Home / Media / News Stories

News Stories

Results:
Archive: 2020
Clear

  • December

    Headshot of a man with a short beard. He is wearing glasses, a light-gray suit, baby-blue shirt and dark tie.

    Hydropower to the people: Mathematician brings energy to new position

    In the wet world of hydropower, a former math teacher has just donned a watery mantle to meet the changing demands of one of the oldest sources of energy.
  • Brigadier General Peter Helmlinger, Northwestern Division commander, toured the Portland Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers team members who are working on designs and plans to retrofit the PVAMC, Sept. 28, 2018. The tour was a way for District staff to discuss the difficulties the team will face during seismic retrofitting.

    Crowded crest in Portland confronts crafty crew of engineers, planners

    The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus sits on a 450-foot-tall basalt-rock hill south of downtown. Marquam Hill, also known as “Pill Hill” due to the amount of medical facilities clustered on its crest, is also crowded with homes, steep slopes and daily commuters (during non-pandemic times). These steep and rocky slopes garnered ridicule for Dr. Kenneth Mackenzie when he initially proposed to build a medical school on Marquam in 1914. According to Oregon Health and Science University’s historical collections, “The land, unusable to the railroad company, came to be known as ‘Mackenzie’s Folly’ in reference to its location on an inaccessible hilltop.”

  • November

    Left: Anthony Johnson, technical writer-editor (engineering) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Portland District, during his first deployment to Afghanistan, from 2004 to 2005. Right: Johnson in November 2019 at the district's headquarters in downtown Portland.

    From self-hate to self-love: An Army veteran’s journey of healing

    Whatever else Anthony Johnson could say about their military service, it at least gave them a friend who cared enough to hide Johnson’s pistol away from them at a time when Johnson might have used it to end their own life.
  • Kyle Anderson and some of his teammates from the Pleasant Hill – Goshen Fire Station who worked the Holiday Farm wildfire together.

    In Harm’s Way: Kyle Anderson goes above and beyond

    Kyle Anderson, a Corps' electrician at Lookout Point Dam is also a volunteer firefighter who was called into action when the Holiday Farm Wild Fire threatened his his hometown of Pleasant Hill, Oregon.

  • October

    Erica Medley, a dam safety geologist with Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, makes her way through thick smoke and fallen trees as she surveys damage on site at Blue River Dam Sept. 14. Medley joined a multi-disciplinary team of operations, engineering and dam safety personnel for a detailed inspection of the project just days after the Holiday Farm Fire burned through the area, impacting Blue River and nearby Cougar Dam.

    Historic wildfires test Corps’ Willamette Valley projects

    The wildfires that closed in on the Corps’ 13-dam system in the Willamette Valley caused minor damage at four dam sites.
  • Jim Day puts out a structural fire during a training exercise as part of his volunteer fire fighting duties with High Prairie Fire and Rescue.

    Just Another Day in Paradise

    Meet Jim Day. Based on his career history we think he may have been a fish in a previous life.

  • September

    A look inside the the cracks and damage to the concrete sill exposed and broken rebar inside the navigation lock's concrete.

    The Anatomy of an Outage: A Look Back at Bonneville Navigation Lock's Sill Failure

    On Sept. 5, 2019, a long unknown and undetected flaw became an impending failure at Bonneville navigation lock. More than 70 feet underwater, sections of rebar, threaded through 40,000 pounds of concrete, had stretched and bent until the strain snapped them. The now deformed steel bars were no match for the force of water that came every time the lock filled with water to pass vessels through the lock.
  • Wendell “Buddy” Barnes (far right), national president of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME), presents Bud Ossey (center) with a placard recognizing his 73 years of membership with SAME during a Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers historical celebration at the district’s headquarters in downtown Portland in November 2019. Also pictured is Terry Hosaka, the SAME Portland Post president.

    The legacy of Bud Ossey: Centenarian, former Portland District engineer helped electrify the Northwest

    Bud Ossey is probably one of the only people alive today who was there on the cool morning of Sept. 28, 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated a brand spanking new Bonneville Dam to the American public.At least, he’s probably one of the only people who remembers it clearly.A 17-year-old
  • A photo of security camera footage of the Beachie Fire approaching Detroit Dam.

    The longest shift: dam operator trapped at Detroit Dam during wildfires

    Before leaving for his work shift, Mike Pomeroy said goodbye to his wife, Ronda, the way he always did: with a promise. “I’ll see you in 14.” The powerplant operator then made the drive for his shift at Detroit Dam that Labor Day evening, in “red flag” conditions as the Beachie Fire consumed swaths of land to the northeast.
  • U.S. Army Col. Michael Helton, Portland District commander, highlights details of the South Jetty rehabilitation at the Mouth of the Columbia River to Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici during a small commemoration event, Aug. 31. The Corps estimates that it will complete rehabilitation on South Jetty by 2024 and will use 400,000 tons of stone. The group, which included Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, was able to see some of the work as contractors placed rock in the background. So far, the Corps has placed more than 14,000 tons of stone at South Jetty. (U.S. Army photo by Jeremy Bell)

    Violent confluence of Columbia River and Pacific Ocean make jetty work … weighty

    During violent winter storms, waves taller than the length of six king-sized beds stacked end-to-end (40 feet) can meet the Columbia River as it makes its way out to the Pacific Ocean. This concentrated colliding of water makes crossing the bar incredibly dangerous, according to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. So precarious, in fact, that this channel had a nickname, “the graveyard of the Pacific,” at least until the U.S. government built critical infrastructure to reduce some of the risk.

How to Subscribe to RSS

Use Edge Browser
How to follow feeds in Microsoft Edge

  1. Visit the Microsoft Edge Add-on store: https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/Microsoft-Edge-Extensions-Home. ...
  2. Search for “rss feed reader”: ...
  3. Click “Get” Next to “Feeder – RSS Feed Reader”, then Confirm by clicking “Add Extension”
  4. ​ Setup your feeds: Search for feeds one-by-one, browse the library of sites or import feeds with OP
    Use Outlook
 

  1. In Outlook, right-click the RSS Feeds folder and choose Add a New RSS Feed.

  2. In the New RSS Feed dialog box, enter the URL of the RSS Feed.

    Enter the URL for the RSS Feed

    Tip: If you need help finding the RSS feed URL on a website, look for an RSS icon.
     Button image Right-click that icon, and then copy the shortcut to the Clipboard.
    Press Ctrl+V to paste the information from the Clipboard into the RSS Feed location box.
    Choose Add > OK.                                                                

    Additional Subscription Information: Microsoft How to Subscribe to RSS feed in Outlook

Use Internet Explorer

Open Internet explorer and open any USACE website. Look for the small RSS icon and click on that icon as show in this image:

Once it opens in Internet Explorer, it will have an option at the top to subscribe to this RSS feed as show here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use Google Chrome
Chrome Extension allows RSS Feed Subscriptions

Free RSS Feed Reader: https://feeder.co