A year later, victims of fire tell story

Rachel Cavanaugh
News Editor

     One would expect victims of a destructive propane fire to tell a story about sadness and loss.
     Yet Elvan and Kathi Poe, who were burned from head to toe last November when their home exploded in flames, refuse to make it that tale.
     For them, it has become a story of love, faith, and survival.
     Sitting on what remains of their land near Grayback Mountain, outside Goldendale, there is a calm that seems to defy the circumstances. Elvan tells the story as follows:
     One morning last fall, he and Kathi were working on their new house in the country when they stopped for lunch. It was the first time they had used the new stove. Elvan went to light the propane tank, but couldn’t get it to release a smell.
     He purged the line and waited.
     After ten minutes of purging and a phone call to the propane company, the former concrete worker finally lit a spark and, within a millisecond, the house exploded in flames.
     “We were in a bomb zone within a second,” he recalls. “The curtains instantly caught on fire and the wind blew in and then the windows blew out.”
     Propane had saturated the couch and Elvan now stood shin-deep in blue flames. His feet and ankles were submerged and it was so hot, he says, the skin on his face was beginning to melt.
He leapt instinctively towards the door, nearly knocking Kathi over in the process. She stumbled, disoriented, and fell in the hallway.
     Moments later, he regained clarity and ran back inside, where he found his wife on the ground in flames.
     “I thought I was going to die,” Kathi vaguely recalls of those moments inside. “I was being drawn down into the ground and if I didn’t get up I wasn’t going to live.”
     Elvan dragged her outside and doused them both with water jugs from the porch, using his cell phone to call 9-11. Plastic was melting 30 feet from the house.
     The couple was Life-Flighted to the Oregon Burn Center, where they spent the next four weeks in and out of consciousness. Kathi says she remembers “dreams of dying.”
     “I woke up and was afraid and I didn’t know why,” she says. “I just remember the burning. I remember the pain. I remember the smell of being burnt.”
     On two separate occasions, the doctors said they “almost lost them.”
     One month later they had emerged and were sent back home.
     “We were very unsure what was going to happen, if we were going to heal,” remembers Kathi.
     Both had third-degree burns covering their bodies, which left their skin sensitive and painful to touch. Damage to bone structure made basic things like opening car doors difficult.
     Elvan, who had spent a lifetime working with his hands, found the physical handicap difficult to adjust to and Kathi says it was hard to look in the mirror. The core structure of the house had burned, along with all possessions inside it — baby pictures, antique toolsets, an heirloom cuckoo clock.      Seven years of time spent building had vanished, along with $18,000 in life savings.
     Yet telling their story now, the Poes seem only able to focus on the brighter side. They talk, for instance, about how the experience brought them closer. They discuss the small miracles that saved them: the water jugs on the porch, the cell phone in Elvan’s back pocket.
     They never could have walked the half mile to the closest neighbors, Kathi says: “I would have expired before I got to the bridge. I wouldn’t have lived.”
     Elvan interrupts his wife: “You did good, honey,” he says, reaching a hand towards her.
     Listening to the couple talk, what comes off strongest is a sense of gratitude. No matter how one tries to probe, they keep returning to what they are thankful for.
     “There are so many things you don’t realize you have until you have it taken away,” says Kathi. “I found the best thing I have is right here,” she adds, pointing to her husband.
     “It gets better all the time,” says Elvan. “You make concessions for your shortcomings. You just kind of figure it out. Like I can hardly open a bottle of pop, but if I slide a dime under the pull tab, I can do it,” he laughs.
     He jokes that if a friend gives him a beer it will last all day, because he’ll never get it open.
     Nowadays, with little to do and limited means of doing it, life has taken on a slower pace, they say. They spend their time “fiddling around” – planting plants, sleeping, and resting. Kathi collects rocks and agates and they watch the birds, butterflies and hummingbirds that fly through. Deer, she says, make visits to the 2.5 acre property.
     “I pick up garbage when the wind blows it in,” muses Kathi.
     “We’ve had this beautiful spring,” she adds. “The garden’s growing on its own.”
     When asked if her faith ever faltered, Kathi pauses.
     “I did have my questions at times,” she replies. “We’re kind of unshaken,” she adds, however. “Life is unfair sometimes.”
     “It would be nice if it were a perfect world,” says Elvan. “We could all read the New Testament and agree on the rules of life. But we can’t. It’s an imperfect world.”
     Instead of looking for answers, they focus on getting the message out to others, hoping their experience can be a cautionary tale to people to always have a professional start their propane systems
     They point to endless support from the community and family. That, along with a whole lot of love, is what they plan on using to slowly rebuild their home and their lives.
     “This is where our heart is,” Elvan says, motioning to their land. “We still got a little time in us and we want to enjoy it.

Festival of Speed damages less than City thought

Rachel Cavanaugh
News Editor

     Festival of Speed organizers reimbursed the City of Goldendale this week for damages that occurred during the Labor Day weekend event.
     The final bill for reparation from the International Gravity Sports Association (IGSA) event was $264.72, which is less than administrators thought last month when they reported over $1,000.
     Part of the misunderstanding, city officials said, was due to an unclear bill from the county.
     “It’s very confusing,” said Larry Bellamy, City Administrator. “The way they described it, we thought we had to pay for all the expenses. Apparently, that wasn’t the intent of the invoice.”
     Bellamy visited the Building and Grounds Department in person last week to resolve the misunderstanding. On Monday, event coordinator Lorraine Reynolds, of Golden Event Planning, delivered a check to City Hall. A separate check was also written for $275 for the Fair Board for damaged straw bales.
     Following the payment, several coordinators expressed frustration, saying they thought the whole thing had been “blown out of proportion.”
     “The City wanted to make this event look as bad as possible so [they] could say, ‘see, I told you,’” said Reynolds.
     According to John Ozman, of Volcanic Promotions, the City has made it clear the event would not be supported in the future. The coordinator pointed to a Sept. 26 email in which Mayor Arletta Parton said she wouldn’t financially support events outside the City.
     “Whoever is awarded the [events] contract for the coming year will not bring any event to town that does not take place within the city limits,” Parton said in the email. “I inherited them — as long as I am in office that will not happen.”
     Ozman said emails from various officials have been circulating for weeks, some of which have had a negative tone.
     “The letters I’m getting from her clearly make it known she’s not going to support us in the future,” said Ozman, noting what he viewed as a lost opportunity.
     “I told her, ‘You’ve got something special in your backyard that could bring a lot of people in,’” said Ozman.
     “And she said, ‘that is not our backyard.’”
     On Tuesday, however, the mayor emphasized she supports events and said the intent of the email was not to dissuade the Festival of Speed, but to outline what the City can and cannot pay for.
She said it was not personal.
     According to City Treasurer, Tracy Hansen, the legislative reins have been tightened recently on how tourism monies can be spent. Moreover, accountability measures have increased.
     With few exceptions, tourism dollars can only cover events within city limits or on city-owned facilities, she said.
     “We have to clarify one thing,” said Bellamy. “[Events] outside the city limits cannot be funded by the City…It is not necessarily something we want to do, but are regulated to do.”
     Both officials stressed it is not an indication of waning events.
     Hansen said the City has grown weary from accusations they have acted based on personal preferences or agendas.
     She said emails have been going around and she hopes they can at last be put to rest. The City, she said, is not trying to stop events.
     “Can we please just put a stop to this and move forward?” Hansen said.
     The money paid Monday for the excess Fairgrounds damages came from an account set up by skateboard officials, which raised $1533.32. The remainder will go to the local skate park.

Centerville man killed on Hwy 14

     Longtime Goldendale area resident, Harley Hand was killed in a traffic accident on Highway 14, last Friday evening.
     According to Washington State Patrol, Hand was driving westbound in a 2003 Dodge Neon when he crossed the centerline, east of Stevenson at mile 50.2.
     He collided with a 2008 Jeep Cherokee driven by Christopher Wootten of Cincinnati, Ohio, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
     Wootten was treated and released.
     According to officers, both drivers were wearing seat belts.
     Hand graduated from Columbia High School in White Salmon and settled in Centerville after a stint in the Army.
     He ran a farm service business serving Washington and Oregon farmers and a carpet cleaning business in Goldendale.
     He was 75 at the time of his death and resided in Carson.

Top Two system gets court boost

     Washington’s Top Two voting system was given a nod last week when a Court of Appeals ruled to support a U.S. Supreme Court decision that it can be implemented without violating parties’ constitutional rights.
     According to the Secretary of State, Sam Reed, the ruling, which dismisses the parties’ major constitutional challenges of the new system, could also result in recovery of over $100,000 in taxpayer dollars that were previously awarded to the political parties to cover their legal bills.
     “This is a big win for Washington voters and we’re gratified that we are another step closer to securing our citizens’ right to a Top Two Primary,” Reed said last week.
     After getting the green light from the U.S. Supreme Court in March, the state Elections Division and the County Auditors ran a successful inaugural Top Two Primary in August.
     However, legal challenges for the the parties have continued.
     The Thursday ruling, which came from a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, dismissed some of the parties’ obstacles, but sent the case back to the U.S. District Court in Seattle for a potential hearing on several remaining party complaints.
     According to Reed’s office, the state is confident the U.S. Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling in March disposed of all of those points. The parties continue to assert the system restricts candidates’ or parties’ access to the ballot and appropriates party’s brand names or trademarks.
     Under the system, the candidates with the highest and next-highest votes then advance to the General Election ballot.
     The Top Two system was adopted by voters as Grange-sponsored Initiative 872 in a vote in 2004.