Ales & Ideas hosts Mayor Bruce Jones & OSU Extension’s Pat Corcoran on Disaster Preparedness

Clatsop Community College and the Fort George Brewery are pleased to announce the January event in the 2018-19 first Thursday Ales & Ideas community lectures. 

Thursday, January 3rd, 2019 CCC President Chris Breitmeyer will moderate a discussion with Astoria’s new Mayor Bruce Jones and OSU Extension coastal hazards specialist Pat Corcoran. Come join neighbors for Resolve to be Resilient: A Disaster Preparedness Pep Talk. Doors open with food and beverage service at 6pm. Seasonal beers on tap, food and other beverages are available for purchase, but no purchase is required. The Fort George Lovell Showroom is located at 14th and Duane St. in Astoria.  Minors are welcome. 

The arrival of the New Year is a great time to think proactively, and this new year Astorians get to welcome a new Mayor Bruce Jones, who brings to office his experiences serving in the US Coast Guard’s response to Hurricane Katrina.  Come learn as Jones shares the lessons from that disaster, including thoughts about how Astoria should learn from other communities to prepare for a CSZ event here. Joining Jones will be OSU Extension’s coastal natural hazards specialist Pat Corcoran, who for more than a decade now has dedicated his considerable energy towards the goal of helping coastal residents and communities become more resilient to natural hazards. President Chris Breitmeyer will moderate this panel to allow ample time for audience Q&A. 

A Coast Guard officer from 1983-2014, Bruce Jones retired in Astoria as a Captain and commander of Sector Columbia River.  Jones led the USCG’s aviation rescue operations over New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. After serving 2.5 years as a Columbia River Bar Pilots helicopter pilot, he was elected to the Astoria City Council in 2017.  He will be sworn in as Astoria Mayor on January 1, 2019.  Jones also serves as the Deputy Director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. He lives with his wife Linda, the Clatsop County Master Gardener Program Coordinator, in a 130-year-old Alderbrook home with their dog, three cats, and four hens. 

Patrick Corcoran is a coastal natural hazards specialist based in at the Clatsop County Extension office in Astoria.  To reach his goal of helping coastal communities become more resilient to natural hazards. Patrick engages university researchers and coastal residents in collaborative research and shared learning about the nature of coastal natural hazards. He also helps communities identify their vulnerability to hazard and connects local people with data and decision support tools designed to help communities adapt to coastal hazards. Patrick’s primary areas of work are tsunami preparedness, coastal storms, and shoreline change. In 2014 Pat was named a Weather-Ready Ambassador for NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation initiative.