Cheers: To police on wheels. The Vancouver Police Department is reinstating its bicycle patrol unit for the first time in more than a decade. The plan to add four officers on bikes has been in the works for a while, and its implementation will coincide with the opening of The Waterfront Vancouver.
Bicycles allow officers to check areas not easily accessible by cars and provide more direct contact with the public. “It was great because they talked with everyone and came into the stores and got to know people,” Linda Glover, a city council member and president of Vancouver’s Downtown Association, said of previous bike patrols. “It increased contact with the public and the sense that they were there to help.” Improved interaction with the public is one of the foundations of community policing and will allow the department to more effectively serve Vancouver’s residents and visitors.
Jeers: To being stuck in the air. Firefighters rescued 19 people from a ride called “El Nino” when it became stuck at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. Augustina Boyer-Redman, one of the riders, said: “It kept going around and around and around … way more than normal.” And then the ride stopped. “Everybody was freaking out,” she said. “We were all worried the harnesses were going to open.”
Riders were left hanging upside down or in other precarious positions for more than 20 minutes before being rescued. Operators say the problem appears to be electrical, and the ride will remain closed pending an investigation.
Cheers: To flipping a winner. It wasn’t the region’s most famous coin flip. That honor might go to the best-of-three contest in 1845 that resulted in Portland being named Portland instead of Boston. Or perhaps it would go to the coin toss that gave the Portland Trail Blazers the right to draft Bill Walton in 1974.
Still, a coin flip by Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey was notable for deciding the race for Republican Precinct Committee Officer 692. The contest, which was on the Aug. 7 primary ballot, ended in a 49-49 tie between Carolyn Simpson and Sean Emerson. A recount confirmed the tie, leading to the coin flip — just the second in Kimsey’s 20 years as auditor. Simpson correctly called “heads,” bringing an end to the contest and adding a small note to Clark County’s election history.
Jeers: To a troublesome squirrel. A squirrel is suspected of causing a short circuit in an electrical transformer and sparking a 4,500-acre wildfire near Benton City, which is about 14 miles west of Richland. Firefighters responded to the area and called in five airplanes to help control the blaze, which threatened 50 homes. No homes were damaged, but four cars, a mini-bus and a boat were lost.
Officials say the incident highlights the need for rural residents to maintain enough space around their homes to provide some protection from wildfires.
Cheers: To science. Oregon State University scientists say they might have an answer to a fascinating question that, frankly, we never thought of before: Why is Mount St. Helens out of line with the rest of the Cascade Range? The mountain, best known for blowing its top in 1980, rests slightly west of the Cascadia Arc that runs from British Columbia to Northern California.
OSU geophysicist Adam Schultz and his team believe a giant subsurface rock formation diverted magma, causing the mountain to pop up in an unexpected place more than 1 million years ago. “It seems like what we call the Spirit Lake batholith is probably the reason,” Schultz said. “The big batholith acts kind of like a plug in the crust and diverted magma.”
