The latest news stories across the state of Oregon from the digital home of the Oregon coastal cities, OregonBeachMagazine.com
Friday, April 15, 2022
Oregon Beach Weather
Today– Isolated showers. Snow level 1500 feet rising to 2000 feet. Mostly sunny, with a high near 50. Calm wind becoming west northwest around 6 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Saturday– Rain likely before 11am, then a chance of showers after 11am. Snow level 2000 feet lowering to 1500 feet. Partly sunny, with a high near 48. Light northwest wind becoming west 5 to 10 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
EASTER Sunday– Cloudy, with a high near 54. East southeast wind 6 to 10 mph becoming south southwest in the afternoon.
Monday– Rain. High near 55. Chance of precipitation is 90%.
Tuesday– Showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54. Breezy.
Reedsport Schools Will Reopen Monday As Juvenile Suspect Now In Custody For Threats
Reedsport School District has announced that Reedsport Police have a juvenile suspect in custody and under arrest and school buildings and offices will reopen on Monday.
Weekend activities will also resume. The district says decisions about rescheduling postponed activities will be made in the next week.
Reedsport schools and offices were closed Wednesday and Thursday while police investigated a threat of violence. No details were released about the nature or severity of the threat or who it may have come from.
In a Facebook post, superintendent Jon Zwemke wrote,
We will continue updating details as we are allowed to by the justice system in the process of their investigation but also do not want to jeopardize the work they have done. For the time being, the immediate matter is resolved. We will continue to look at the larger issues surrounding this incident. We will also look at the immediate needs of our students and staff as a result of this. We will continue to work to provide updates.
It is important to know that the District will always take incidents like this seriously and we have the safety of our students and staff as our first goal. This has been a challenging time. We want to thank the work of our Police Department and their partners in resolving this for us. We would also like to thank all of the direct and anonymous tips that were provided to police.
Police say that at 10:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, one 13-year-old male juvenile who attends Reedsport Community Charter School was taken into custody and lodged at the Douglas County Juvenile Detention Center on multiple charges.
Acting police chief Kirk Sanfilippo says multiple students were named in the threat that appeared on Snapchat. Upon further investigation, police believe the student had no means to carry out those threats.
Sanfilippo says officials contacted all parents whose children were named by the suspect last night.
Reedsport Police “are certain that this threat of violence against our schools and involved students has been resolved, but the investigation is still on-going.”
“There’s still follow up that needs to be done based on others that may have had an indirect involvement,” said Sanfilippo.
If you know of a threat being made to a school or students, it can be reported anonymously on the SafeOregon tip line and app.
Officials Ask for Help in Search for Missing Curry County Man
Curry County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a missing 78-year-old man who left his home in Harbor, Oregon sometime before 7:00 am Apr. 4.
Max Mascareno is reportedly driving a black 2019 Chevy Colorado with an Oregon license plate reading: 9X4019. The vehicle is equipped with a canopy.
The sheriff’s office noted that Mascareno enjoys driving on dirt roads as a hobby.
CCSO added that his phone was left at his residence, and his vehicle is equipped with OnStar, however, the system is not active and not providing a location.
If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Max Mascareno or happen to see him, please contact the Curry County Sheriff’s Office at (541) 247-3242.
Has this week’s wet and wild wintry weather made an impact on the water year and the drought for the state of Oregon?
In the Willamette Valley and Northwestern Oregon, yes. The rest of the state, not so much. Oregon climatologist Larry O’Neill says that coming into this storm, we were having a very rapid meltdown of the snowpack across
the state.
And what this storm did is — it’s cold, and it looks like it will remain cold for at least the next week, So it will preserve what snow we do have,” and he adds, “just a couple of days ago we’re looking at possibly an historic early melt-out, one of the earliest melt-outs, four to six weeks early; now, we’re looking more along the lines of one to three weeks early.
The last storm even managed to head farther south than most had been going, bringing some highway-closing snow to the Siskiyou Summit Willamette Pass, and Lake of the Woods highways. O’Neill says. In terms of our water supply, that was very good news, because it meant a little more water in a region that was staring down an historically bad water season.
What that might help with is maybe a little more irrigation water, a little less pressure on the municipal water supplies, and possibly a little bit more water for stream flow and fish habitat.
Just in the past week, snowpack in the Willamette Basin went up from 73% to 102%. In the Hood/Sandy/Lower Deschutes it went from 100% to 127%. In the Rogue/Umpqua Basin it went up from 34% to 63%.
For the rest of the region, the numbers aren’t so positive. Unlike California, which can and does move water from the wetter northern part of the state to the drier areas in the south, Oregon does not have that kind of infrastructure set
up to do that.
We want to keep you informed about COVID-19 in Oregon. Data are provisional and change frequently. For more information, including COVID-19 data by county, visit our dashboard: http://ow.ly/lpqU50IK5St
The federal mask mandate for airports, airplanes and other transit systems will remain in effect until May 3, the CDC announced this week.This extension is due to rising COVID-19 cases across the country, specifically from BA.2—the more contagious subvariant of Omicron. Currently, BA.2 accounts for about 86% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States.Originally scheduled to expire April 18, the two-week extension will allow the CDC “to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and health care system capacity,” according to the agency.
I-84 Eastbound Lanes Open Now
The Interstate 84 eastbound freeway is now open in eastern Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT).
OR 204 (Tollgate Highway) and OR 245 are also now open. Motorists may need to slow down and drive with extra caution around crash site near milepost 340.
Severe winter weather conditions throughout the week caused numerous accidents, many involving unchained trucks. Several vehicles also caught on fire. Both the westbound and eastbound lanes of I-84 were closed between Pendleton and La Grande for several hours Monday night and Tuesday morning, and again later in the week.
Conditions can change at any time. Ccontinue to check TripCheck.com or call 511 / 800-977-6368 for updates. Outside Oregon call 503-588-2941.
Oregon Hospitals Finish 2021 in Weakened Financial Position As Omicron Wave Hit
Continued workforce shortages, higher expenses and flat revenue threaten recovery
Oregon’s hospitals finished 2021 in a declining financial position compared to 2020 just as the Omicron variant was about to push the system to the breaking point for the second time in a year, according to a yearly data report from Apprise Health Insights.
Read the Apprise CY 2021 report here.
Persistent staffing shortages with rising labor costs, longer patient stays, general inflation, and other factors combined to push expenses higher while revenue remained stagnant last year. The result was lower margins in 2021 compared to the previous year: 25 hospitals (42 percent) finished the year with a negative operating margin. The median operating margin in 2021 was 3.1 percent, down 30% since 2019.
The margins would have been even lower if not for one-time federal CARES Act dollars included in the 2021 balance sheets and are thought be unsustainable given continued rising costs and inflation. The aggregate margin last year was 2.0 percent with CARES Act funds included and 0.4 percent with those dollars excluded.
“The data show the significant financial impact on hospitals in 2021 from COVID, including rising expenses and flat revenue,” said Andy Van Pelt, CEO of Apprise. “While many are ready to move on from COVID, Oregon hospitals are facing several challenges that have no easy fix.”
For the fifth quarter in a row Net Patient Revenue (NPR) fell short of Total Operating Expenses (TOE). Labor costs, which make up over half of a hospital’s expenses, have risen 26 percent since early 2019. Much of that total is a direct result of the staffing shortage which has forced hospitals to hire and pay travel nurses at rates many multiples of what staff nurses are paid. The total for other expenses such as housekeeping, IT, utilities, and insurance have risen 18 percent since 2019. The current general inflation rate of 8.5 percent is not reflected in these numbers.
The staffing shortage has also broken the continuum of care as the inability to discharge patients to a more appropriate level of care has led to longer lengths of stay, while patients waiting for a staffed bed are boarded in the ED. The longer lengths of stay are also driven by higher acuity patients, many of them very sick with COVID, which leads to lower revenues.
Another shift from 2021 was the weaker financial performance of larger urban hospitals compared to their rural counterparts, which benefited greatly from the infusion of CARES Act funds. With major challenges continuing into 2022, especially the workforce crisis, Apprise analysts say they don’t expect an environment favorable to recovery this year.
About Apprise: Apprise Health Insights is the most reliable and complete source of hospital data in Oregon. As the data subsidiary of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS), Apprise staff have gathered and analyzed data about Oregon hospitals and health systems since 1985. We strive to provide data, tools, and expertise to help hospitals understand the healthcare landscape in the Pacific Northwest.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell is calling for action to replace the I-5 bridge connecting Oregon and Washington state over the Columbia River.
The Washington state Democrat spoke yesterday while taking a tour of the aging bridge, encouraging the state to take advantage of what she calls a “once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure.”
President Biden has signed new legislation into law creating two large pools of federal funding to improve infrastructure across the U.S. The funding includes 12-point-five-billion dollars for bridge investments. The Washington state legislature approved legislation during this year’s session committing one-billion dollars to cover
the state’s anticipated share of the construction costs. https://www.interstatebridge.org/
State health officials in Washington and Oregon are recommending the public limit their consumption of sturgeon caught from the lower Columbia River.
A health advisory comes from the Washington Department of Health as fish tissue data shows contaminant levels of polychlorinated biphenyls — or PCBs — at levels above Washington state’s screening values, The Seattle Times reported.
In Washington, the advisory applies to any fish caught in the Columbia River between the Bonneville Dam and the mouth of the Columbia.
Officials recommend that most adults should not eat more than eight meals of sturgeon a month, and no more than seven for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children. The Oregon Health Authority also issued an advisory for the lower Columbia River and the lower Willamette River.
Grants Pass Missing Person
The Grants Pass Police Department is seeking assistance from the public in locating 30 year old Noah Baker. Baker was despondent after an argument and left his residence in Grants Pass driving a silver Ford Fiesta with Oregon Plate 671MUR.
Baker is described as a white male adult, 5’09”, 170 lbs, brown hair and blue eyes and was last seen wearing black sweats, black shirt, black shoes and a black hat.
If anyone knows of his whereabouts or sees Baker, please call your local law enforcement agency or the Grants Pass Police at 541-450-6260. Reference case #2022-14203 Grants Pass Police Department
Klamath County Sheriff’s Office Asks for Public’s Help in Search For Trucker Suspect
The first real clue to come in on all the missing person cases in the area. Help Klamath Falls Oregon Sheriff Office ID this trucker. He was the last to see this woman alive and could be the key to not only solving this woman’s disappearance but a number of the hundred other women missing in PNW. IF you have any information, please call (541) 883-5130
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Have-You-Seen-Me-Southern-Oregons-Missing-People-161249961222839/posts/