Happy Friday, friends! Here’s the Daily Drip, discretely delivered to your Facebook feed on this April 5, 2019. Portland’s groanworthy weather alternates between moderate and heavy rain, with highs of 60 at best, and then this cheery sentence from the National Weather Service: “An unusually strong jet stream for so late in the season will remain aimed at Oregon this weekend” bringing “a solid shot of rain.” While it may be aimed between Salem and Eugene, Portland will get plenty. And there are high surf advisories pretty much all weekend at the coast: “The surf zone will be very hazardous due to strong currents and breaking waves. Very large waves may run-up much higher on the beaches than normal and could catch beachgoers by surprise. These powerful waves can sweep people off jetties and other exposed rocks and can easily move large logs and other beach debris.” Bright side? Perfect weekend to knock out your taxes or other chores, then see what’s on Netflix. Sunrise today 6:43 AM, sunset 7:43 PM.
First thing: Go Ducks! The whole Northwest is behind you! Oregon vs. Baylor in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, 4 PM, ESPN 2. First Final Four appearance ever! Bet a lot of folks will be knocking off early and heading for a watering hole to radiate good green energy in the direction of these strong and powerful women. Whatever the outcome, we will honor you when you return.
Year-round Daylight Time marches on in the Oregon Legislature, as the Senate passed SB 320 by a vote of 23-4 and moves it ahead, like a clock in spring, to the House. If approved, it’ll take effect only if California and Washington do the same, and it’ll require an act of Congress. Not impossible though: as sponsor Kim Thatcher pointed out, this is one issue where both Kate Brown and Donald Trump agree. (One objection: people of faiths that involve prayer at sunrise will be doing so at 9 in the morning in the winter).
The latest effort at bridgebuilding over the Columbia doesn’t have funding or a design, but it has an acronym and that’s a start. Gov. Brown is now calling it the IBR. Sounds like something you’d order at a brewpub, but it stands for Interstate Bridge Replacement. No more CRC, because that’s now code for “boondoggle.”
The guy who said he escaped from kidnappers who’d held him for years turns out to be a 23-year old convicted burglar newly released from prison, and not the boy who disappeared in Illinois six years ago that he claimed to be. How incredibly cruel to the boy’s family. Still, the National Center for Missing Children says there are cases where kids turn up years after disappearing. But not this time.
One of the people killed in that Ethiopian jet crash turns out to be the grand-niece of Ralph Nader…who says Boeing needs to do much more than implement a software fix to the 737 Max 800 series. The planes, says Nader, must be recalled.
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The weekend weather will be fairly foul, but it could be worse. Today’s the anniversary of the 1972 storm that charged out of the Coast Range and into Portland around lunchtime, then dramatically and unexpectedly worsened when it hit the Columbia River, sucking up water and turning into a furious category F3 tornado that brought death and chaos to Vancouver. With no warning it ripped down power lines, sending blue sparks skyward and showering hail the size of eggs, then ripped the roof off Peter Skene Ogden Elementary School, which was packed with terrified kids, injuring 70 but killing none of them. Amazing job by the staff, moving the students around as the tornado’s angle shifted. Good thing the tornado lifted the roof off and crashed it in the playground, instead of collapsing it on the people inside. Next, the twister plowed into the Sunrise Bowling Lanes where it killed a woman, then the Waremart Discount Store where it killed two more. In all six people were killed, hundreds were injured, and property damage topped $5 million, which is $30 million today. Tornados here were considered unheard of back then–media reports called it a “thunderstorm gone wild”–but it remains the deadliest tornado in the history of Washington.
The crew at the Moda Center will be on the scramble all weekend. Check it out: tonight they have Canadian crooner Michael Bublé. Tomorrow it’s the nerd-rock band Weezer. Sunday it’s the Blazers and the Nuggets, in a rematch of a game tonight in Denver. Monday it’s Pink. I mean, P!nk. All of this requires a perfectly-executed overnight turnaround from one setup to the next. Each event has a different configuration, each star has crews and roadies and egos to feed. And each will fill the place with tens of thousands of humans to be screened, seated, fed, sold merch to, and cleaned up after. That place will be zoological. If you’re going to any of those events…be extra kind to the workers…and please consider yourself a reporter filing for the Daily Drip!
General sales for Cher’s November 19 concert begin today.
“Wicked” is coming back to the Keller July 10-28. Ticket pre-sales begin today, and K103’s web site has details.
Do you know that PDX still has some of that iconic and thoroughly hyped old carpet in place? Check out the E concourse. A, too. Maybe down toward the end. They’re expanding the concourses, and it made sense not to install new carpet only to rip it out.
We hear that colors are finally starting to pop at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival!
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Let’s pop open some good news headlines. Details in the DD Coffee Cup, first item in the Comments.
—“An infant did not have any hospital visitors for five months. So this nurse adopted her.”
—“Popular NZ prime minister pays for groceries of a mum who forgot her wallet”
—“Couple find winning lotto ticket in book”
—“Instead of Going Out This 4th of July, These People Comforted Scared Shelter Animals During Fireworks”
—“Sheryl Crow gives Elon Musk advice on Twitter after her Tesla gets stuck in a parking lot”
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Thanks for being part of the Drip community! BTW Bruce Murdock is deservedly burning some vacation days, so Janine Wolf is playing first chair in our little ensemble. She’s a natural. Tune in 103.3, 5-9 AM, and K103 on iHeartRadio!
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