TOUGH MUDDER Islander proves her mettle in grueling event. Page 14
NEWS | Two islanders vie for fire commissioner seat. [3] COMMENTARY | Tend to the soil this fall. [6] COMMUNITY | Step up for the Medical Reserve Corps. [4]
SOUNDS OF AFRICA Musician from Guinea to perform at the Bike. Page 11
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2015
Vol. 60, No. 32
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
SKATERS BRAVE THE HEAT AT NEW BOWL’S DEDICATION
75¢
Trail system may soon connect town, Center and points beyond Land Trust and county are working together on a long-term plan By SARAH LOW Staff Writer
Mica Gaxiola-Flynn Photo
The Burton Adventure Recreation Center (BARC) recently hosted a dedication ceremony for its new state-of-the-art bowl, complete with a skate competition that attracted participants from both on- and off-island. There were 19 competitors in total, ranging in age from 7 to 39, and about 50 people there to watch. Local skaters Ethan Morosoff and Dan Dinsmore as well as pro skater Cory Kennedy served as judges. Pictured above is skater Satchel Gordon, whose family has a summer home on the island.
For anyone who has ever walked between town and Center along the highway and wished for a more pedestrian-friendly alternative, welcome news is on the way. The Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust and King County’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are currently working on a project referred to as Phase 1 in a long-term plan to connect the island’s retail hubs. “The goal is to provide a way for people to get back and forth without being on the highway, which is at best uncomfortable and at worst, dangerous,” land trust Executive Director Tom Dean said. For an island that’s known for its abundance of outdoor recreational opportunities, Vashon can be a strangely difficult place for those who choose or need to walk. For all of its natural spac-
es, the only way to travel up or down the island is via the main highways. Dean and David Kimmett, manager of King County’s Natural Resources Lands program, are looking to change that by building an interconnected trail system. The long-term plan is to connect trails from town all the way to Quartermaster Harbor, though Kimmett’s dream doesn’t stop there. “From top to bottom,” he said. “One day, we want Vashon to have a trail system that can take you from one end of the island to the other without having to use the highway.” For the moment, however, the focus is on the more immediate future and two loop trails: Judd Creek and Town. The Judd Creek trail, currently closed to the public, is in the midst of its most intense construction phase, Dean said. Crews from the Student Conservation Association as well as the Washington Conservation Corps are working hard to establish the trail, as well as build bridges and boardwalks through Paradise Valley. “This is going to be a great teaching and birding trail,” he noted. “It’s fairly
SEE TRAIL, 18
Cascadia quake preparation under way Major disaster exercise will involve Vashon By SARAH LOW Staff Writer
Last month, a now infamous New Yorker article created a veritable tsunami of panic and hand-wringing with its vivid description of the destruction a full rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) would unleash upon the geographically unlucky residents of the Pacific Northwest — particularly those living west of I-5. To some, more surprising than anything in the piece or the follow-up that appeared a week later, however, was the panicked public reaction to information that scientists and emergency management personnel on the West Coast have known — and been talking about — for many years. “Cascadia is not a new worry,” Rick Wallace,
president of VashonBePrepared’s executive committee and its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) team lead said. “Emergency managers in the Pacific Northwest have been preparing for and putting out messaging about this for a long time.” That preparation includes a major, multijurisdiction exercise called Cascadia Rising, that is scheduled to take place next June. And Wallace is on the planning committee. Similar to past emergency operations and management drills such as Sound Shake 2010 and Evergreen Quake 2012, the Cascadia Rising event will work from a pre-determined scenario, this one being a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the length of the CSZ fault and its subsequent tsunami. The CSZ fault lies offshore in the Pacific, running parallel to the West Coast for 700 miles, from California to British Columbia. Subduction is the term used to describe one set of tectonic plates sliding beneath another,
SEE CASCADIA, PAGE 19
Map courtesy of the Western Washington University Resilience Institute
A “shake map” from the planning documents for the Cascadia Rising exercise.