Florence Couple Pleads Guilty; Emergency Drill; Gas Prices

Guilty Pleas Entered

A Florence woman and her husband will spend the next 40 years behind bars for the Sexual abuse and rape of two young girls.  The Register Guard reports that Doreen and Greg Cater admitted to the charges in order to avoid a trial.  The pleas were entered in Lane County Circuit Court and added up to a total of 96 charges.  The victims in the case were young teenage girls when the abuse and rape began:  one under 16 and the other under 14.  Greg Cater admitted to the crimes after police found photos of his wife engaged in a sexual act with one of the victims.  One of the girls wrote a letter that was read before the court saying that she would never forgive the couple for what they had done to her.  The Caters were originally charged in December of 2015.  The couple was also indicted on additional charges in Deschutes County.

List of Responders Grows

Emergency preparedness is one of the most important aspects of training and this Thursday on the water a large group of emergency responders will gather at the Port of Siuslaw Property to hone the necessary skills to respond to a mass casualty scenario.  Lane county Search and Rescue has been added to the list of responders and the Sheriff’s public information officer, Carrie Carver says they bring certain skills to such a drill:

“SAR has the capability and the expertise to oversee things, to keep eyes on things, and then they have the skills to perform water rescues and things like that.”

Another late edition to the drill will be the Marine Patrol Deputy and the Emergency Manager for Lane County.  Florence Police Chief, Tom Turner says this is a rain or shine event and in fact a little rain would be a more normal scenario for Florence.  The drill is scheduled for 10 am Thursday morning.

Gas Prices Holding Steady

Oregon continues to ride near the top of the list when it comes to gas prices, but even with demands at record highs, the price for a gallon of regular gas actually went down in Oregon.  According to AAA Oregon the national price for a gallon of regular gas held steady at $2.37, but for Oregon it dropped by two cents at 2.71.  In Florence it is holding steady at 2.50 a gallon.  Marie Dodds with AAA Oregon says it will take some time to determine if the huge demand will continue…

“It takes the first 3 weeks of June, or so to generally indicate whether consumers will sustain that gasoline demand into the summer months.  So we’ll still wait and see if we’re going to see record demand for gasoline through the summer or if that was more a function of a very busy Memorial Day travel weekend.”

On the topic of the upcoming eclipse event, Dodds mimicked the sentiments of the Oregon Department of Transportation.

“It is one of those occurrences where we are going to expect thousands of more tourists than we would normally get during that time in August and we could see some temporary shortages of things like gasoline and groceries.”

Still Dodds says that retailers, like consumers, are being asked to stock up early on extra supplies to not have the problems that come with a  high traffic event such as this.