Peninsular Thinking

Bruce Bryant of Poulsbo has set up a webcam overlooking Poulsbo from somewhere high in the hills near Raab Park.

I, for one, will be checking it a lot today. The sun is shining brightly in Bremerton right now (3:24 p.m., Saturday). I just returned from Silverdale, where it was also a sunny, sunny day. The picture in Poulsbo, though, is a little gray. And they were snowed on earlier.

Feel free to let us know if you see snow at your house, or anywhere you’re traveling. Of course I’m most interested in Kitsap weather, but if you’re in Iowa or something I wouldn’t stop you from chiming in.

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Observant bunch, those folks in Manchester.

I got an email earlier in the week from Manchester resident Dave Pabst inquiring about a large — make that humongous — cargo ship anchored off Blake Island. Pabst, armed with binoculars and the magic of the Internet, already knew the ship was the Fortune Daisy, 738-foot bulk cargo ship based in Hong Kong.

You may have noticed the ship in photos from today’s Manchester dock replacement story. It’s hard to miss it there in the right of the photo.

Pabst wondered, “With charter rates in excess of $27,000 per day, someone is spending/losing a lot of money keeping this relatively new (built 2011), 738 foot long ship out of service.”

I poked into the ship’s story, using a handy site that Pabst already discovered called vesseltracker.com, a public site that shows the location of major ships around the world, with links to their specifications. The only thing I have to add to Pabst’s description is that the ship’s most recent port of call was Lianyungang, a major port in China.

I called Lt. Cmdr. Heather St. Pierre of the U.S. Coast Guard, who said the ship was more or less assigned anchorage in Yukon Harbor, as it arrive in the Seattle area earlier in the week, right after a weather pattern that caused large swells in South Puget Sound. St. Pierre did not know if the ship’s miscellaneous cargo was eventually bound for Seattle or Tacoma. She said having ships moored in protected pockets like Yukon Harbor, which is sheltered by Blake Island, is a common practice.

Not only is the surface water off Manchester relatively well protected from wind and waves, but the sea floor composition is such that it offers better “holding ground” or bite for anchors than in other areas, St. Pierre said.

St. Pierre had no other information on the ship, which according to vesseltracker.com was still there Saturday morning, but she said there’s no cause for alarm.

“There’s definitely nothing nefarious going on with this vessel,” St. Pierre said. “It’s just looking for a safe place to be.”

Well, aren’t we all?

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Thus endeth another shrimping season on Hood Canal. And what a season it was. Shrimpers had wind, rain, hail, sun, plenty of big, juicy spot shrimp, and a bonus day courtesy of the demigods at the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.

And the extreme shrimper award of the year goes to… Jerome Tramill of Vaughn, who lives by the creed, “The heck with fingers … save the pots.”

Unlike the opening day of shrimping, yesterday, the last day of the spot shrimp season, was mild and gorgeous. This according to editor David Nelson, who took the day off to go shrimping (he works Saturday). David got his limit and has promised us a free lunch tomorrow – yes there is such a thing. Please be gumbo, please be gumbo.

The opening day of shrimping season was, weather-wise, a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. Tramill and his wife Alma are seasoned shrimpers not apt to let a little wind and rain stop them. But that first Saturday in May was, in Tramill’s words, “a pretty tough day on the water. The wind kicked up. We decided to pull up and get the heck out of there.”

Tramill started the motor on his electric pot puller, and the machinery cranked against the drift and the tide. The boat was pitching around, and Tramill found himself off balance. Then “in the blink of an eye” he found his hand tangled in the line, the puller grinding on. He shut the motor down and had to cut the line to free his mangled fingers. From the angle of his little finger, he was pretty sure it was broken. “It turned out to be worse than broken,” said Tramill, who ended up losing half of his pinkie in the accident.

His other digits weren’t in such good shape either. Blood gushed from his hand, dripping on the deck. Holding the severed line with his uninjured left hand, he wrapped the right with a T-shirt. Then he considered the pot.

It wasn’t just about the shrimp, but the darn thing cost a pretty penny. “I decided, rather than throw 100 bucks away, I’d pull it in. That was a killer,” Tramill said.

I personally can attest how tough it is to pull pots by hand, even with two good hands. My experience includes all of 15 minutes, helping haul pots while on assignment for the story, “Shrimp Abundant on Hood Canal This Year.” I had to lean my whole body into each tug, and even wearing gloves, my palms and fingers stung when I and my kind host, the owner of the gear, wrestled the pot over the side of the boat.

Tramill tugged and hauled and grunted with the effort for what seemed like an eternity, his wife — by his description — keeping up an increasingly shrill volley of expletives. When at last he hoisted the pot into the boat, it had all of about 15 shrimp inside. Tramill speculates most of the little buggers probably escaped because his injury prevented him from hauling the pot in smoothly.

He eyed the line to the second pot, but pain and his wife’s common sense prevailed. With Alma at the wheel, they headed against the wind, toward shore. Tramill credits his wife with navigating the boat through some of the nastiest chop he’s ever seen. It took them about an hour to reach the boat launch at Twanoh State Park, where they were met by EMTs from Mason County Fire District, station 2.

“When they pulled into the dock, there was a good amount of blood in the entire boat,” said firefighter EMT Brian Johnson, who noted the extreme weather. “It was rough out there. It was gangbusters,” he said.

Tramill, on the other hand, was remarkably calm. “He was in really good spirits and more concerned about his shrimp than anything else,” Johnson said.

A buddy showed up to take care of Tramill’s boat and equipment. According to Johnson, Tramill, as he was being loaded into the ambulance, exhorted the buddy to “get those things on ice.”

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Brynn writes:

If you haven’t seen it yet, Poulsbo has its very own webcam overlooking Liberty Bay.

Actually it doesn’t belong to the city, it’s located on Longship Marine’s building (remember Lois Hillman and her venture into the marine supply world? I wrote about her back in May 2010).

Anyway, according Three Sheets Northwest, a sailing blog I follow, sailor Bruce Blumenstein is the mastermind behind the installation of the camera. He moved himself, and his boat, from Oregon and landed in Poulsbo’s Liberty Bay. After settling in, he decided he’d like to have an eye on his boat and thought of the idea to station a webcam overlooking the Bay so he, along with anyone else, could see what was happening in snapshots of real time.

Read about how the camera came to be over at the Three Sheets’ “On Watch” post.

The Long Ship Marine webcam joins the other livecam we often see referenced on the local weather stations, and of course at kitsapsun.com — Dr. Dale Ireland’s cam that overlooks Silverdale and the Olympic Mountains.

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12:15 a.m. today (Monday, March 14): Plans for delays if you’re heading to or from Port Orchard on Highway 166 (that highway that goes along Beach Drive). Washington State Department of Transportation notified us at 11:55 a.m. of the slide in the eastbound lane at milepost 1.2. WSDOT Maintence is on the scene. One-way, alternating traffic has been established in the westbound lane.

Despite the rainy weather we’ve had this winter, the hillside above the highway, which received a major fix from WSDOT, has held pretty well … until now.

The news prompted talk in the newsroom of whether there’s a name for the highway, other than Highway 166 or “that road that goes along the water heading into Port Orchard.” What do you call that road (other than a few choice names when mudslides happen)?

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The Road Warrior in his recent column forwarded information from the Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management on how to dispose of sandbags.

“Most homeowners wouldn’t want them as a permanent part of their landscaping, I would think,” RW speculates.

Au contraire, with all the recent flooding, Kitsap stands poised to start a trend. Can’t you — especially you in South Kitsap — see it? Sandbag retaining walls, sandbags lining walkways, sand bag planters, sandbag sculptures (bet we could interest Bremerton in that idea).

HGTV, here we are, looking our rainy winter best.

Oh, and don’t be too quick to ditch those sand bags. Winter officially only just began on Tuesday.

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Hunter Road Open with Restrictions

By Chris Henry
chenry@kitsapsun.com
SOUTH KITSAP
Hunter Road SE in rural South Kitsap, which washed out Sunday in heavy rains, is open as of Tuesday morning.
The road will be restricted to one lane indefinitely. A 10,000-pound weight limit is placed on the crossing at the culvert.
According to Kitsap County officials, crews need a window of low water flow in the creek in order to finish installing the new culvert. That’s not likely, as early Tuesday morning brought more drenching rain, along with thunder and lightning.
Crescent Valley Road in South Kitsap, which had been closed from a mudslide, is open as of Tuesday morning.
Roads that remain closed are Banner, Beach Drive, Hillcrest, Lake Helena all in South Kitsap, Lake Flora Road inside Bremerton city limits, and Bahia Vista Road and Seabeck Highway in Central Kitsap.
Fragaria Road in South Kitsap is restricted to one lane of travel east of Banner Road SE.
Kitsap County will periodically update road status on its website, www.kitsapgov.com.

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Hunter Road residents are marooned in their neighborhood by a washout at Huge Creek, caused by heavy rain Sunday. The name “Huge Creek” is not a joke Hunter resident Gary Bergman assured me.

I ran into Gary Sunday night near the washout. He had been able to get out on foot via a path near his house, at the end of Hunter Road. The path connects to Daisy Street, Gary said. So if you stranded folks know anyone who will pick you up, you could meet them there.

To get to the end of Daisy Street follow Glenwood Road toward Hunter Road SW; before you get to Hunter, turn right on Lake Helena Road; left on Oak Ridge Lane; left again on Daisy Street.

Here’s the Google Map (below). If you haven’t used a Google map before, know that you can you can use the + and – signs to zoom in and out, and use the arrows to scan left, right, up and down.

Good luck. Call or e-mail me with your stories and information to share with other residents (be sure to give me your contact information.

Chris Henry
chenry@kitsapsun.com
(360) 792-9219

View Hunter Road in a larger map

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Earlier this week, when I was researching a story about storm related damage from fallen trees, I saw an interesting example of how the extreme weather event of Nov. 22 is having a trickle-down effect on the local economy. A crew from Northwest Tree Service of Port Orchard was doing the heavy lifting on a massive Douglas fir that had leaned over onto the roof of Marilyn and Bob Falk of Port Orchard.

“It’s our economic stimulus package,” said Ron Rider, the company’s owner. “(His business) went from pretty lethargic to total chaos. It’s still total chaos, and I don’t know when we’ll get caught up. This should keep us going for quite a while. I don’t see any slow down before Christmas.”

In the backyard, scurrying around like ants, Eddie Shelby and his family were removing chunks of firewood from the Falk’s yard.

Shelby, who sells firewood and runs a hunting guide service, has a symbiotic relationship with Northwest Tree Service that works to the advantage of both parties. Shelby makes money selling the firewood he scavenges, and Ron Rider, the company’s owner, doesn’t have to charge families.

All corners of the construction and building services industry are experiencing an economic bump from the storm, according to Teresa Osinski, incoming executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Kitsap County. But she’s having a hard time taking cheer in the bonus, given the hardships it’s placing on many families during tough economic times and right before the holidays.

Osinski also is concerned about the potential for people to be taken advantage of. Under normal circumstances, homeowners have the time to research companies that provide services. In the heat of the moment, Osinski fears, they may cut corners, leaving themselves vulnerable to scams or shoddy workmanship. If a company is not insured and workers are hurt on the job, the homeowner is liable.

“Yes, there is potential for some economic benefit as a whole,” Osinski said. “What’s more important for us is that the consumer be very conscious about who they’re hiring and that they do their due diligence.”

The homebuilders association is a good resource for referrals for all types of contractors. But people still must ensure that the company they are considering is licensed, bonded and registered as a contractor with the state’s Department of Labor and Industries.

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My working title for today’s article on storm damage was, “It’s the Trees, Stupid.” But I ditched the idea early on in my research, because it seemed too flip and simplistic for the complicated relationship we as homeowners and Kitsap County residents have with trees.

We love our trees, they provide privacy and a sense that we are living in the wilderness. They also serve important ecological functions in terms of absorbing groundwater, which prevents flooding and erosion. The trade-off is that when major storms come through, trees and limbs fall. This should not come as a surprise.

Kitsap County clearly is tree-central. With 240,000 residents, the county is suburban in population, but rural in character in many areas, especially in South Kitsap, where numerous homes are nestled in heavily wooded areas or next to greenbelts. If you doubt it, see Puget Sound Energy’s statistics on outages related to limbs or trees on lines. Of the 100,000 PSE customers who lost their power, an estimated 70,000 to 75,000 were in Kitsap, according to Dorothy Bracken PSE spokeswoman.

But arborist Jim Trainer, an advocate for trees, criticized the article as being incomplete to say the least. Trainer, who lives and breathes trees, said there are measures that can be taken to minimize the danger of trees falling, while leaving them standing (see below). Trainer wasn’t the only one to mention the idea of trimming branches to create less “sail” in the trees, enabling them to better withstand high winds. “Nobody,” commenting on the article, described trimming done on his (or her?) property in Mason County.

Trees are not the bad guys, Trainer says, and it serves them poorly to fan the flames of fear that incite people to simply be rid of them.

Trainer’s point, if I take it correctly, is “think before you just start blindly whacking down trees.” The Kitsap Sun published an article in 2008 (right after a big winter storm) interviewing Trainer and others on the benefits of doing a health evaluation and pruning of trees on or around your property.

The article raises and, I will admit, does not fully address the complex issue of who is responsible for trees. Literally, it is the individual or entity who legally owns the property on which they grow. But these folks or groups have to work within local regulations, made, as I mentioned in the article, by public officials who try to balance to environmental and aesthetic benefits of trees with public safety and the pressures of commerce.

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Here’s what Jim had to say.

Chris,

I have read your article on the trees that were taken down due to the storm we had and have given it a lot of thought.

What the county needs to do is develop a Tree Safe Program for property owners with a local Arborist. The project would be to window the large Douglas Fir trees by removing 10% to 15% of the limbs in the canopy of the tree. The wind will go through the area where the limbs were removed taking the sail out of the tree. This is a lot cheaper than having the tree fall on the house. The homeowner needs to check with their insurance company to see if they are willing to subsidize the cost of the Arborist visit.

Buffers were mandated and the width of the buffer is too small to stand high wind events. When trees blows over inside buffer areas where the trees are not replaced it makes it more vulnerable to high winds. Heavy rain events along wih the wind also make buffer areas trees more susceptable to fail. Most buffer areas will have tall and small trees mixed in with very large trees. This would be a domino effect making the tall trees susceptible to blow over and knock the small trees down.

It is really a treeacide every time you guys do an article about trees that are laying on the ground. How about a positive article about what to do to help prevent these problems? You need to talk to an expert in the field, not county staff who don’t have the knowledge of trees.

Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Jim Trainer
Treez, Inc.
www.treezinc.com

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