National Night Out

The community will be gathering tomorrow evening at Miller Park for the first annual National Night out in Florence.  This is Florence’s first official National Night Out event.  The Program began in 1984.  The first National Night Out involved 400 communities in 23 states and more than 2.5 million people participated.  This year marks Florence’s inaugural year and will be from 6-9 pm.  There will be games for the kids sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Florence along with several inflatables.  Chief Tom Turner says this will be a great opportunity to get to know first responders:

“We’ll have the majority of the Florence Police Department out there, we’ll have members of the Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue, Western Lane Ambulance, Oregon State Police, the Coast Guard, the public works department will be out there, the city in general will be out there.”

Free hamburgers and hot dogs will be available and there will also be an 80 foot obstacle course that people can try out and inflatable play areas for kids.

Several Accidents Fill Weekend

An accident involving a truck and a motorcycle ended in loss of life for the motorcyclist.  The accident occurred on Saturday evening at 9:30 at highway 36 and North Fork.  According to reports Life Flight was unable to respond due to weather conditions at the time.  Messages on Facebook have revealed the Motorcyclists name but official word from Oregon State Police has not been issued.  Further details of the accident were not available.

An Accident with injuries blocked both lanes of 126 near Cushman yesterday afternoon.  That accident occurred around 4:30 and traffic was heavy in both directions with people finishing their weekend and returning home.

A single vehicle accident was reported last night near Swisshome.  The accident occurred around 7:30 pm.   A vehicle apparently left the road and overturned.  There were 4 passengers in the vehicle and extracation equipment had to be used.  Life flight was called in and one person was transported to Riverbend hospital.  The remaining three were taken to Peace Health in Florence.  No details on how the accident happened, Oregon State Police are investigating.

Lane County Fair Attendance Dips Slightly, But Not Revenues

According to the Register-Guard officials reported that the Lane county Fair had a slightly lower attendance than last year but overall maintained similar numbers with the fair’s 5 year average.  Fair officials believe that hot temperatures along with other events in the county were responsible for the slight decrease over last year.  But even with the slight decrease the fair reported gross sales in excess of 2017’s numbers.