The city of Astoria has taken control of a 111-year-old mansion whose history traces the rise of a family prominent in the city's maritime and banking enterprises and the family's eventual decline.
Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, sent a letter asking federal officials to study the environmental impacts of mining coal in Montana and Wyoming, shipping it to the West Coast and burning it in Asia.
The National Weather Service is predicting that the storm could be the strongest since a series of storms hit the north Oregon coast and southwest Washington in December 2007.
"I was looking out the window at the river and saw a small plane flying fast way too close to the river," Astoria resident Brad Gulleff said in an e-mail to KATU News. "I knew it was trouble, then it hit the water."