The Port of Hood River will be conducting emergency repairs due to vandalism of the control room and north tower of the Hood River/White Salmon Interstate Bridge in late September.  The vandalism included graffiti, cut wires, knobs, and destruction of a navigation light.  Port Executive Director Michael McElwee says it appears the repairs will be relatively easy, but it will lead to increased bridge closure periods during October.  Next Monday and Tuesday the bridge lift span will be fully tested, leading to closures of up to one hour in duration at multiple times during the day and night, and on October 12 there will be a full closure from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. for strain gage testing on the liftspan.  Then previously planned truss and floorbeam repair work will take place from October 11th to the 25th, which will require intermittent single lane closures of the bridge for up to two weeks.

The rescheduled Hops Fest will be this Saturday in downtown Hood River.  It had been planned for September 23, but the Hood River County Chamber of Commerce decided to push it back in the wake of the Eagle Creek Fire.  Chamber events director Ashley Huckaby May says the move will actually increase the number of breweries at Hops Fest, as more breweries had completed their batches of hop beer.  Hops Fest will be open from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot at 5th and Columbia in downtown Hood River.  Tickets are available online at hoodriver.org.  Tickets for the previous festival date of September 23 will be honored.

There were a pair of power outages on Saturday in western Klickitat County.  Klickitat PUD says the first occurred in the morning when the Bonneville Power Administration had a line fault on the transmission line from Bonneville Dam to their Bald Mountain substation just south of Husum.  That transmission line feeds the Bingen, White Salmon, Snowden, Husum, Trout Lake and Glenwood areas.  BPA operators took action and restored power in about 30 minutes.  Then on Saturday night, Skamania PUD requested that BPA take an outage on the same transmission line between Bonneville Dam and Bald Mountain substation because Skamania PUD had a switch that was arcing at the North Bonneville Annex, which is the first tap off the line.  That led to a second outage for that line lasting for about two hours.

Hermiston 40, Hood River Valley 14 LaGrande 14, The Dalles 6 Columbia 22, Castle Rock 12 Stevenson 27, Seton Catholic 7 Dufur 58, Perrydale 22 Sherman 48, Touchet (WA) 6 Lyle-Wishram 46, Dayton 6 Naches Valley 41, Goldendale 0

The Hood River County School District’s early enrollment figures show a slight dip in enrollment as the 2017-18 school year has begun.  However school officials will be watching those numbers over the next month to see if there is any increase coming off the Eagle Creek Fire situation that may have kept some students away in the opening two weeks of school.  Superintendent Dan Goldman says enrollment has been on a downward trend in the past two school years.  He says the district is anxious to see if the housing starts around the Hood River area are being populated by families.  Goldman says the district may have to move forward with the expectation that enrollment will be flat or continue on a downward trend.

The Oregon Veterans Home is progressing on its first major remodel in its 20-year history.  Veterans Home Program Director Michael Springston says along with updating and modernizing the facility, they are trying to give the Veterans who are there more of a sense of home.  He says they are adding carpets and upgrading resident rooms with a hardwood laminate floor.  Work began on the remodel in June, and Springston says it should be done in late spring or early summer.

Volleyball Hood River Valley def. Hermiston 25-8, 25-5, 25-11 Pendleton def. The Dalles 25-15, 25-19, 25-17 LaCenter def. Columbia 25-18, 25-20, 25-19 King’s Way Christian def. Stevenson 25-5, 25-14, 25-16 Dufur def. Mitchell-Spray 25-14, 25-5, 25-13 South Wasco def. Condon-Wheeler 25-16, 25-11, 25-19 Sherman def. Ione 27-25, 25-17, 25-15   Boys Soccer Hood River Valley 2, Woodburn 0 LaGrande 6, The Dalles 2   Girls Soccer Hood River Valley 1, Woodburn 0 LaGrande 3, The Dalles 0 LaCenter 3, Stevenson 1   Girls Water Polo Hood River Valley 15, Barlow 8

The City of The Dalles Public Works has scheduled pavement crack sealing on some roadways for Monday through Thursday.  The work will be done on East 1^st between Union Street and Madison Street, and West and East 2^nd between Lincoln Street and Madison Street.  No parking signs will be set out a day or so before work is scheduled.  Any cars parked in the work zone on the day that work is scheduled will be towed.  Rolling road closures will move through the project areas, throughout the week.

The Gifford Pinchot National Forest recently sold and awarded 5.9 million board feet of timber from the Jane Timber Sale in the Lewis River watershed to High Cascade of Carson.  Forest officials say it’s the first of several timber sales to be offered from the Swift Thin project approved in 2016 that is located east and south of Swift Reservoir that will commercial thin trees 45 to 55 years old on about 3,600 acres of forest plantations.  About $525,000 from the timber sale will fund road reconstruction and maintenance on 36 miles of road used to transport timber from the sale area to the mill.  Forest officials say the road improvements provide public benefit for those who access that part of the Gifford Pinchot for hunting, enjoying a weekend drive, hiking, and other forest uses.  Trail networks in the Trapper Creek Wilderness and the Siouxon area will be greatly improved.  Following completion of the timber sale, there may be unused wood made available to the public to remove via firewood permits if the situation allows.

Fire heavily damaged a building on Oak Street in downtown Hood River on Wednesday night.  Hood River Fire Chief Leonard Damian says firefighters were called to the fire at the building on 6 Oak Street that houses the Kayak Shed at 7:44 p.m. when multiple callers to 9-1-1 reported smoke and flames coming from the roof and the rear of the building.  Crews arrived to find dark smoke coming from the eaves of the building and fire coming from the roof.  Firefighters battled the fire for over 90 minutes before it was declared under control.  The fire was contained within the building, with an adjacent coffee shop and apartment building suffering what Damian termed moderate smoke and water damage.  There were no reported injuries, and all occupants in apartment units got out safely.  Damian says the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.   Crews from Hood River, Westside, Wy’east, Parkdale, Cascade Locks, Klickitat County, and Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue departments were involved in the firefighting effort.  The fire attracted a large number of onlookers who were in the downtown area on a warm early fall evening.