Ketchikan: Ketchikan Fire Department teams help in Katrina disaster relief - Two two-person teams from the Ketchikan Fire Department left early Wednesday morning for Atlanta, Georgia to help in the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief effort. Rich Leipfert, Ketchikan Public Safety Director, said the teams are being sent in response to a Federal Emergency Management Agency request for teams with at least firefighting and emergency medical technician level training. Leipfert said, "When we contacted FEMA about the travel arrangements they advised us that the sooner the better. The team geared up for a departure the next morning."

From Ketchikan, the two teams traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, for one day of training and to receive equipment, immunizations and assignments for deployment into the affected areas said Leipfert.

FEMA pays the teams' regular salary and benefits during the 30-day "community relations deployment activation". The teams will be working in support of the disaster relief effort rather than as operational firefighters said Leipfert. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

National: Bush, Congress offer more aid to hurricane victims By MARGARET TALEV - With signs Hurricane Katrina is eroding his support within his own base, President Bush worked overtime Thursday to reassure Americans that his administration is dedicated to helping hundreds of thousands of displaced people rebuild their lives.

"The government is going to be with you for the long haul," the president said, speaking directly to hurricane survivors and evacuees in a short, televised speech. He also declared Friday, Sept. 16, a national day of prayer and remembrance for hurricane victims, detailed some of the emergency relief headed survivors' way, and promised states taking in evacuees that they will be reimbursed by the federal government. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

National: Muck from flood raising health, environmental fears By LEE BOWMAN - As the floodwaters are gradually pumped out of New Orleans, much of the mixture of waste and chemicals suspended in them will be left behind either in sensitive wetlands or in the soil of the city itself, raising new health and environmental concerns.

Failures to levees after Hurricane Katrina's assault left about 80 percent of the city flooded with water up to 20 feet deep, water that quickly became fouled with chemicals, pesticides, oil, garbage, human waste and human and animal remains. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

National: Lawmakers sounding alarm on FEMA again By M.E. SPRENGELMEYER - Hurricane Katrina was not even a blip on the weather radar when some lawmakers first sounded an alarm.

It was the summer of 2002, less than a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Congress was eager to respond in a big way. Lawmakers were poised to create the Department of Homeland Security as an umbrella for a whole host of public safety efforts. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

National: Volunteers from across the nation head southward By TAMARA KOEHLER - The line of needy New Orleans evacuees wound through the parking lot, then bottlenecked inside the narrow hallways of the small American Red Cross center here in this city 30 miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

National: Four years after 9/11, are we scared of too much? By LANCE GAY - Poisoning the nation's milk supplies. Crashing a gasoline tanker into a shopping mall. Setting off a nuclear bomb at the foot of the Supreme Court.

In the four years since the 9/11 attacks, those are only a few of the scary scenarios that scientists and experts have sketched out for how terrorists could strike America again.- More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Science: Human brain still evolving, study finds By LEE BOWMAN - Researchers analyzing variations in two genes that regulate brain size have found evidence that the human noggin may still be evolving upgrades.

More than any other physical attribute, large brains define humanity. With an average size of 1,350 cubic centimeters, the human brain is larger relative to the rest of the body than that of any other animal. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Copper rockfish Photo by Don Kramer, Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program/UAF.

Alaska: Pacific rockfish scientists to share research - That  rockfish you landed while fishing for salmon or halibut may have been  born prior to the Civil War.

 "The oldest rockfish we have seen in Alaska is a 205-year-old rougheye that was caught off Ketchikan a few years ago," said Milton Love, associate research biologist at the University of California Santa Barbara. "A  number of rockfish species live to be well over 100 years old." - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Alaska: Alaska Hurricane Response Grows; Aircraft and airmen sent to assist with transportation, relief and recovery - Additional Alaska Air National Guard members are on their way to assist relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A C-130 Hercules and crew of seven from the 144th Airlift Squadron left Kulis Air National Guard Base today. Yesterday, a chaplain and chaplain assistant from the 176th Wing at Kulis were sent to Alexandria, LA.

"Their mission is to mitigate post-traumatic stress disorder or any other long term psychological damage to rescue workers," said Capt. Gilbert Campbell, chaplain with the Alaska National Guard. - More..
Friday - September 09, 2005

Alaska: United Fishermen of Alaska Support Gulf Shrimpers with Assistance
UFA donates equipment, services and personnel to Southern Shrimp Alliance in response to the effects of Katrina - The United Fishermen of Alaska, one of the nation's largest commercial fishing groups, has extended offers of support to the Southern Shrimp Alliance and its more than 500 members in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The offer of support includes gear, apparel and logistical support to SSA which is made up of shrimp boat, dock and business owners in eight states spanning the Gulf and South Atlantic coasts. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Ketchikan Boy Scouts Host Educational Session with Guardian Flight Paramedic Christopher Roussell & Boy Scout Troop 4 Photograph by Jason Cerovac

Ketchikan: Ketchikan Boy Scouts Host Educational Session with Guardian Flight - Thursday evening, Guardian Flight Paramedic Christopher Roussell attended the Troop 4 meeting of the Boy Scouts of America at Holy Name Catholic Church School.

Paramedic Roussell gave a brief lecture on preparedness for emergencies, discussing the importance of planning and preparation. He also answered some questions, particularly about providing patient care while flying, and about cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Ketchikan: Power Outage Scheduled This Weekend - The University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan Campus has scheduled a power outage for the main campus, located at 2600 Seventh Avenue beginning Saturday, September 10.  The outage will allow Wolverine Construction to install new electrical connections between the Paul and Ziegler Buildings as part of the campus renovation project. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Alaska: State: No grounds for recall of Alaska GOP leader By RICHARD MAUER - The Division of Elections has refused to certify the recall petition of Sen. Ben Stevens, dealing opponents of the powerful state legislator a second blow in less than a month. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Alaska: Governor kicks off 2nd annual Alaska-Taiwan trade meeting - Alaska Governor Frank H. Murkowski, Senior Advisor to the President of Taiwan Ning Hsiang Kang and Senior Advisor to the President of Taiwan Li Pei Wu welcomed delegates arriving in Alaska Thursday to attend the second annual Taiwan-Alaska Trade & Investment Cooperation Council meeting. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Election 2005 List of Candidates Filed For Office   Assembly & School Board FINAL   City Council FINAL    Campaign 2005 SitNews will again be providing free web pages to all candidates who file for local office. Candidates, please e-mail a digital photo, your background & qualifications for the office you are seeking, contact information, and your campaign statement to editor@sitnews.us Candidate's campaign information will be published as received beginning on September 7, 2005. The deadline for submission to SitNews is September 26, 2005. The regular election is October 4, 2005. Viewpoints Opinions/Letters When only sending the best will do... By David Hull - Friday PM Ketchikan Fuel Prices By John Fraley - Friday PM First "SchoenBon" Day By Karen Ramsey - Friday PM Ketchikan WAKE UP!!!!! By Nyna Fleury - Friday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter All That Jazz Sandy Huffaker, Cagle Cartoons Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. More Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report 09/08/05 AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements September 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S   29 30 31 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30    Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: "Sometimes nothing is really something" - Forty years ago today, I had a life changing experience. Too bad I can't remember much of it.  

I was six at the time and - to be fair - the experience on September 9, 1965 was sandwiched in between visits to Disneyland, Marine Land and Knotts Berry Farm, which were the real highlights of the trip.  We were on a family visit to Los Angeles. I remember the traffic backed up on the Santa Ana freeway (people were actually reading their newspapers as their cars inched forward!). I remember how icky the tap water tasted in Anaheim. And I remember how boring the baseball game was at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 9. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Preston MacDougall: Chemical Eye on the City of Dreams - "Good morning America how are you?"

In the aftermath of Katrina, with New Orleans looking more like a concrete bayou than the City of Dreams that was evoked by Tennessee Williams, it is too easy to lament about the "train-wreck" they call The City of New Orleans. It takes some imagination, and unshakeable confidence in the indomitable spirit of Americans, but I prefer to dream about the new Big Easy - rebuild it and we will come. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Michael Reagan: Will Somebody Say Thank You? - Turn on TV, read the local newspaper or listen to your local radio station and all you are going to hear, see and read are accounts of people knee-deep in playing the blame game. What you don't hear is anybody saying "thank you."

From the safety of France, Pierce Brosnan took the time to tell the world: "This man called President Bush has a lot to answer for. I don't know if this man is really taking care of America. This government has been shameful." Instead of lifting a finger to help Katrina's victims, this was the make-believe 007's response to the tragedy. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Ann McFeatters: The lessons of Hurricane Katrina - As hope slowly creeps back into our national psyche, as it always does, just when the lure of despair seems inescapable, Washington is brimming with ideas for "getting on" with the business of figuring out what went wrong in the immediate aftermath of Katrina's wrath and what to do next.

There will be finger pointing and firings and hearings and reports, just as there were after Sept. 11, 2001, a horror that made us think four years ago that we had been to hell and back. We know now that hell can - and will - revisit us, usually when we least expect it. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Deroy Murdock: Congress needs to keep Katrina relief pork-free - Recently battered by waves of water, New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities soon will be caressed by waves of tax dollars. The initial $10.5 billion in disaster assistance that President Bush signed, even as hurricane survivors vacated the Crescent City, soon will be dwarfed by a second, $52 billion check from Washington. Other checks surely will roll in like the surf.

The ongoing emergency and unfolding humanitarian crisis in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama give Congress an opportunity to help Katrina's victims rather than themselves. Democrats and Republicans alike should show enough restraint and maturity, just this once, to avoid larding up Katrina-related appropriations with dozens and even hundreds of unrelated vanity projects. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Betsy Hart: Talk about a wake-up call - Who knew an American city could be - essentially - wiped out?

I confess I was someone who typically looked at the horror of the earthquakes and floods and wreckage from such things elsewhere, who felt compassion for the souls caught up in such devastation - but was sure the obliteration we witnessed taking place around the world, say with the tsunamis, couldn't really happen here. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Big Energy comes through - The United States has narrowly averted an energy crisis. Hurricane Katrina's damage to energy facilities in the critical Gulf Coast - 29 percent of domestic oil and 21 percent of natural-gas production - though bad was not as severe as first feared.

Thanks to anticipation and improvisation by energy companies, refineries are being repaired and coming back online. Six refineries forced to cut back are now near full capacity and four that had to shut down completely are expected to be fully operational again next week. But four more that were heavily damaged will be out for several months. The Energy Information Administration expects domestic oil production to be back at pre-Katrina levels in November. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005

Editorial: The dizzying Medicare drug plan - In addition to being outlandishly expensive for America's taxpayers - albeit astonishingly profitable for the drug companies - the new Medicare drug benefit is very confusing. It offers Medicare's 43 million beneficiaries the opportunity to choose from two or more private plans - or to join a managed-care plan that includes drug coverage.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll of potential enrollees shows that over half did not plan to join Medicare's drug-benefit program. Whether that's because they don't like it or they don't get it remains an open question. - More...
Friday - September 09, 2005