Editor’s note: The name of the victim is not used to protect her identity.
PORTLAND, Ore. – It was the sound – something like a scream – that first caught their attention.
On the red deck of the massive dredge vessel Yaquina, deck mechanics Tanner Ensworth and Brian Marshall had just returned from a quick run with a small launch boat and were securing the launch boat to the side of the mother vessel.
The Yaquina, slowly chugging up the Columbia River, gorged itself on sediment it sucked up from the river bottom, clearing the channel of large sand mounds called shoals and thereby keeping the federal navigation channel clear for other vessels.
Ensworth and Marshall paused in their work and exchanged a look.
“Did...
12.18.2023 | PORTLAND, OREGON, US |
Story by Kerry Solan
The conference room in downtown Portland was set up like any other training event: Logistics employees wheeled out gray chairs in bunches of six and tucked them under rows of roll-away tables with honey-brown wood-laminate tops.
But, in the corner, one table would eventually host a coffee maker that would slowly drip on the carpet over the following month – a testament to all the caffeine consumed by 30 employees as they answered...
Mother Nature can be comforting and calm but this year it seems like she used our first, middle and last name as she scolded (or scalded) us … “Pacific North [emphasis added] West, what in the world were you thinking?!” … for punching our hypothetical little sister (California). Our punishment has been drought, record-breaking temperatures, wildfires and extremely dry conditions throughout the region. Even though the early part of...
The crew of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' dredge vessel, the Yaquina, stands together as the vessel is in dry dock in September 2023. Members of the Yaquina crew rescued a woman from the river after she'd fallen into the currents several miles upriver.
