From OPALCO In the ear­ly morn­ing hours of Wednes­day, Jan. 13, a big storm hit the North­west region of Wash­ing­ton state with wind gusts of 50–65 mph in the San Juan Island area. By 1 a.m., all of San Juan Coun­ty was with­out pow­er after large trees fell onto the Puget Sound Ener­gy lines feed­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment Of Health On Jan. 15, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health announced that based on Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s Healthy Wash­ing­ton – Roadmap to Recov­ery plan, all eight regions in Wash­ing­ton will remain in Phase 1 until at least Mon­day, Jan. 25. As out­lined in the governor’s COVID-19 plan, regions must meet  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Coun­ty Since the last update on Thurs­day, Dec. 31, total cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty have increased from 79 to 88. Eight of the new cas­es are on San Juan Island, and one is on Orcas Island. Approx­i­mate­ly 28 indi­vid­u­als who are close con­tacts of pos­i­tive cas­es are cur­rent­ly in active quar­an­tine. Orcas  Con­tin­ue Reading

From the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health On Jan. 8, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health announced that based on Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s Healthy Wash­ing­ton Roadmap to Recov­ery plan released ear­li­er this week, that all eight regions in Wash­ing­ton will remain in Phase 1 until at least Mon­day, Jan. 18. As out­lined in the Governor’s COVID-19  Con­tin­ue Reading

Who Is Eli­gi­ble Now, Who Is Next In Line and Where Can You Get Vac­ci­nat­ed? From San Juan Coun­ty This week, Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee released details on a new two-phase plan for the lim­it­ed reopen­ing of some busi­ness­es and a return of some activ­i­ties. The details are found here.  All coun­ties begin in  Con­tin­ue Reading

From Gov. Inslee’s Office On Jan. 5, Gov. Jay Inslee announced “Healthy Wash­ing­ton — Roadmap to Recov­ery,” a COVID-19 phased recov­ery plan. Begin­ning on Jan. 11, the state will fol­low a region­al recov­ery approach with every region begin­ning in Phase 1. “No one was untouched by the effects of the pan­dem­ic in 2020; many have and con­tin­ue  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Coun­ty Since the last update on Fri­day, Dec. 25, the total cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty have increased from 78 to 79. The new case is on Orcas Island. Cur­rent pos­i­tive case num­bers are avail­able online at the San Juan Coun­ty Case Count page. As indi­cat­ed on that page, these num­bers are  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Coun­ty San Juan Coun­ty Health and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices staff pro­vid­ed the first COVID-19 vac­cine to islanders on Wednes­day, Dec. 30. As per state and fed­er­al guide­lines, ini­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion is lim­it­ed to health care pro­fes­sion­als, emer­gency respon­ders, and long-term care facil­i­ty staff and res­i­dents. This group is known as “Phase 1A.” This first clin­ic  Con­tin­ue Reading

By San Juan Coun­ty Since the last update on Fri­day, Dec. 18, the total cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty have increased from 75 to 78. All of the three new cas­es are on San Juan Island. Cur­rent pos­i­tive case num­bers are avail­able online at the coun­ty case count page. As indi­cat­ed on that page, these  Con­tin­ue Reading

By San Juan Coun­ty Recent San Juan Coun­ty COVID-19 case inves­ti­ga­tions have revealed a trend of lax COVID safe­ty pro­to­cols on var­i­ous con­struc­tion and build­ing sites across the islands. As in any work­place, con­sis­tent mask­ing is a crit­i­cal tool for pre­vent­ing dis­ease trans­mis­sion. Work done alone or out­side with greater than six feet of sep­a­ra­tion  Con­tin­ue Reading

High-risk Health Work­ers, First Respon­ders First In Line By San Juan Coun­ty San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Health and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices has just received a ship­ment of 600 dos­es of the recent­ly approved Mod­er­na COVID-19 vac­cine from the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health. Depart­ment staff is active­ly com­plet­ing the recent­ly released vac­cine-spe­­cif­ic train­ing, and these dos­es  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Rep. Rick Larsen’s Office On Dec. 21, Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-02) vot­ed to deliv­er much-need­ed relief to fam­i­lies and small busi­ness­es in North­west Wash­ing­ton who con­tin­ue to strug­gle from the effects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. “With a third wave of COVID-19 spread­ing across the coun­try, this long-over­­due pan­dem­ic relief pack­age address­es the con­tin­ued pub­lic  Con­tin­ue Reading

By San Juan Coun­ty Since the last update on Fri­day, Dec. 11, total cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty have increased from 71 to 75. All of the four new cas­es are on San Juan Island. Cur­rent pos­i­tive case num­bers are avail­able online on the coun­ty case count page. As indi­cat­ed on that page, these num­bers  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Fri­day Har­bor Pow­er Squadron Advanced Power­boat Han­dling sem­i­nars will be held on Zoom, from 6:30–8:30 p.m., Mon­day, Jan. 18, Feb. 15 and March 15, 2021 The Jan. 18 class will cov­er close-quar­ter maneu­ver­ing. The Feb. 15 class will cov­er under­stand­ing sta­bil­i­ty and bal­ance and how your boat per­forms at sea. The March 15 class will  Con­tin­ue Reading

By Fred Woods, Super­in­ten­dent, San Juan Island School Dis­trict As we move into the final week before the schools’ win­ter break, I would like to take a moment to express my grat­i­tude for your sup­port dur­ing this unprece­dent­ed and dif­fi­cult time for our stu­dents and fam­i­lies. I also want to wish you the hap­pi­est of  Con­tin­ue Reading

By San Juan Coun­ty Since the last update on Fri­day, Dec. 4, the total cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty have increased from 66 to 71. One of these new cas­es is on Orcas Island, and four are on San Juan Island. Cur­rent pos­i­tive case num­bers are avail­able online at the San Juan Coun­ty Case count  Con­tin­ue Reading