Morning all. I guess I'm not too irritated at the Emergency Alert considering people that live say 20-50 miles outside of Salem may be in Salem, will be going through Salem, or were in Salem maybe grabbing a bite, a coffee, or soda. Makes perfect sense to me to alert a large area. I go to Salem sometimes when I have a lack of judgement. Yes there wasn't in any info in the alert but it took no more than 30 sec to figure out what it was for. It was a good exercise and hopefully next time it will work better. Glad I don't live there..

 

We have a lack of judgement and go to Costco every once in a while, and then my Primary Doc is at the Salem VA Clinic.

The first alert was the irritant for us. Not much problem with the second alert as it explained what / why.
We got lucky because we could come into the front room and turn on the TV. Because we leave the cable box on all the time, we could "rewind" back to where the Emergency Alert was on the TV broadcast, (actually the Alert System resets the cable box so everything before the alert is erased and the new delay begins with the alert - as long as we get to it within 30 minutes), Had the cable box not been on, we would have missed it.
Had we not been where we could get to the TV, like out camping or at the farm, we would have gone for about a half hour before an alert came across that actually told us what was going on and where. The algae thing at Detroit has been on the news for a week now.

Before I retired, part of my certification and job description was FEMA certified Local Emergency Manager and this type of alert being put out lacking the explanation for the alert is just not acceptable to me. Had we not had access to a TV in a short time frame, all I would have known is that I needed to "prepare to take action". They used a higher alert level for a lower level non emergency "advisory". I don't mind getting the alert, I do mind what the first one said and the 'Level' of alert that was sent out. The first information when we finally got it was talking about Lynn County, Turner and Salem. It was only later that addition information, to include Orchard Heights came out.

Having said that, some of the interviews on a couple of news shows this morning have been, shall we say, just a little over dramatic with the "phone went off and just kept going and going and it did it several times and I was scared to death...…….." The wife's cell phone and my cell phone went off twice. State EM is putting out apologies as they admit they screwed up with the alert.

 

I hear ya... I grew up in that town so I don't have much good to say about it other than that. Not my favorite place and just assume stay in Mac or head to the metro area. We do occasionally go to Costco but for us it's about the same distance and time to go to Tigard. We don't have TV but bookface was lighting up and a quick jump to at news website and we figured it out. In my capacity as a PW guy I've been through a lot of the EMS classes as well. When the phone went off I thought I was getting a call. Have not experienced that before but good to know it works....sort of. I saw the apology from State EM and sound like there are few bugs in the system. Like most things they need practice and sounds like they learned a few things. I can only imagine how the thing was portrayed on the local news. haha.

I was hoping there was a huge thunder storm coming or the zombie's finally popped out but no such luck.

 

I didn't even know we had a Cell Phone system working here, until last night. Great system, no arguments here. Just need to get the guy pushing the buttons to push the right ones. Our land line never went off so it must not be hooked up to any forced out network on the LL.
We used to stop at Tigard Costco on the way home from the VA. Then we switched to Wilsonville (has a gas station) and then take the Donald exit to Newberg. Added benefit now is that we come in on the St. Paul side of the new bypass.
Salem Costco is closer for us and it has a gas station so we time our shopping to low fuel tank levels. I wish they would get diesel in at Salem. Sent them an email inquiring about that and they said they did a market study and found it wouldn't make them enough money...they must have conducted that study outside of hunting, fishing, boating and camping seasons!
Before I retired, we were working on a reverse number call system, but it wasn't quite as fancy. You had to voice record your message then the automated system would do the rest. My plectron here never made a peep, and I actually had it pugged in last night.

Back to travel preparation.

 

 

Evening Evan and those to follow.
Have the sleeping platform loaded in the pickup.

 

Camper is on the pickup, just have to get some stuff loaded. Hoping to get out of here early in the morning.

 

Evening Jim....
I have a lot to do tomorrow after work to get out of here Friday morning. I was trying to talk Renee into taking off after work and was reminded I have to drive 200 miles for work tomorrow.

 

I was kind of 'wishful thinking' of getting to 3 museums on Thursday and get to Cottonwood by tomorrow night. More realistically 2 museums tomorrow and one on Friday and getting to Cottonwood Friday evening. We may skip one of the museums and put it on the list of day trips for later this summer. Mr. Murphy raised his head a little bit ago so instead of being in bed, we are still up and may be dragging in the morning.

 

Good morning Oregon, another Thirsty Thursday is upon us!

 

Morning Pat, and all to follow.

 

Morning Andy, how's Thursday looking?

 

Nice cool day here.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. 49, overcast with a 50% chance of rain. We'll be hitting the road here very shortly. Back in a week or so.
#1 Son will be guarding the house and building a new fence while we're out and about.