeah. So you're
gonna hoof it. That's right. Well You grab
your go bag. My husband doesn't walk. Well,
we have a problem there. We have a
problem. And that's where the neighborhood thing comes
into place because I think you're right, Candace.
The neighborhoods,
are going to be the,
the answer to this whole thing. Mhmm.
(36:57):
That people helping people and knowing who
the recluses are Yes. The shut ins Yes.
The old people that can't are mobile. Yep.
You know, those people. And and having a
plan to care for them Yes. Help them
in whatever manner they need help
is essential to this whole thing. As you
said, we're fairly isolated here. One way in,
(37:18):
one way out.
And
help isn't nearby.
So we're all we got.
So neighborhood
organization
is key.
So what I'd like to see and hopefully
what comes out of this radio effort
is that
we organize
neighborhood by neighborhood. That could be a couple
of streets.
(37:39):
And so when something does come,
we know each other. Yes. We have a
plan. Right. So and so is responsible for
this, so and so is responsible for that.
We grab it. We put it together. Right.
And we help each other out. Yeah. I
mean, it it's really the only thing that
makes sense, you know, because I I was
thinking about this the other day. It's like,
alright. So
(38:00):
we get a tsunami warning, and I've got
maybe fifteen minutes.
I can't get my husband
physically
into the car in fifteen minutes.
He walks with a walker, he's extremely
slow, and that's assuming he's even awake.
And in addition to getting my husband, I
(38:21):
have to get my dog.
So, like,
I I, you know, yeah, I'm I'm not
seeing a high percentage of success
Mhmm. For that if I have to do
it by myself. Sure. Sure. If I have
help, yeah. Sure. Then I can probably
manage it. And some one or two people
come over and help you do that and
it happens really quickly. Yep. Yep. And I'm
(38:43):
sure that there are people who have kids
in the neighborhood and, you know, somebody should
round up the kids and make sure that
the kids are all, you know, taken care
of and they're not running loose and, you
know. Mhmm.
And everybody's
got pets.
I mean,
everybody has dogs,
a lot of dogs. So, you know, there's
(39:03):
there's a lot there's a lot to think
about, there's a lot to plan for.
Every time you poke at something, you find
five more subtopics
Yep. That expose themselves. Exactly.
There is this organization
that KCIW
belongs to, it's called the
Curry County
Community
Organizations
(39:24):
Active in Disaster.
It's a COAD.
And evidently, COADs are a thing
that a lot of places have COADs
because
you can't just leave it up to your
government officials. Mhmm. They
don't have the time. They
they just can't
(39:44):
focus on just that.
And community organizations
have a much bigger reach. You know, we
have people that we know that we can
help organize.
One of the women who is actually acting
as the,
the executive director right now is also in
charge of
(40:06):
animals.
So
large animal evacuation
because
the we got lots of ranches around here,
and those horses and cows
need to be evacuated if what we've got
is
a a fire coming across those hills.
So it's it's it's so complex.
(40:28):
When I was in Oregon City well, we
moved down here, like I say, a little
over three years ago,
and we were in Oregon City,
during the big fires that like everyone was
here in Oregon.
And, I remember going to, a local shopping
center, which wasn't too far away from my
place,
and the whole parking lot was full of
horses,
(40:48):
sheep, goats,
people had brought all their animals in from
the farms and now they were in the
parking lot. And now you got to get
them water, you got to get them food,
You gotta take care of their poop. Yep.
You know, all that stuff. Which is gonna
be a lot. Which is gonna be a
lot. Yes. Well fertilized parking lot. Yeah. Well
fertilized parking lot. Yeah. Absolutely. So, there they
were. And where are you gonna go? What
are you gonna do? You know, you got
(41:10):
50 head of cows or No. Or something.
Exactly. Exactly. So it's it's a huge deal,
and, we've talked about it before. And evacuated,
you know, I I had a friend who
was
living, a friend and her husband who were
living up off of Carpenterville,
and
they were evacuated twice
from their home.
And both times they came to me because
(41:32):
I was close and, you know, I have
an empty bedroom.
But it's it's
so jarring
to have your entire life just suddenly
like a box of pickup sticks thrown up
in the air, and,
you know, you've you've got five minutes to
collect your valuables
(41:52):
and get in the car and get out
of there or the cops are gonna chase
you out. So,
you know, it's
One of the, one of the couples we'll
be talking with had fifteen minutes to evacuate
and then their fire their house was actually
burned to the ground. Oh, god. They had
aluminum,
boat in the driveway and the boat melted.
(42:13):
Oh. It was a pile of molten aluminum
when they came back. It was so hot.
The fellow said the only thing left were
the
of his motorcycle, the only thing left of
his motorcycle
were the piston rings. Wow.
I can't imagine that. I can't either. But
that was the case. Horrific.
I remember the Checo Bar fire,
(42:35):
when it blew up, which was on a
Friday, I think.
And
it had evidently been a a lightning strike
that had happened way in the backcountry,
a month before,
and
just kind of smoldered,
you know, did a little bit of traveling,
but not not big.
(42:56):
And they figured
that
it would burn itself out,
but it wouldn't make it very far.
And then I think we had
some Chetco winds,
and
it blew up,
and traveled
miles
in a day, just miles.
(43:18):
And I remember looking at the sky, I
was doing an interview with somebody, and I
happened to look out the window,
and the sky had been kind of normal
when I went in, but now it was
yellow,
and that hazy
kind of,
you know,
and I thought, Wow,
we're in trouble?
We were in trouble, because that's close.
(43:41):
And it came within five miles
of town.
Well, in Oregon City,
again, just several years ago, the air was
yellow, just as you described. We were evacuated.
And I talked to the fire marshal later,
and he said, oh, the fire was 22
miles away.
I go, That's pretty good. 22 miles is
good. He said, It was moving at 22
miles an hour.
(44:04):
We were one hour
from being engulfed with the flames. So, hence,
we were all evacuated.
So the fire can move incredibly fast. Yeah,
it really can. It really can. Well, it
jumped the Columbia River. You remember the Gold
Fire? Yes. I do remember that. No one
ever thought it would jump the Columbia River.
But sure enough, the fire that was started
by a couple of kids on the Oregon
(44:24):
side jumped over and set fires on the
Washington side. And when you look at what
happened in LA,
because I had several friends who were still
living in LA,
those fires
were they they were virtually unstoppable.
They had be
become so big and so hot
(44:45):
and ferocious, and the winds were blowing.
I think they said that, you know, at
one point they were seventy, eighty mile an
hour winds
that were fueling
that, and they were
what they call the Santa Anas there, which
is the same as our Chetco Mhmm. Effect,
when the winds are blowing down the canyon
(45:07):
and bringing hot air with them. It's just
yeah. It's appalling. It is. Appalling, and there's
no way to fight it. No way. I
mean, there's not enough water
to put the fire out. There just isn't.
Well, the problem is we got a lot
of water right over there. Yeah. And we
just can't get it where the fire is.
(45:27):
Right. I mean, there's a lot of water
in the ocean, but it's salt. I'm not
sure
I'm not sure what salt water would do
to a fire. You can put it out.
Do you think? I think so. I don't
know.
Maybe there's something about salt that it doesn't
I don't know. We'll find out. I guess.
We'll get some firefighters in, and we'll talk
to them about that very thing. And that
would be great. That would be great. Mhmm.
(45:50):
I've gone over to the valley several times
since
the fire that we had, I guess, two,
three years ago.
And, you know, you you drive through the
tunnel,
and
this
moonscape
landscape is on the other side, where
just everything was burned. It's just, it's
(46:15):
Yeah.
So So that's gonna be what we're gonna
talk about. I've got about 30 episodes to
find.
Mhmm. Wow, you're
doing it.
Been getting it together here. I am so
impressed. That is excellent.
When do you
foresee
this starting? Well, it's the August
(46:35):
right now. I'm thinking September.
Great. Yeah, early September. Hopefully, we'll do our
first show. That's great. Excellent.
There are a lot of people in this
community who know a lot.
Exactly. And I'd really like to,
have some of them,
those who have lived through disasters Yep. As
well as have disaster training and experience. I'd
(46:57):
love to
have them on the show. Yep. So if
they could contact
me through
either the radio station here
or through email,
and the email is
cascadiastrongradio@gmail.com.
That's cascadia,
(47:18):
cascadia,radioshow@gmail.com.
And email me and let me know you
exist and you in what you know.
We'll get in contact and see if we
can work something out. That'd be wonderful.
Yeah. There are there are quite a few
people here who who have some Mhmm. And
(47:38):
and there are people who are
so like the food bank, for instance. I
mean, that's a that's a critical
piece
because not only do they have food supplies,
but they know a lot of the people
who need food. So, you know, it's it's
it's really a nice
thing to have neighbors the way we have
(48:01):
neighbors. Indeed. Yeah. And if something big happens
and we are isolated, we're gonna be here
for a while. Yep. I mean, it's not
gonna be a matter of a day or
two. It's gonna be weeks, if not months,
that we're gonna have to,
become good friends.
And
I was told by someone that
the reality
is that
they may not be able to get to
(48:22):
us
except by ship.
Helicopter.
Depending on
I mean, yes.
Although, I would think the helicopters will be
being used
somewhere else.
Well, you know, the government,
FEMA, if it's still there Yep. Or whatever
government agency comes out of FEMA, however that
(48:43):
works,
they're gonna be consumed with Seattle, Portland, San
Francisco, Los Angeles. Absolutely.
And Brookings
is not high enough for your list. No.
I mean, we've got 6,200
people, 6,500
people, you know? We're
not big,
but
those of us who live here think we're
important. Oh, we're we are. Absolutely. We suck
(49:06):
over it
now.
But it but it's clearly gonna be up
to us to Truly. You know, get things
in place.
And I think that a show like yours,
Wes, is
if for no other reason,
to have
the information
available
on,
(49:26):
like, a weekly basis where
we're hearing it, we're hearing
what the possibilities are, we're hearing what there
is to do about it, where it's
brought up in our minds so that we
are thinking about it.
I think that will
probably give some
(49:47):
a little gentle nudge to some of us
who
are dragging our feet
because
because it seems so enormous. Mhmm. The task
seems so enormous. Indeed. And
it's so fearful and it can be so
fearful. They just say, I don't wanna deal
with it. Yeah. Exactly. But as we address
it and you take it step by step,
piece by piece Yep. And you start getting
(50:10):
your handles, getting your arms around it Yep.
And
the fear dissipates. Yep. Yep.
Yeah. I'm I'm worried about the bridges.
You know?
I mean, we could probably swim across the
TEFCO if we absolutely had to. So we
could probably get from Brookings to Harbor if
we had to. But there's no going
(50:32):
across
that bridge that's north of us. I mean,
300 and something feet. That's the highest
they say it's the highest bridge in The
United States or something. Or at least in
Oregon. Uh-huh. It's like, Yeah, I don't think
so. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, the one
ninety nine, you know, going from here,
all the cliffs and Oh, yeah. With the
(50:54):
the road goes along the edge of the
No. The gorge there. No. That's probably gonna
be gone. I mean, it's not a safe
road to begin with. Okay? Some of us
some of us have a little bit of,
like, okay, I gotta go on one ninety
nine,
I won't drive that road at night. I
lost two two tires on that road No.
At night. Oh, no. Due to a landslide,
(51:14):
I hit broken
shale, lacerated two tires. Not one, but two.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. My daughter and her husband
were coming over for Christmas,
and they always they come down from British
Columbia, but they so they come down five
and and cut over on 199.
And,
it was one of those
(51:36):
trips where and if anything bad could happen,
it did.
So in in addition to my
my grandson somehow
getting himself wrapped up in his seat belt,
and and he was at least 12 or
13 at this point. So how he did
that,
one doesn't know, but he couldn't get out.
(51:59):
He had wrapped himself up in the seat
belt. So, anyway, they had to seek firefighter
help to get to get him out of
his seat belt. They had to cut it.
But in addition to that, as they were
coming over 1 99,
there was a rock slide right in front
of him. Mhmm. You know? Missed them. Thank
goodness. Mhmm. But, yeah, been
(52:20):
Well, my experience, it was a nighttime,
and it was just about a mile,
east of,
Patrick Creek Mhmm.
And right on the cliff there. Oh. I
lost two tires Oh. Both front and back
and on the driver's side.
So I pulled forward a little ways and
found a little turn off in the road.
Right. Sitting there in the middle of the
night, waiting for the AAA guy to come,
(52:42):
just waiting for big Bigfoot to come down
and push me over the ledge.
Say hi to Bigfoot for me to do
some. Yeah. Hell, I would do that. Yes.
So were you coming
towards us or going away from us? Coming
towards us? Yeah. Midwest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And there's not a lot of room
on those roads.
I mean, you know, you're lucky if you
can find a turnout,
(53:03):
But yeah. Fortunately, I was only doing about
35 miles an hour. Yeah. Wasn't going fast
at all, but it was enough to take
care of the tires. Oh my god. $1,200
later, Gillette Schwab. You gotta replace all four
of them. Oh, god. You gotta replace just
two. No.
Oh, that's awful. Yeah. It was. That was
terrible.
So, who do you think is gonna be
your
first guest?
(53:25):
Well, that's a good question.
You know, well, first off, Ray Simon is
gonna be doing this with me. Ray is
usually one of our technicians here in the
sound technician. So he's going to be co
hosting. Great. Yep.
Great. So early on, we're going to be
kind of just,
doing the general thing, you know, looking at
what kind of organizations are available.
(53:46):
And you've mentioned a couple of them and,
a couple of the people there.
And then we're going to,
talk about making a plan,
a disaster plan.
How do you make a go bag? What
should be in it? How do you prepare
for the longer term?
Then we'll eventually look at
(54:06):
talking to people about their fire experiences and
earthquake experiences
and their personal trauma that they went through.
Yep. Talk about the emotional
support. Yep. And,
what's available there. And then, we're gonna talk
about how do you get water.
Yeah. What do you do for food? Yes.
What do you do for communications?
Mhmm. The ham radio operators are gonna be
(54:27):
invaluable. Yes, they are. With all the cell
towers, it's gonna be insane. Yep, absolutely.
And with any luck,
radio
will be able to
This station right here should be a good
source. With any luck. Right? It's all gonna
be powered. Backup generators
and, you know, yeah, exactly. With any luck
at all. BCIW should be a good source
of information. Yep. I'm I'm hoping Crescent City
(54:50):
to Yep.
Gold Beach. Yeah. And I I
thanks to Tom, who's the tech person
extraordinaire here. Sitting right there. Sitting right there.
Yes.
He
showed me how I can break into
the broadcast
from home on my computer. Mhmm. So when
(55:11):
we were in the tsunami advisory
the other day,
about 10:00 at night, I broke in and
said that, you know, we're in an advisory,
don't go down to the beach, don't, you
know, blah blah blah. And interestingly, like, when
I came back into the station the the
next day,
two people had heard me do that, And
they said, oh, I'm so glad you did
(55:32):
that because it had relieved my anxiety.
So
I hate to tell you this, but we
are almost out of time. Oh my. I
know. It happens It happens so quick. Really
fast.
So give your contact information
again, if you will, Wes. Alright. The email
would be,
cascadiastrongradio@gmail.com.
(55:55):
It's all one word. Those three words are
all one word. It's c a s c
a d I a, Cascadiastrongradio@Gmail.com.
K. Thank you so much. Well, thank you.
And thanks for doing this because
we need our awareness
level brought up.
We need to increase our awareness and our
(56:17):
preparedness. Indeed. And I I plan on learning
a lot and preparing as well. Good. Good.
Thank you. And thank you for tuning in.
You know, we never know when the next
disaster is gonna hit. It could be an
earthquake, tsunami,
or a wildfire.
We have exactly one road into and out
of our community,
which is 10 1. We all need to
(56:39):
be prepared.
I'm Candice Michelle,
and this is our community.
Hi. I'm Candice Michelle, and this is our
community.
You know, we live in one of the
most beautiful spots in the world.
We have everything right here. The Pacific Ocean
with both sandy and rocky beaches,
pristine clean rivers for fishing and kayaking.
(00:32):
I mean, there's nothing like drifting down the
Checo.
Magnificent redwoods and wilderness areas
almost within walking distance.
Our air and water are clean, our climate
is mild, and our population
is small.
It's a little slice of heaven, and I'm
not planning on leaving until they carry me
(00:54):
out feet first.
But as with anywhere,
there are natural disaster possibilities.
We don't get hurricanes or tornadoes
yet,
thank goodness,
but we are perched on a couple of
fault lines in the Earth's plate.
And they are constantly shifting,
(01:14):
except when they aren't. And then the pressure
builds up along the fault line as the
two plates that are next to each other
try to get past each other, or one
tries to go underneath
or tries to go on top,
and everything suddenly breaks loose, and the plates
shutter.
That's an earthquake.
And we do get some here.
(01:36):
Normally, they're small enough that we don't even
feel them,
but the one that happened just off the
coast of Russia a few days ago was
a big one.
It was
8.8,
I believe,
and there was some damage.
The whole topic
of disaster preparedness and recovering
from natural disasters
(01:58):
is a subject that my next guest is
very interested in.
I'd like to welcome Wes Bruning to the
show. Hi, Wes. How are you doing? Good,
Candace. Thank you very much. I'm doing quite
well. Thank you. It's great to have you
here, and we are having a beautiful day
today. It is a gorgeous day today. And
we sometimes
don't get as much sunshine as we're getting
(02:19):
today. I'm just saying. It's
been, in in fact, it has been so
foggy
that in my yard,
one of my trees has mold on the
leaves. Oh, my goodness. I know, right? Well,
maybe the wind will blow it off. It's
been pretty windy. It's been
extremely windy.
And and I keep trying because I'm I'm
(02:40):
about one lot back from the bluff. I'm
very close to you, actually. You you're probably
getting more wind than I am. You get
a lot of wind. Yes. So I've I've
been trying to plant
intelligently.
Mhmm. So I plant things that
will grow up and hopefully shield me from
those crazy north winds when they come in
(03:00):
in the winter.
And really, mostly what's happening is that the
wind has just beaten the crap out of
everything.
It's like,
okay, that didn't work out too well. There's
no stopping the wind. When it comes, it
comes.
And boy, does it come down sometimes. And
I noticed that my hydrangeas
seem to be doing okay. They seem to
withstand the wind fairly well,
(03:23):
but,
yeah. Some of the other stuff is just
like. Our biggest threat, beyond the natural disasters
is the deer. The deer just devastate everything.
Okay. I have a fence. You have a
fence. That's a good idea. I'm just saying.
Got protection from something. Exactly. I've been here
since 02/2004,
(03:43):
and I love to garden, I love to
plant. Well, that's that's the reality. I love
to plant. Mhmm. I don't plan ahead really
well in terms of how much space
they're gonna take up when they get big.
I, yeah, I'm just, I don't plan well.
But I love to plant,
and I recognized
(04:04):
right off the bat that if I was
going to have any plants at all in
my yard, I had to have a fence
that the deer
were not going to breach. Mhmm. And so
I do,
and so I have all kinds of things
that actually grow in my yard. That's impressive.
Yes. It absolutely is. And I recommend
I recommend a fence if you have anything
(04:27):
that you actually want protected. You don't have
to fence the whole yard, but, you know,
like a
a space, particularly if you've got fruit trees
or something like that. I look at it
as we're nourishing the wildlife.
Absolutely. Somebody's gotta feed the poor animals. I
absolutely agree. Step forward and help that out.
My wife and I both do. I just
love that. Yeah. And I do feed them
you know, my apple tree usually produces
(04:50):
10 times more apples. Love apples. Yeah. Yeah.
So I just I pick them up from
the ground when they fall or whatever and
put them out in the front of my
house, by the driveway,
and I notice after a few days they're
gone. Yes, they do that.
So, Wes,
tell me a little bit about yourself.
Who are you and what have you done
(05:13):
in your life and
how did you find Brookings?
Well, we've been down My wife and I
have been down here just a little over
three years now. Okay. We moved down from
Oregon City, up near Portland.
K. I don't know where Oregon City is.
Just about twenty, thirty minutes south of Portland.
Okay. Yep. K. And, well, Oregon City has
a history. It used to be the, the
(05:35):
seat of government for the entire Northwest.
As a matter of fact, the plat map
for San Francisco
was filed in or the courthouse in Oregon
City. Okay. I'm shocked. Yep. That's a surprising
event.
Wow. So it's been around a long time.
It has.
Well,
Hudson Bay Company had their office there in
(05:56):
Wow.
John McLaughlin had his house in Oregon City.
Unbelievable. So yeah. Yeah.
So is it still a big
place or has it kind of decreased in
Yeah. It's kinda decreased inside. Yeah. It's just
there's no border between it and the next,
municipality
Right. Store. Right. It's one
(06:16):
continuous line of houses. Yeah. So we moved
up there in '77. I moved up to
'77
from San Diego.
Oh, where were you in San Diego?
Well, I lived in La Mesa. Yeah. And
a couple places. I was going to San
Diego State University. Mhmm. Got a master, a
mechanical engineering degree there. Yeah. Excellent. And then
came out to work for Tektronix in 1977.
(06:38):
Excellent. So I was an engineer for them.
Yeah.
I I lived in San Diego in
the seventies. I think I left
kind of '76,
'77, something like that. San Diego was gorgeous
back in the seventies. It was incredible.
The first time I got there was '67.
Oh. And,
it must have been heaven on earth. I
(06:59):
got there just at the tail end
of no smog, no crowds. Yep. And I
just it was just incredible. Yes. So
so I left in '69, went in the
army, and then, got back in about '65,
I guess,
and then, '75, excuse me, '75,
then graduated in '77.
(07:19):
So were you in the army for all
those years? For three of them. Yeah. Yeah.
Three of them. And you were in the
army. I was. Were you in Vietnam? I
was, yes. How how did you find that
lovely experience?
I'd say I didn't find it. It found
me, actually.
Lovely. Well, that's the eyes and lovelies in
(07:41):
the eye of the beholder. Exactly.
I didn't have it all that bad.
There were guys a lot worse than me
that have you up there. I used to
watch those fellows come back from long term,
long range patrol. Mhmm. And they were some
of the sorriest looking fellows I've ever seen
in a while. They've been out there for
a month slogging around in the jungles. Mhmm.
(08:01):
Oh, my gosh. That was terrible. And it's
such a completely different environment
from
anything that we have here. Oh, yes. The
jungles are amazing. Yes. They're terrible. So you
have no clue. You you get dropped into
a jungle. It's like you've never been in
a jungle before. Mhmm.
Yeah. No. Yeah.
(08:22):
So, yeah. So I was actually in a
pretty I was in army intelligence, military intelligence.
So I wasn't out
slogging around in the jungles myself.
And so I'd get reports from what was
going on out there and
then I'd
do it. I was what was called a,
analyst.
(08:42):
Mhmm. So we analyzed
order of battle. Yep. Where the units are,
the enemy is, and what kind of strengths
they have, what are they doing. Right. All
that sort of thing. So it's quite an
interesting job. Yeah, I bet it was. Did
that for a year. Yeah,
yeah. So you came back? I did. There's
only about, I just did some research on
this not too long ago that of all
the guys that served on the ground in
(09:03):
Vietnam,
about 3,000,000 of us, thereabouts,
there's only about 300,000
left, about 10% left.
Yeah? Wow. Ninety percent of us are dead.
Wow.
Due to Agent Orange or who knows what.
Yep.
Yeah. Yeah, because,
I mean, blah. The chemicals and
(09:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Not great. And plus which it
it could not have been
fun, you know? So, I mean,
the stress must have just been.
Right. Yes. It was. You'd get to take
the random rocket or mortar or something, you
know, which but, you know, I used to
teach up at Clackamas College up in, the
(09:45):
Oregon City area.
And I, after
desert storm, a number of the soldiers came
back. There was a unit in Tigard, a
fairly large unit in Tigard, and the soldiers
came back from desert storm. And I had
someone in my class. It was interesting.
And I'd asked him, I said, you know,
I see the, on television,
you know, you guys have, you know, full
uniforms on,
(10:06):
you know, and you're out there in the
heat. And I'm saying, and when I was
in Vietnam, we were stripping down where our
skivvies just about because it was hotter and
blazes and a humid. I said, how do
you do that? And he said, well, it
wasn't easy. You know, they carried water on
their backs with what they call a camel
and they'd suck water all day. But the
interesting thing that I learned about that was
that they had a high,
number of heart problems with the felt coming
(10:28):
back. I bet. And I said, why might
that be? He says, well, he says, the
heart, while you're over there, you're constantly pumping
adrenaline
through your body because you're in urban warfare.
And he says, you're constantly pumping adrenaline and
that adrenaline is very bad for your heart.
So a lot of those guys came back
had heart problems because of that. Wow.
So a little bit of a difference here.
(10:50):
Yep, not great. And Afghanistan,
that's pretty
dry heat, isn't it? Well, I guess so.
I haven't been there. But, yeah, certainly in
Vietnam we had a wet heat. Yes. It
was very humid. And that's far worse as
far as I'm concerned. I grew up back
east,
and
that was the kind of heat we had,
was wet,
muggy heat. Ninety ninety degrees and 90%. Exactly.
(11:13):
And there, I my brain just
switches off. Mhmm. You know, it gets to
a certain point and I can feel it
cooking. Mhmm. And it just says, no. I'm
So that's why Brookings is so good. Oh,
I know. It's heaven out here. It is
amazing, isn't it? Truly. I mean, wow. So,
okay. So you came you get got an
engineering degree? I did. Mhmm. And
(11:35):
what what were you doing? What kind of
work was that? Well, I worked for Tektronix.
Now Tektronix was a electrical instrument instrumentation company.
Okay. Oscilloscopes in particular,
as well as other instrumentation.
But I was a mechanical engineer.
So I did a lot of work on,
building the cases for instrumentation.
We actually had a computer line. We made
(11:56):
PCs. Tektronix was one of the first PC
companies in the world. I thought that sounded
familiar. Yeah. We had a desktop PC long
before the IBM PC came out. Wow. At
fortyfifty.
Wow. That's amazing. It is.
And,
so I went for work with them. And
I eventually ended up in the inkjet
area. I helped develop the inkjets for printers.
(12:18):
Good for you. Many years ago. Yeah. And
you have a patent? I do. I have
a patent on inkjets,
from Tektronix. So they owned a patent,
and I got to keep my job. Which
is just the best. Which is a good
thing. I know.
I'll take that. Thank you very much. Absolutely.
So, so that was an interesting thing to
get a patent, on inkjets. Yeah. It's kind
(12:40):
of exciting. Because they're still happening, aren't they?
They are. And not to inkjets have come
so far from what we were doing way
back then. We had eight colors.
Eight? We had eight colors. Yeah. Cyan, magenta,
cyan, magenta, and yellow. And then you had
red, green, and blue. Then you had black
and a white. Wow. Eight colors.
Wow. And we thought it was just fantastic.
(13:01):
Look at this. I mean, all we had
to print out. Well, it was, it was
better than black and white. Black and white.
And then we'd sit around and say, what's
anybody ever gonna do with with a color
inkjet printer? Why would you ever want color?
Yeah. Why would you? Why would you ever
use that?
Oh my gosh. Little did we know.
Isn't it funny? I mean, I I think
about this all the time that
(13:21):
where we started out in our lives, I
mean,
when I was born in 1950,
I don't think there was television yet. I
don't think
television
happened
in terms of, you know, being in people's
homes until
I think I was about four. Mhmm. So
(13:41):
and and I distinctly recall that I used
to go downstairs
when I was a little girl, and we
had a fishbowl on top of the TV
with usually a Goldfish or two in it,
and I thought I was doing the Goldfish
a real
solid. I would take it out of the
fishbowl
and go sit down and let it watch
TV with me.
(14:03):
My mother
kept saying,
well, because eventually I'd put it back in
the fishbowl, right, because
it wasn't moving anymore,
and my mother would say to me,
why are the fish dying? Can't understand that.
I can't understand.
It's like, I don't know either. I don't
(14:23):
know. I'm I'm kind with them. I know.
Yeah. The things we don't know. Indeed. Indeed.
The things we don't know. They come back
and bite you. I know. They really do.
So you got interested in patents as well.
I did. And,
as I got a I had a patent
and with the patent, the actual patent document,
(14:45):
there is a drawing, a line drawing, just
black and white ink.
And,
so I started looking into that and I
found a book that had a bunch of
famous patents in it and patents by famous
people.
And it had these beautiful drawings.
So there's some draftsman, you know, back in
a back room,
(15:06):
cranking out these gorgeous pen and ink drawings.
Wow. And nobody ever sees them.
And, so I said,
I like this. Mhmm. So I started doing
some research on it and found out there's
a lot of famous people who have patents,
interesting enough, that you wouldn't think about. I
actually talked about this on
Doc and Jock show Yeah. A week or
so ago. So name me a couple of
(15:27):
famous ones that I wouldn't know anything about.
Well, Abraham Lincoln has a patent. On what?
Well, when he was a young man,
as a young lawyer, he traveled up and
down the rivers,
Ohio and the others,
and the steamboats, the river boats, would, run
under the sandbar in the river. Right. So
in order to get the boat off the
(15:47):
sandbar, they'd have to unload all the cargo
Oh, no. Float it up Oh, no. Get
it off the sandbar, and then load the
cargo back on. What We'd take a day
or two. That's so pain. That'd be a
big job. Yeah. So what he developed was
a couple of pontoons
that you could put on either side of
the boat and inflate them and lower them
into the water and lift the boat up
with more buoyancy
(16:07):
and float off the
He was a smart guy. He was a
pretty smart guy. Wow. Now, it never went
anywhere.
It never was commercially adopted. Yeah. It's too
bad. But he made it.
But he handmade a model of it and
it's in the Smithsonian Institute. You can see
it when you go back easy sometime. Wow.
Interesting.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
(16:28):
I'll tell you another one was Hedy Lamarr.
You remember her? I do. Movie star. Yes,
absolutely.
Well, she was more than just a good
looking woman. She had brains.
She used to say that all a girl
has to do to look glamorous is to
stand there and look stupid.
That was in one of her sayings. That's
awful.
But she developed,
(16:49):
what's in your cell phone right now today.
She developed part of it. She developed technology
for that. She did. She developed frequency hopping.
And that's a method of encrypting or encoding
your transmissions
by changing the frequency that you're broadcasting on.
And so it was used
as a guidance system in a Mark four
torpedo in World War two.
(17:09):
Unbelievable.
Edna Lamar of all people. Yeah. Wow.
And she was gorgeous. She was. Yeah. She
did more than stand there and look stupid.
Yeah. Yeah. Nice that she had a really
good brain too. That's nice.
Wow.
Okay. So
let's talk a little bit about you coming
to Brookings.
What what brought you here? Total accident.
(17:33):
I love that. My wife did actually. Yes.
Uh-huh. We were we were camping up there
at Harris Beach in an RV. Mhmm. And
my wife said, well, let's go ride around
Brookings to see what it's like. I said,
okay. Fine. So we hop in the car,
we're riding around. She goes, oh, let's go
in the neighborhoods and see what they're like.
Okay, fine. So we're driving around neighborhoods. Oh,
look, there's a house for sale. Let's go
see what that looks like.
So we ended up buying it. Wow. And
(17:55):
when was that?
January three years ago. Wow. Wow.
I almost bought that house. Did you now?
Yes. Well, actually, probably about 80% of towns
walked through it Mhmm. At one time or
another. Mhmm. Because everybody we talked to said,
oh, we looked at that house. Mhmm.
As I recall, and because we moved here
in 2004
(18:16):
Mhmm. And it was on the market,
but
I think the realtor said that the roof
wasn't
was gonna have to be replaced or something,
and my husband just wanted to be able
to move right in and not have to,
you know, do major work. Mhmm. So we
Well, that was the least of the problems.
Oh. Yeah. We had a lot of work
to do on it before we could even
(18:37):
move in. I
saw a lot of the work being done
because I'm, like, four houses away from you.
Yes. That's right. So I'm watching all the
work and I'm thinking, oh my
goodness. That's what I said. Oh my goodness.
Wow.
Wow. But it's a beautiful location. Oh, it's
a gorgeous location. Yes. Yes. Do you sit
and, like, watch the birds all the time?
(18:59):
I have a large part of my life
that's involved in that. Yep. Keep track of
the seagulls and the penguin or the pelicans
and I mean, I'm glad that I don't
have that view because I would get nothing
done. Very little does get done with me.
Now, my wife is very industrious. She's That's
great. One of us has to be. Right?
Somebody has to be. Yeah. Exactly. I keep
track of the seagulls. Yeah. Now, she feeds
(19:20):
the seagulls. Does she? That she can call
them. Oh. She calls them. She gives them
entrance calls when they come and Oh. Fly
around, and she gives them bread. Oh, that's
just great. It is. And you've done a
lot with that property too, just in terms
of the landscaping.
Little by little. Yeah. It's all attributed to
her work. Looks great. She's very good at
that. Looks great. Do you have any idea
(19:41):
who cut the trees down?
Like, who owns that lot, Daniel? They,
there's a couple an older folks back in
Kansas, I Right. Actually owned a lot. Right.
And, actually, I cut I had the trees
cut down. Did you? Yeah. They were threatening.
They were. I was quite sure that one
of those branches was gonna come flying into
my yard. One of those branches did come
(20:02):
down. Did it? And, it was shortly after
that that I contacted them and said we
got a problem here. Yep. Yep. Then they
were agreeable that we'd take them out. Yep.
Now it looks so much better. Oh, it's
so nice. Yeah. No. It's gorgeous.
Okay. So you're in Brookings and
you get inspired
to
do something about
disaster preparedness?
(20:24):
Indeed. Indeed, I did. Talk to me about
that. Well, it's something that I've been interested
in for quite some time.
When I was in Oregon City, I had,
solar panels.
We were pretty much off grid. Mhmm. We
were connected to the grid, but we could
operate outside the grid. Mhmm. And, just
concerned about just security
(20:44):
and what happens when everything falls apart.
Which it will. And you live through it.
Yeah. That sort of thing. Right. So we
moved to Brookings here, and, we're somewhat at
risk.
Somewhat? Somewhat at risk,
indeed.
You mean because we're sitting astride
the
Cascadia Fault? That could well have something to
(21:06):
do with it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And indeed
we are.
So, yeah, we're at risk for that. We're
at risk for the winds we talked about
earlier. Absolutely. Fires that we were talking about
earlier that just three three or four years
ago, we had fires almost coming over the
hill. Yes.
We're fairly
isolated.
Yep. So if we do have a serious
problem,
(21:26):
we're one of the last people to be
addressed by any aid, you know, government aid.
You have to want to get to Brookings.
Get to Brookings. Really bad. You know? It's
not like you're, yeah, you're not gonna stumble
across it. Absolutely.
And we've got exactly one road
going in and out of our fair city.
(21:47):
And then a bridge on each end. Exactly.
Yeah. I mean, how does that work?
Well, it works good so long as you're
still standing. Yes.
Yes.
But in the event that it's not standing,
it's we're we're in a bit of a
pitfall. Yes. Mhmm. We are. Yeah.
So along those lines then, I started we're
(22:08):
about to start a radio show
just like this one that we're talking about
now. Love it. Yeah. And it's called the
Cascade
Strong
radio talk show. Perfect.
So Cascadia, excuse me, Cascadia Strong.
And the idea is Cascadia is the Northwest
Coast area.
So you're looking
at Southern all the Oregon Coast, Washington Coast
(22:31):
up into British Columbia and maybe even Northern
California.
But as a this area has special risk
associated with it. You mentioned the Cascadia Fault.
Indeed, that's out there. Yep. And not far
out there. From what I understand, it's, you
know,
it's right out there. Not very far. No.
Yeah. So,
(22:53):
we're
those who know these things say that we're
due for another major earthquake.
Now, I've been hearing that ever since I
was a kid,
which is not that long ago. Okay.
Yes, it is. It was centuries ago.
Thank you very much. Yeah. Just a minute.
Well, listen. You're probably about my age, so
I'm just sitting.
So,
(23:13):
really?
You've been hearing about that since you were?
Oh, yeah. When I left Virginia when I
was 19 years old,
my mother would tell me, now California's gonna
break off and fall in the ocean. Everybody
knows that. Exactly. It was San Andreas, you
know? Yes. Now, she didn't know anything about
the Cascadia. No. But San Andreas was certainly
gonna California was gonna No. I got I
got the same thing from my family too.
(23:34):
Yeah. So it's all it's all part of
the same idea. Mhmm. Even though they're named
different folds. Yep. Probably
associate with each other somehow. Yep. But, we're
at risk here with the Cascadia Fault as
well as in our isolation, as well as
fires,
which we experienced recently,
earthquakes, tsunamis, the whole ball of wax. You
drive up and down the coast, you see
(23:55):
tsunami signs. Yep.
You are entering.
You know? Tsunami's over. You are finally leaving.
When you're leaving. Yes. I know. Exactly.
And were were you aware when that first
tsunami warning
went back in March, I think it was?
So
everything broke down. I mean, they they didn't
(24:16):
have nothing worked the way it was supposed
to work. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I
had Jeff Hughes, who's the emergency manager up
at the county
come on the show and talk a little
bit about Mhmm. What their,
you know, protocol is and
preparations and stuff like that. And I noticed
(24:37):
that
the tsunami warning that we got,
when was it, a few days ago,
worked much better. I mean, I I was
I was on a a Zoom call, and
my phone was blowing up. I just, you
know, and these were the notifications from the
sheriff's department
that we were
(24:57):
under an advisory for a tsunami. Mhmm. And,
obviously, the earthquake was
off of Russia, so it was gonna take
hours for it to get the tsunami to
get here, but
but better we have some warning than than
none.
That's one of the good things about the
tsunami is we generally have, I believe, some
(25:18):
time. Yep. Now, in some cases, like if
the Cascadia
happens, we've got like ten or fifteen minutes.
Yeah. But if it comes across from Japan,
we've got hours. Yep. So that's that's kind
of a nice thing. Whereas in an earthquake,
it happens right now. Yep. You have really
no warning whatsoever.
Yep. And they are saying that
(25:38):
the big one
for the Cascadia Fault,
happens
every
three hundred years or so,
and it's been a while. It's been a
little over three hundred years. Yeah, we're overdue.
But, you know, in the meantime, while we're
anxiously anticipating that,
(25:58):
we have other things to deal with as
well, like forest fires. Yeah. Exactly.
And
so the whole idea of the Cascadia
Strong Radio talk show is to look at
preparing.
See, my philosophy is I've got two basic
fundamentals that I'm working off of. One is,
(26:20):
the idea that
if you know something is coming
and it's unavoidable
and you don't prepare for it, you're really
not thinking too well.
Yeah.
And I got to admit that some of
us don't think too well. Well,
Well, I think one of the problems is
that it's such a huge thing. Be prodded.
(26:41):
It's just such a huge thing. It is.
That it's better to avoid it. So we
just kinda pack it away and say someday,
you know? And who knows? Like I said,
I've been hearing about this since I was
a kid. Yep. So that's not gonna happen
tomorrow. Right. So what the heck? Right. So,
you can look at it that way. So
the thing of it is if you just
put your head in the sand
and think, oh, it won't happen to me,
(27:02):
that's not a good idea.
Not a good idea because it just might
happen. It just might happen. Yeah.
So, you know,
when I think about it along those lines
is that the
cascade
rupture happening in the next couple hours, the
probability is virtually zero.
But the cascade rupturing
in the next thirty
(27:23):
years, rupturing in the next thirty years
is extremely high.
So every day that it doesn't, the probability
of it occurring just gets a little tiny
bit more.
Because it's gonna happen, we just don't know
when.
The other thing that guides me
is that
knowledge
and preparation,
(27:44):
tend to eliminate fear. Mhmm.
Yeah, because you know what you're gonna do.
We know what we're gonna do. Exactly right.
So in preparing for these things, even though
they're almost mind boggling, you know, you don't
wanna deal with them. But you buy car
insurance. You don't wanna be in a car
wreck. Right. But you buy insurance just in
case. Right?
And Homeowner's insurance. I mean Oh, that's Exactly.
(28:05):
So the idea of of preparing now
in anticipation of this happening, hopefully it won't,
maybe it would be wasted money. That'd be
nice, wasted effort. That's wonderful. Mhmm. But to
not have done something and then have it
occur,
you say, gee, I wish I woulda. Yeah,
exactly. You're kicking yourself. Yes. Exactly. And that's
not a good position. So in
(28:27):
preparing, we can develop confidence. We have a
plan.
We, we can kind of face it with
less,
without fear, put it that way. Right. Maybe
some anxiety, but certainly, we know what we're
doing. Right. And, that's the whole idea. Those
two things are kind of what guides me.
So I'm I'm assuming you're gonna have lots
of guests on your show to to talk
(28:49):
about their various areas of expertise. Well, not
only that, but also, we have a lot
of people in this town that have been
through through stuff. Yeah.
I know two families in town that were
burned out
five years ago.
Their houses were destroyed and they lost everything.
Here in town? Here in town. Yeah. So
the Checo Bar Fire up there? Well, it
(29:11):
was in they were they were living in
Southern Oregon at the time. Okay.
And Yeah. We had lots of fires. Mhmm.
Yeah. And their their houses were destroyed. Yep.
So we have people that have lived through
the the forest fires. We've had,
there's a a couple in town
that, the woman was in the,
the Northridge earthquake Oh, yeah. California. A huge
(29:32):
one. Yes.
I can remember that. Yeah. The freeways fell
down and everything. Yep. She was there for
that. Wow. We'll talk to her Yeah. Excellent.
About that. I know there's a paradise survivor
here. I there's probably a lot of paradise
fires Mhmm. Survivors
here. But I ran into her the other
day, and, yep, she lost everything. That was
Theresa.
(29:53):
Yeah. It's just
awful. So they'll be on the show. Good.
Yeah. We'll be talking with them. Great. And
the idea is to say, okay, and there's
another couple as well. And the idea is
to say, okay,
you knew this was coming.
How was it? What happened? You know? And
kinda get a view of the disaster through
their eyes because they experienced it. And then
(30:14):
how'd they recover?
How's life been since? You lose everything.
So how do you start over again? I
don't come back from something like that. And
what kind of emotional turmoil did you experience?
And then have have a psychiatrist
or psychologist on the show talking about how
you deal with trauma. Yep. Yep. So that's
part of it as well. Yep. That's excellent.
(30:35):
Yeah. So there's gonna be a lot of,
human experience. Mhmm. We're gonna talk to people
about what what preparation have we done. Mhmm.
It's example. If you have if you require
medication
and all of a sudden now we're isolated
for some reason, how are you going to
get your meds?
What is Fred Meyer doing to help prepare
for this thing that we know are coming?
(30:56):
Yes. The pharmacy companies.
What about the electric company? What have they
done? Yep. What about the water company? Yep.
What are they doing to help us deal
with this? Because you're three days without water,
you're done for. Yep. So there there's a
every time you you take one aspect of
this and you poke at it a bit,
it just fractures into
five or six more topics. Yeah. It does.
(31:19):
It's huge. I know. And that's one reason
people say, I'm not gonna deal with that.
Yeah. Because
it feels like it's so big. It's just
so big. But there are things that we
can do to start.
Small things we can do to start step
by step Mhmm. Preparing for whatever's headed our
way.
Hopefully, it never we never use them. Right.
But to not do something, to not start
(31:40):
doing something
is just sticking our head in the sand.
And I I kinda think that,
in
the last six months, we've had two tsunami
warnings,
and that's a lot. Mhmm. We don't usually
get two
in six months. I mean, if we get
one every four or five years, that's a
(32:01):
lot.
So
and and I have heard that the whole
ring of fire is very active right now.
And that's all the way that big circle
all the way to Russia and back.
So,
yeah. I mean, I I think it's
more likely than not
(32:22):
that we're gonna see something,
and
we need to be prepared in some way,
shape, or form, I would think. One thing
that I've been very interested in, or very
excited to hear, was there are organizations
in place
that have been preparing for this for quite
a while. Yeah. So we're not alone in
(32:42):
this. People have been thinking about this. Organizations
have been thinking about it, been stockpiling food
and water and
tents and survival gear and that sort of
thing that,
may be available and able to get to
us fairly quickly if it's indeed required. And
the Red Cross is, like, number one on
that list.
I had Karen
Johnson
Dagenet in here for the,
(33:04):
for an interview as well, and she's Red
Cross. And she was telling me about all
these stashes that they have of, you know,
equipment and food and stuff like that.
And Red Cross,
they know what they're doing, you know? Emergency
hits and they are on the ground, like,
immediately.
Because they've been through it a million times.
(33:25):
I mean, I think Karen is in Texas
right now helping with
the flood stuff. So,
it's, yeah. Well, I hope they have Karen
on the show. Yeah, she's great. And she's
actually, her specialty is the, the psychological trauma.
Yeah.
So that's That'll help. Definitely be talking to
her about that, you know. Yeah. Definitely. Because
PTSD is a real thing. It's a very
(33:46):
real thing. And if you've been through,
like, let's say a wildfire,
like some of those people from Paradise
or
the people who live on top of Gardner
Ridge
when the Checo Bar Fire was coming down.
I mean, they could see that fire coming,
and
a couple of them lost some structures.
(34:07):
Mhmm. I mean, it's just like
Yeah. So
there is a whole aspect of,
you know, you see the smoke in the
air, you smell the smoke, and
suddenly
it brings it all back up again, and,
you know, you're reliving the trauma. And,
you know, I I have a friend who
lives up on Gardner Ridge, and and her
(34:29):
son,
was pretty young when the Checo Bar fire
was coming, and they had to they had
to get out of there,
And they were
they couldn't go down the regular road because
that was closed off. And, I mean, it
it turned into a real thing, and and
for several years afterwards Mhmm. You know, he
(34:50):
was he was traumatized if he saw smoke
in the air or,
you know.
I was talking with a
fellow the other day who
was talking to another fellow. Now you're getting
this hearsay,
so third hand. But unless he was talking
to this fellow and his wife was pretty
much a recluse in the house.
And the fellow asked him,
(35:10):
What's the matter? Why is your wife so
traumatized?
Well, she was in a severe earthquake
and a lot of her china
fell out of the china cabinet and crashed
and broke.
And it was China that had come across
on the Oregon Trail
with her grandmother, great great grandmother.
And that just totally
(35:32):
devastated her that she had lost those family
heirlooms. They were so precious to her. Yeah.
So it you never know what's gonna
affect how people are gonna be affected by
various things. No. That's right. You know? That's
right. And so these these things do have
a psychological effect on us.
So
I was thinking about neighborhoods
because,
(35:53):
I mean, I I'm sure that
there is some kind of,
area wide plan,
although I haven't seen it.
So you never know.
But neighborhoods are gonna be really important
because,
(36:13):
I mean, I was thinking about this the
other day, if if all of us in
our neighborhood, we get the
the call that you, you know, gotta head
for the hills because the huge tsunami's coming,
we're all gonna be on that same road
trying to head for higher ground.
We're not gonna make it. I mean, we're
we're gonna be in a a parking lot.
(36:34):
It'll be it'll be a traffic jam. Well,
yeah. If you try to drive, I think
that'll probably be the case. Yeah. So you're
gonna hoof it. That's right. Well You grab
your go bag. My husband doesn't walk. Well,
we have a problem there. We have a
problem. And that's where the neighborhood thing comes
into place because I think you're right, Candace.
The neighborhoods,
are going to be the,
the answer to this whole thing. Mhmm.
(36:57):
That people helping people and knowing who
the recluses are Yes. The shut ins Yes.
The old people that can't are mobile. Yep.
You know, those people. And and having a
plan to care for them Yes. Help them
in whatever manner they need help
is essential to this whole thing. As you
said, we're fairly isolated here. One way in,
(37:18):
one way out.
And
help isn't nearby.
So we're all we got.
So neighborhood
organization
is key.
So what I'd like to see and hopefully
what comes out of this radio effort
is that
we organize
neighborhood by neighborhood. That could be a couple
of streets.
(37:39):
And so when something does come,
we know each other. Yes. We have a
plan. Right. So and so is responsible for
this, so and so is responsible for that.
We grab it. We put it together. Right.
And we help each other out. Yeah. I
mean, it it's really the only thing that
makes sense, you know, because I I was
thinking about this the other day. It's like,
alright. So
(38:00):
we get a tsunami warning, and I've got
maybe fifteen minutes.
I can't get my husband
physically
into the car in fifteen minutes.
He walks with a walker, he's extremely
slow, and that's assuming he's even awake.
And in addition to getting my husband, I
(38:21):
have to get my dog.
So, like,
I I, you know, yeah, I'm I'm not
seeing a high percentage of success
Mhmm. For that if I have to do
it by myself. Sure. Sure. If I have
help, yeah. Sure. Then I can probably
manage it. And some one or two people
come over and help you do that and
it happens really quickly. Yep. Yep. And I'm
(38:43):
sure that there are people who have kids
in the neighborhood and, you know, somebody should
round up the kids and make sure that
the kids are all, you know, taken care
of and they're not running loose and, you
know. Mhmm.
And everybody's
got pets.
I mean,
everybody has dogs,
a lot of dogs. So, you know, there's
(39:03):
there's a lot there's a lot to think
about, there's a lot to plan for.
Every time you poke at something, you find
five more subtopics
Yep. That expose themselves. Exactly.
There is this organization
that KCIW
belongs to, it's called the
Curry County
Community
Organizations
(39:24):
Active in Disaster.
It's a COAD.
And evidently, COADs are a thing
that a lot of places have COADs
because
you can't just leave it up to your
government officials. Mhmm. They
don't have the time. They
they just can't
(39:44):
focus on just that.
And community organizations
have a much bigger reach. You know, we
have people that we know that we can
help organize.
One of the women who is actually acting
as the,
the executive director right now is also in
charge of
(40:06):
animals.
So
large animal evacuation
because
the we got lots of ranches around here,
and those horses and cows
need to be evacuated if what we've got
is
a a fire coming across those hills.
So it's it's it's so complex.
(40:28):
When I was in Oregon City well, we
moved down here, like I say, a little
over three years ago,
and we were in Oregon City,
during the big fires that like everyone was
here in Oregon.
And, I remember going to, a local shopping
center, which wasn't too far away from my
place,
and the whole parking lot was full of
horses,
(40:48):
sheep, goats,
people had brought all their animals in from
the farms and now they were in the
parking lot. And now you got to get
them water, you got to get them food,
You gotta take care of their poop. Yep.
You know, all that stuff. Which is gonna
be a lot. Which is gonna be a
lot. Yes. Well fertilized parking lot. Yeah. Well
fertilized parking lot. Yeah. Absolutely. So, there they
were. And where are you gonna go? What
are you gonna do? You know, you got
(41:10):
50 head of cows or No. Or something.
Exactly. Exactly. So it's it's a huge deal,
and, we've talked about it before. And evacuated,
you know, I I had a friend who
was
living, a friend and her husband who were
living up off of Carpenterville,
and
they were evacuated twice
from their home.
And both times they came to me because
(41:32):
I was close and, you know, I have
an empty bedroom.
But it's it's
so jarring
to have your entire life just suddenly
like a box of pickup sticks thrown up
in the air, and,
you know, you've you've got five minutes to
collect your valuables
(41:52):
and get in the car and get out
of there or the cops are gonna chase
you out. So,
you know, it's
One of the, one of the couples we'll
be talking with had fifteen minutes to evacuate
and then their fire their house was actually
burned to the ground. Oh, god. They had
aluminum,
boat in the driveway and the boat melted.
(42:13):
Oh. It was a pile of molten aluminum
when they came back. It was so hot.
The fellow said the only thing left were
the
of his motorcycle, the only thing left of
his motorcycle
were the piston rings. Wow.
I can't imagine that. I can't either. But
that was the case. Horrific.
I remember the Checo Bar fire,
(42:35):
when it blew up, which was on a
Friday, I think.
And
it had evidently been a a lightning strike
that had happened way in the backcountry,
a month before,
and
just kind of smoldered,
you know, did a little bit of traveling,
but not not big.
(42:56):
And they figured
that
it would burn itself out,
but it wouldn't make it very far.
And then I think we had
some Chetco winds,
and
it blew up,
and traveled
miles
in a day, just miles.
(43:18):
And I remember looking at the sky, I
was doing an interview with somebody, and I
happened to look out the window,
and the sky had been kind of normal
when I went in, but now it was
yellow,
and that hazy
kind of,
you know,
and I thought, Wow,
we're in trouble?
We were in trouble, because that's close.
(43:41):
And it came within five miles
of town.
Well, in Oregon City,
again, just several years ago, the air was
yellow, just as you described. We were evacuated.
And I talked to the fire marshal later,
and he said, oh, the fire was 22
miles away.
I go, That's pretty good. 22 miles is
good. He said, It was moving at 22
miles an hour.
(44:04):
We were one hour
from being engulfed with the flames. So, hence,
we were all evacuated.
So the fire can move incredibly fast. Yeah,
it really can. It really can. Well, it
jumped the Columbia River. You remember the Gold
Fire? Yes. I do remember that. No one
ever thought it would jump the Columbia River.
But sure enough, the fire that was started
by a couple of kids on the Oregon
(44:24):
side jumped over and set fires on the
Washington side. And when you look at what
happened in LA,
because I had several friends who were still
living in LA,
those fires
were they they were virtually unstoppable.
They had be
become so big and so hot
(44:45):
and ferocious, and the winds were blowing.
I think they said that, you know, at
one point they were seventy, eighty mile an
hour winds
that were fueling
that, and they were
what they call the Santa Anas there, which
is the same as our Chetco Mhmm. Effect,
when the winds are blowing down the canyon
(45:07):
and bringing hot air with them. It's just
yeah. It's appalling. It is. Appalling, and there's
no way to fight it. No way. I
mean, there's not enough water
to put the fire out. There just isn't.
Well, the problem is we got a lot
of water right over there. Yeah. And we
just can't get it where the fire is.
(45:27):
Right. I mean, there's a lot of water
in the ocean, but it's salt. I'm not
sure
I'm not sure what salt water would do
to a fire. You can put it out.
Do you think? I think so. I don't
know.
Maybe there's something about salt that it doesn't
I don't know. We'll find out. I guess.
We'll get some firefighters in, and we'll talk
to them about that very thing. And that
would be great. That would be great. Mhmm.
(45:50):
I've gone over to the valley several times
since
the fire that we had, I guess, two,
three years ago.
And, you know, you you drive through the
tunnel,
and
this
moonscape
landscape is on the other side, where
just everything was burned. It's just, it's
(46:15):
Yeah.
So So that's gonna be what we're gonna
talk about. I've got about 30 episodes to
find.
Mhmm. Wow, you're
doing it.
Been getting it together here. I am so
impressed. That is excellent.
When do you
foresee
this starting? Well, it's the August
(46:35):
right now. I'm thinking September.
Great. Yeah, early September. Hopefully, we'll do our
first show. That's great. Excellent.
There are a lot of people in this
community who know a lot.
Exactly. And I'd really like to,
have some of them,
those who have lived through disasters Yep. As
well as have disaster training and experience. I'd
(46:57):
love to
have them on the show. Yep. So if
they could contact
me through
either the radio station here
or through email,
and the email is
cascadiastrongradio@gmail.com.
That's cascadia,
(47:18):
cascadia,radioshow@gmail.com.
And email me and let me know you
exist and you in what you know.
We'll get in contact and see if we
can work something out. That'd be wonderful.
Yeah. There are there are quite a few
people here who who have some Mhmm. And
(47:38):
and there are people who are
so like the food bank, for instance. I
mean, that's a that's a critical
piece
because not only do they have food supplies,
but they know a lot of the people
who need food. So, you know, it's it's
it's really a nice
thing to have neighbors the way we have
(48:01):
neighbors. Indeed. Yeah. And if something big happens
and we are isolated, we're gonna be here
for a while. Yep. I mean, it's not
gonna be a matter of a day or
two. It's gonna be weeks, if not months,
that we're gonna have to,
become good friends.
And
I was told by someone that
the reality
is that
they may not be able to get to
(48:22):
us
except by ship.
Helicopter.
Depending on
I mean, yes.
Although, I would think the helicopters will be
being used
somewhere else.
Well, you know, the government,
FEMA, if it's still there Yep. Or whatever
government agency comes out of FEMA, however that
(48:43):
works,
they're gonna be consumed with Seattle, Portland, San
Francisco, Los Angeles. Absolutely.
And Brookings
is not high enough for your list. No.
I mean, we've got 6,200
people, 6,500
people, you know? We're
not big,
but
those of us who live here think we're
important. Oh, we're we are. Absolutely. We suck
(49:06):
over it
now.
But it but it's clearly gonna be up
to us to Truly. You know, get things
in place.
And I think that a show like yours,
Wes, is
if for no other reason,
to have
the information
available
on,
(49:26):
like, a weekly basis where
we're hearing it, we're hearing
what the possibilities are, we're hearing what there
is to do about it, where it's
brought up in our minds so that we
are thinking about it.
I think that will
probably give some
(49:47):
a little gentle nudge to some of us
who
are dragging our feet
because
because it seems so enormous. Mhmm. The task
seems so enormous. Indeed. And
it's so fearful and it can be so
fearful. They just say, I don't wanna deal
with it. Yeah. Exactly. But as we address
it and you take it step by step,
piece by piece Yep. And you start getting
(50:10):
your handles, getting your arms around it Yep.
And
the fear dissipates. Yep. Yep.
Yeah. I'm I'm worried about the bridges.
You know?
I mean, we could probably swim across the
TEFCO if we absolutely had to. So we
could probably get from Brookings to Harbor if
we had to. But there's no going
(50:32):
across
that bridge that's north of us. I mean,
300 and something feet. That's the highest
they say it's the highest bridge in The
United States or something. Or at least in
Oregon. Uh-huh. It's like, Yeah, I don't think
so. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, the one
ninety nine, you know, going from here,
all the cliffs and Oh, yeah. With the
(50:54):
the road goes along the edge of the
No. The gorge there. No. That's probably gonna
be gone. I mean, it's not a safe
road to begin with. Okay? Some of us
some of us have a little bit of,
like, okay, I gotta go on one ninety
nine,
I won't drive that road at night. I
lost two two tires on that road No.
At night. Oh, no. Due to a landslide,
(51:14):
I hit broken
shale, lacerated two tires. Not one, but two.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. My daughter and her husband
were coming over for Christmas,
and they always they come down from British
Columbia, but they so they come down five
and and cut over on 199.
And,
it was one of those
(51:36):
trips where and if anything bad could happen,
it did.
So in in addition to my
my grandson somehow
getting himself wrapped up in his seat belt,
and and he was at least 12 or
13 at this point. So how he did
that,
one doesn't know, but he couldn't get out.
(51:59):
He had wrapped himself up in the seat
belt. So, anyway, they had to seek firefighter
help to get to get him out of
his seat belt. They had to cut it.
But in addition to that, as they were
coming over 1 99,
there was a rock slide right in front
of him. Mhmm. You know? Missed them. Thank
goodness. Mhmm. But, yeah, been
(52:20):
Well, my experience, it was a nighttime,
and it was just about a mile,
east of,
Patrick Creek Mhmm.
And right on the cliff there. Oh. I
lost two tires Oh. Both front and back
and on the driver's side.
So I pulled forward a little ways and
found a little turn off in the road.
Right. Sitting there in the middle of the
night, waiting for the AAA guy to come,
(52:42):
just waiting for big Bigfoot to come down
and push me over the ledge.
Say hi to Bigfoot for me to do
some. Yeah. Hell, I would do that. Yes.
So were you coming
towards us or going away from us? Coming
towards us? Yeah. Midwest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And there's not a lot of room
on those roads.
I mean, you know, you're lucky if you
can find a turnout,
(53:03):
But yeah. Fortunately, I was only doing about
35 miles an hour. Yeah. Wasn't going fast
at all, but it was enough to take
care of the tires. Oh my god. $1,200
later, Gillette Schwab. You gotta replace all four
of them. Oh, god. You gotta replace just
two. No.
Oh, that's awful. Yeah. It was. That was
terrible.
So, who do you think is gonna be
your
first guest?
(53:25):
Well, that's a good question.
You know, well, first off, Ray Simon is
gonna be doing this with me. Ray is
usually one of our technicians here in the
sound technician. So he's going to be co
hosting. Great. Yep.
Great. So early on, we're going to be
kind of just,
doing the general thing, you know, looking at
what kind of organizations are available.
(53:46):
And you've mentioned a couple of them and,
a couple of the people there.
And then we're going to,
talk about making a plan,
a disaster plan.
How do you make a go bag? What
should be in it? How do you prepare
for the longer term?
Then we'll eventually look at
(54:06):
talking to people about their fire experiences and
earthquake experiences
and their personal trauma that they went through.
Yep. Talk about the emotional
support. Yep. And,
what's available there. And then, we're gonna talk
about how do you get water.
Yeah. What do you do for food? Yes.
What do you do for communications?
Mhmm. The ham radio operators are gonna be
(54:27):
invaluable. Yes, they are. With all the cell
towers, it's gonna be insane. Yep, absolutely.
And with any luck,
radio
will be able to
This station right here should be a good
source. With any luck. Right? It's all gonna
be powered. Backup generators
and, you know, yeah, exactly. With any luck
at all. BCIW should be a good source
of information. Yep. I'm I'm hoping Crescent City
(54:50):
to Yep.
Gold Beach. Yeah. And I I
thanks to Tom, who's the tech person
extraordinaire here. Sitting right there. Sitting right there.
Yes.
He
showed me how I can break into
the broadcast
from home on my computer. Mhmm. So when
(55:11):
we were in the tsunami advisory
the other day,
about 10:00 at night, I broke in and
said that, you know, we're in an advisory,
don't go down to the beach, don't, you
know, blah blah blah. And interestingly, like, when
I came back into the station the the
next day,
two people had heard me do that, And
they said, oh, I'm so glad you did
(55:32):
that because it had relieved my anxiety.
So
I hate to tell you this, but we
are almost out of time. Oh my. I
know. It happens It happens so quick. Really
fast.
So give your contact information
again, if you will, Wes. Alright. The email
would be,
cascadiastrongradio@gmail.com.
(55:55):
It's all one word. Those three words are
all one word. It's c a s c
a d I a, Cascadiastrongradio@Gmail.com.
K. Thank you so much. Well, thank you.
And thanks for doing this because
we need our awareness
level brought up.
We need to increase our awareness and our
(56:17):
preparedness. Indeed. And I I plan on learning
a lot and preparing as well. Good. Good.
Thank you. And thank you for tuning in.
You know, we never know when the next
disaster is gonna hit. It could be an
earthquake, tsunami,
or a wildfire.
We have exactly one road into and out
of our community,
which is 10 1. We all need to
(56:39):
be prepared.
I'm Candice Michelle,
and this is our community.
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