ASTORIA, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it has replaced two weather buoys that broke loose during big December storms along Oregon’s coast, but found two more that suffered more damage than initially thought.
The buoys provide critical information to fishermen and crabbers, and forecasters at the National Weather Service use them, as well.
In a four-day repair mission this week, the crew of the Coast Guard’s cutter Fir returned the buoys that broke free three months in swells that topped 70 feet.
One is about 20 miles off the Columbia Bar and the other about 20 miles off the coast of Newport.
With two other buoys, “the damage looks worse than we thought,” said Cmdr. Andy Raiha, senior officer on the Fir.
The crew expected to do maintenance and repair work on a buoy off Tillamook but found that a wave had smashed its instruments and broken off two of its three solar panels. Wires hung like spaghetti from the mast.
The crew used a crane to haul it aboard for the trip back to Astoria, where it will either be rebuilt or scrapped.
A new buoy is to be deployed in late March.
At a buoy off Cape Blanco, the crew found far worse damage than expected but not enough to remove it from the water. A wind vane was wrapped around the mast, and the aluminum legs that support the buoys tower were seriously cracked.

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For the quantity and quality of the NBA prospects on display, there has never been a Pac-10 tournament like this.
And my guess is there haven’t been many ACC, Big East or Big Ten tournaments like what we’re seeing in Staples Center.
The Pac-10 is packed with draft picks: 22-24 of them, by my count — although not all will be first rounders and not all are coming out this spring.
The record for first-rounders by one conference in one draft is eight, by the ACC. The Pac-10 could very well equal or surpass that total and will certainly shatter its own record for first rounders (five).
More than 40 scouts are expected to watch the action, and you know prospective agents will be, well, lurking. (OK, not all of them lurk. Bill Duffy: not a lurker. But some do because they have to.)
Anyhow, here’s a rundown of the future draft picks (in rough order of projected selection):
***Lottery Picks (this year or next)
Brook Lopez, Stanford: Expected to leave school and should be the first big man selected not from Kansas State.
Jerryd Bayless, Arizona: Expected to leave school and should go in the top five. A combo guard who can score against anyone, from anywhere.

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