A group of paddleboarders on the Willamette River experienced a rare phenomenon earlier this month when a vortex overtook them and briefly lifted a Philomath man into the air and triggered an emergency response.
Jeff Schiminsky was paddleboarding on the Fourth of July with his 13-year-old son, girlfriend, and her 12-year-old daughter, along with another family after putting in at Peoria with plans to take out at Michael’s Landing.
The weather was perfect, Schiminsky said, with the temperature in the low 80s and sunny skies with little to no wind. At around 2 p.m., however, something happened to give the group quite a scare.
“We were just kind of talking and then the wind really picked up,” Schiminsky recalled.
The group noticed trees beginning to stir on the east side of the river. It appeared as though a dust devil had formed and was moving toward the water.
“We were just watching it and were like, ‘oh, that’s really interesting,'” Schiminsky said. “And it kept picking up and picking up and picking up.”
The situation escalated rapidly. A large wave formed in the river, hitting the paddlers in the face. Schiminsky’s son was thrown from his paddleboard, his girlfriend was spun around and went underwater, and then the vortex picked up Schiminsky himself.
Initially holding onto his 11-foot, 40-pound paddleboard, Schiminsky soon released it to avoid being struck.
“The next thing you know, I was kind of suspended,” he said, noting that a witness described him as appearing “kind of like 6 inches above the air just temporarily.”
After his girlfriend was pulled underwater by the vortex, Schiminsky swam to her and helped her reach a paddleboard before the group made it to shore. The waterspout continued west across the river before dissipating, leaving scattered water bottles, hats and other unsecured items in its wake.
The incident automatically triggered an emergency response when Schiminsky’s iPhone, secured in a protective bag on his paddleboard, detected what it interpreted as a car crash and began pinging SOS signals to authorities. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office marine patrol unit responded to the 2:02 p.m. emergency alert.
When Schiminsky later encountered the marine patrol and explained what happened, he said the officers initially seemed skeptical. “They were kind of looking at me like, ‘that’s quite a story’ but you know, there were witnesses to it,” he said.
The group was able to complete their paddleboarding trip down the river.
While the group initially believed no one was injured, Schiminsky developed bruising and “brain fog” a few days later. A medical friend diagnosed the symptoms as consistent with a concussion.
Dust devils typically dissipate when they encounter bodies of water, but meteorologists note that under rare conditions, they can survive over water to stir up dramatic scenes.
“Hey, you never really know when you’re on the Willamette River, or any river, that those things can happen,” Schiminsky said.
2. Lions donates $10,000 for readerboard
Sitting in Dale Collins Park on the eastern edge of the couplet, the city’s LED message-displaying sign has simply become outdated. The software used for the readerboard is no longer supported and the city recorder has to go on site with an old laptop, plug it in and manually update the messages.
The Philomath Lions Club has stepped in with a $10,000 donation, which will pay for a little more than half of the estimated cost of $19,601 for a new sign. The rest of it will be paid for using transient lodging tax dollars, City Manager Chris Workman said.
“That’s a very generous offer and we’re really grateful to the Lions Club for their steadfast support of that,” Mayor Christopher McMorran said at the July 14 City Council meeting.
Workman said the readerboard project has been on the city’s radar for the past year and he was hoping to use TLT funds for the full purchase. As it turned out, projections on that revenue fell short so he looked to local organizations that might be interested in contributing.
The project will have an additional cost with the city planning to install a wooden sign that matches the style used at Paul J. Cochran Veterans Memorial Park and Philomath City Park. Public Works will handle the installation on that part of the project with the cost coming down to materials only. There will also be a sign that acknowledges the Lions Club donation.
The employee that will likely be happiest about the upgrade will be City Recorder Crystal Weber. Instead of going on site in all kinds of weather using a laptop, the electronic sign will be updated via computer at the office.
“This is really good news because it will make Crystal’s life a lot easier,” McMorran said.
The new readerboard will measure approximately 3 by 6 feet, which is close in size to the current one. A difference will be the 9-millimeter resolution, which will allow the use of images and graphics. And the new version will have many more options for programming.
“It’s really going to up the game on what we can do,” Workman said. “Honestly, it’ll be a little more similar to what the fire district has.”
Workman said the city could either pay for the readerboard up front or make monthly payments over five years, which would cost more in the end because of financing fees. The preference was to pay for the sign up front.
The $19,601 price tag includes the sign, installation, warranty and support package.
The Lions Club contribution aligns well with the space, which is named in honor of the former mayor and longtime volunteer Dale Collins.
Workman estimated that the new readerboard could be installed within the next three months.
3. Rodeo raffle helps cancer patients
The Philomath Frolic and Rodeo’s “Nobody Fights Alone” raffle at this year’s three-day event put the ongoing fight against cancer in the spotlight.
The rodeo raffle was renamed Nobody Fights Alone in 2022 in honor of Amber Henderson, who serves on the Frolic’s board and struggled in a fight against acute myeloid leukemia. The message behind the raffle is to provide community assistance to cover nonmedical living expenses for local families impacted by cancer.
“Now we’re doing the fundraiser for other families like Amber’s that are fighting cancer and have all of these expenses that aren’t paid through insurance,” Frolic and Rodeo board member Chris Workman said. “Insurance will cover the chemotherapy or the pills or whatever they’re doing but they don’t cover the gas, the meals and all of that stuff.”
The raffle raised an estimated $450 with 100% of the proceeds going to Project H.E.R., an oncology support program funded by the Corvallis Clinic Foundation.
“That money stays right here in Philomath for Philomath families,” Workman said.
The raffle featured several big items, including a handmade awareness quilt by Jan Stuzman. Volunteer Patty Wischnofske oversees the raffle.
“She puts her heart into that,” Workman said. “Patty’s working all year long trying to get all of that raffle stuff together.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
