 Contact 
Call 617-9696
Webmail
Letters
News Tips
Copyright Info
Archives
Quick News
Search
Alaska
Ketchikan
SE Alaska
Alaska News Links
Columns
- Articles
Dave Kiffer
Fish
Factor
Money Matters
Historical
Ketchikan
June Allen
Dave
Kiffer
Louise
B. Harrington
Ketchikan
Arts & Events
Ketchikan
Arts
Ketchikan
Museums
KTN Public
Library
Sports
Ketchikan Links
Public Records
FAA Accident Reports
NTSB
Accident Reports
Court Calendar
Court Records Search
Wanted:
Absconders
Sex Offender Reg.
Public Notices
Weather,
Webcams
Today's
Forecast
KTN
Weather Data
AK
Weather Map
AK Weathercams
AK Earthquakes
TV Guide
Ketchikan
Ketchikan
Phone Book
Yellow
Pages
White
Pages
Government
Links
Local Government
State & National
|
|
Monday
June 24, 2013
Sitting on Top of The... Rocks
Neither rain nor rocks will stop the serious fisherman. As the photographer was headed back to town, he saw a boat on the rocks and offered assistant to the stranded boater. The stranded captain said he was fine and was going to have to wait until high tide in order to get off the rocks, explaining he had been beach combing and when trying to leave ran aground and was not able to push the boat off the rocks before the tide went out.
Front Page Photo By LES KELLY ©2013
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Alaska: 70th Anniversary of Battle of Attu Commemorated - From June 3 to 7, 1942, Japanese forces attacked Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, bombing Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska and invading the islands of Attu and Kiska. At the time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the news blackout in the fear that the realization of the enemy's presence on Alaska soil would panic the entire nation.
American troops land on Attu, May 11, 1943. In this photo landing boats are shown pouring our scores of soldiers and their equipment onto the black volcanic sand of Massacre Bay.
Photo courtesy Library of Congress - U.S. Navy, Official Photograph
In May, 1943, after a prolonged air campaign, U.S. troops piled into transport ships to to expel invaders from American soil for the first time since 1812. Lasting 18 days, the Battle of Attu was one of the deadliest battles of World War II, but it remains one of the least well-known.
Seventy years after young men fought and died on remote, wind-swept Attu Island in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) honored their sacrifices with the dedication of a new interpretive site on Attu. In addition to interpretive panels which tell the story of WWII in the Aleutians, a special plaque honors the deeds of Pvt. Joseph Martinez, the only Medal of Honor recipient in the Aleutian Campaign. - More...
Monday PM - June 24, 2013
Ketchikan: Texting-While-Driving Cause of North Tongass Crash By MARY KAUFFMAN - Although the Alaska state Legislature passed a law explicitly outlawing texting while driving in Alaska, all drivers haven't received the news or worse, have chosen to ignore. So it would appear after a van driven by a Ketchikan teenager left the highway Sunday afternoon crashing into trees.
According to information released by Alaska State Troopers, the investigation of the crash revealed that Kody Elmer, 18 years old of Ketchikan, was operating a white passenger van traveling northbound on Tongass Highway while texting and the vehicle left the highway coming to a stop when it collided with trees. The white van was totaled.
Alaska State Troopers and the North Tongass Volunteer Fire Department responded to the single vehicle collision near 10 mile North Tongass Highway around 2:45 pm Sunday afternoon.
Elmer was treated for a minor injury at the scene. There were two minor children passengers in the van at the time of the collision. The children were not injured but were transported to the Ketchikan Peace Health Medical Center as a precaution. - More...
Monday PM - June 24, 2013
Ketchikan: Troopers Investigate Weapon Involved Fight- Anyone with information regarding a fight on Saturday involving multiple men in progress at the Lighthouse Tesoro gas station near mile 10.7 of the North Tongass Highway are asked to call Alaska State Troopers at 225-5118.
Witnesses report that one of the men brandished a handgun during the fight. Prior to the Alaska State Troopers arrival, the men fled in two vehicles.
Witnesses gave Alaska State Troopers dispatch vehicle descriptions for both vehicles. Alaska State Troopers stopped and contacted the drivers of both vehicles and investigation revealed that at least three men had engaged in a fight at the Lighthouse Tesoro gas station and had caused damage to each other's vehicles. - More...
Monday PM - June 24, 2013
|
|
Alaska: May's Statewide Weather Summary - The unseasonably cold temperatures statewide in Alaska from April extended (with a short reprieve on the 9th and 10th) well into May. Above normal mean statewide temperatures returned on the 23rd, and stayed until the end of the month.
Ketchikan's Weather Summary for May
Graphic courtesy AK Climate Research Center
The mean temperature of all first order stations statewide for May was 39.9°F, 3.1°F below the long-term mean of 43.0°F. Eighteen of the 20 First Order Stations reported negative deviations, with Interior and Western stations reporting the most extreme deviations from their expected temperatures.
Bettles topped the list with a significant negative deviation of -8.2°F. Following Bettles were: Bethel (-6.6°F), Nome (-5.7°F), Kotzebue (-5.5°F), and Fairbanks (-5.1°F). Barrow reported the largest positive deviation of 1.6°F, followed by Annette Island (Ketchikan) with 1.2°F. Fairbanks had its first 50°F day on May 8th, for a total of 215 days since that temperature had last been reached. This is the fifth longest stretch of under 50°F days for Fairbanks in more than one hundred years. For Nome, the first 40°F days was reached on the 25th, for a total of 224 days below 40°F. Details for each station can be reviewed in the table below.
May precipitation was heavier than normal statewide with twelve of the 20 stations reporting above average totals. The mean value of all 20 stations was calculated to 35% above normal. Topping the stations with heavier than normal precipitation was Valdez with 271% above normal. Next came: Gulkana (228%), Barrow (122%) and Anchorage (113%). Bettles reported the greatest negative deviation with just 3% of the expected value. Rounding out the stations with less than a quarter of normal totals were: McGrath (6°%), Delta Junction (10%), and Bethel (18%).
Unsurprisingly, considering the low temperatures during much of the month, snowfall for May was above normal with eight of the sixteen stations reporting heavier than normal snowfall, resulting in an overall mean of 214% above normal. However, much of this positive deviation was from Valdez where more than ten times the normal snow fell during the month; with most of this snowfall arriving during the first five days of the month. Bettles (669% above normal), Kotzebue (425%), Nome (370%), Kodiak (350%) and Anchorage (333%) topped the stations with highly elevated snowfalls. Trace or more of snow was recorded for 24 days of the month in Barrow. - More...
Monday PM - June 24, 2013
|
|
Alaska Science: Looking back in time at the world’s oceans By MOLLY RETTIG - A time capsule of satellite imagery of the earth will become available to scientists this month.
An image of the Kuskokwim Delta taken from the Seasat Satellite in 1978. This month thousands of images taken from NASA’s first synthetic aperture radar satellite will be released to scientists around the world.
Image courtesy of and by NASA/JPL
On June 28, digital imagery from more than three decades ago will be released by the Alaska Satellite Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, NASA’s processor and distributor for this type of data. The images reveal an unprecedented view of sea ice, waves, forests, glaciers and more.
“It was awesome because I was resurrecting data that nobody has seen in 35 years, pictures of the earth from when I was a child,” said Tom Logan, the software engineer who processed the data.
The NASA Seasat satellite was launched in June 1978 as proof of concept for using satellites to monitor ocean features—like temperatures, wind and waves. Four months later, a major power failure killed the mission. For 35 years much of the imagery was stowed away in filing cabinets.
Now the data has been processed into several thousand unique gray-scale images of the earth’s surface, each displaying 100-square-kilometer sections in high resolution.
Data was collected over all of North America and much of northern Europe, so there is imagery of the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, and other surrounding waters. You can detect whether lakes are frozen or thawed, the pattern of waves, and even boats.
“It’s a little boat with a big V visible from the ship’s wake,” Logan said.
This mission was NASA’s debut of synthetic aperture radar (or SAR) in space. SAR bounces a little pulse of energy off the surface of the earth and listens for the echo with an antenna. It’s “synthetic” because it collects the echoes from many radar pulses and processes them into a single radar image.
“It’s like combining 1,500 looks at the ground into one look,” Logan said. - More...
Monday PM - June 24, 2013 |
|
Viewpoints
Commentary
Opinions/Letters
Basic
Rules &
Freedom of Speech
Questions, please contact
the editor at editor@sitnews.us or call 617-9696
Sitnews reserves the right to edit.
Update in Progress. Thanks for your patience. Since my head injury 16 months ago, my vision is blurry at times making it difficult to read & significantly slows down progress. (Mary K.)
 Open Letter: Man-made dangers lurking in unexpected places By Tina R. McPherson - Yesterday afternoon (June 16th), after stopping on Connell Lake Road, we let our dogs out of our truck to cool off in the river next to the road. The next five minutes proved nearly fatal to one of our dogs, as we saw him thrashing about with a beaver snare tightly wound around his neck. He was having difficulty breathing, and we had to pull his front paws up on a log to keep the noose from getting any tighter. The snare is made of cable, so a knife will not sever the line. We were fortunate to have a cell phone, we called the State Troopers who arrived at the scene and saved our dog's life. - More...
Wednesday PM - June 19, 2013
RE: Taxation & Spending By Douglas J. Thompson - I just read Mr. Arriola's letter to the editor on the subject of local government and our various comments about it. I would like to clarify a few points. I have run for Ketchikan city/borough government (at the time they were combined positions). Out of seven running two of us chose to put forth concrete proposals of what we wished to accomplish upon election. So I am on record with positive solutions. In my letters due to limited space I often just assume the reader can figure out the right approach when the current wrong one is highlighted. I feel I have offered my services and as an American have the right to cry foul when I see it in government. - More...
Wednesday PM - June 19, 2013
U.S.Immigration legislation By Al Johnson -
Mike Harpold submitted a 'Point of View' to the Ketchikan Daily News, encouraging our congressional members to look closely with a read of the Senate immigration legislation, which in his opinion lacks any real enforcement or assessment of the root problems that have plagued immigration law for some time. and make substantial changes to address these weaknesses. - More...
Wednesday PM - June 19, 2013
Replace IRS With FairTax By Dr. Walter Wesley Snyder V - Now is the time, more than ever, for us, The People, to act and let our Congressperson hear our voice. The IRS' recent incident is a catalyst that We must use to remove unfair taxes imposed on us, The People. In fact, we should remove the IRS from the tax picture as it is only used for political and social control. - More...
Wednesday PM - June 19, 2013
Sign up to vote on the oil-tax giveaway By Bella Hammond -
People across the state are gathering 40,000 petition signatures, needed by mid-July, so Alaskans can vote to reject or approve the recent oil tax giveaway. While it makes no sense to give away billions of state dollars for nothing in return, there is a larger issue -- another attack on the Permanent Fund. - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Help Needed By Sandy Harris -
Karen Galloway needs your help. She was in an accident on May 27th and has 3rd degree burns from this accident. She has been unable to work since because of the severity of the burns and it is not known when she will be able to return to work. - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Taxation & Spending By Ken Arriola -
Just to weigh-in a little on the Municipal Tax/ Budget issue as of late. To Mr's Hanger, Thompson, Dial, Plute and Johnson...... when your names start appearing on the election ballot, perhaps those Elected Officials and the Voters might start taking you seriously. - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Thank you By Heather Muench -
The Ketchikan Humane Society wishes to thank the incredibly generous individuals and organizations who have been so supportive of us over the past two months. Since we rely entirely on donations to support our rescue work, our low-cost spay and neuter program, and our free feral cat altering program, none of what we do could happen without this support. Our goal is for every animal in Ketchikan and Southern Southeast Alaska to be loved and wanted. We have made great progress in reducing the numbers of animals abandoned or euthanized in our community every year. Because we are a 501(c)(3), all donations are tax deductible, and since none of our volunteers or foster families are paid, all monies can be used for care for animals. - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Sealaska One Step Closer... By Dominic Salvato - I take exception to Congressman Young's comment concerning the Sealaska bill (S-340), Sealaska One Step Closer to Receiving Their Full Land Entitlement June 13, 2013 "The legislation will ensure that Sealaska Corp. continues to meet the economic and cultural needs of its shareholders"... - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Abortion By Glenn Mollette -
Celebrating family on these summer holidays or any day is always a special day. However, all holidays are tough days for many. While millions celebrate others wonder about what might have been. Some have lost a child while others made tragic decisions to end a life. - More...
Tuesday AM - June 18, 2013
Webmail your letter or
Email Your Letter To: editor@sitnews.us
|
Articles &
photographs that appear in SitNews may be protected by copyright
and may not be reprinted or redistributed without written permission
from and payment of required fees to the proper sources.
|
|
Weekly Specials |
|
|
|
