Fishing boat owners pledge tsunami aid

NEWPORT, Ore. – The owners of more than a dozen commercial fishing boats recently signed agreements that will make their boats and crews available if a tsunami strikes.

The boats have signed an agreement with Lincoln County commissioners to ferry equipment, supplies and food to emergency responders and coastal residents.

Money to reimburse them for their services would come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and be channeled through the state and county offices of emergency management.

Other than helicopters and airplanes, the tsunami fleet may be the only transportation available for several weeks. And with massive power outages anticipated, the diesel generators aboard boats are a critical resource, said Lincoln County Commissioner Terry Thompson, who conceived the partnership.

Many boats also have watermakers, machines that can convert saltwater into drinking water, another vital need.

“You’d be surprised what these guys can do in an emergency,” said Dean Fleck, manager of Englund Marine Supply in Newport. “They’re totally self-sustaining.”

The agreement provides boat owners with $75 per foot of their vessels per day. A 50-foot boat, then, would earn $3,750 daily.

Newport crabber Jerry Bates said he signed up with memories of the 1964 tsunami that rolled out of Alaska, killing four in Oregon.

“I helped pack off the son and mother of the family that died at Beverly Beach,” Bates said. “It’s a pretty good plan to have in place.”

But Newport shrimper Jeff Boardman cautions that the boats will only be useful if they’re actually at sea. Boardman fishes about 125 days of the 210-day shrimp season. Between October and April, his ship is in port, where it would likely be inundated by a tsunami and useless.

“If our boats are in port, we’re in trouble,” Boardman said. “We need enough people, because not everybody is going to be on the ocean.”