Ruddy Turnstone never found out who called the cops.
It was a quarter past 2 in the morning on July 29, and the 30-year-old Greenpeace organizer from South Florida stood 205 feet above the Willamette River, aside the emerald-painted steel trusses of the St. Johns Bridge.
TURNSTONE
Turnstone and 12 others, Greenpeace volunteers from San Francisco and Olympia and Denver, were busy fastening themselves to the 84-year-old bridge with ropes fed through autolock devices that allowed them to control how fast they would rappel off the side.
“It was a little disorienting,” Turnstone says. “I couldn’t see the water, and it was so dark out.”
Two weeks earlier, Greenpeace was presented with a unique opportunity in its five-year battle to interfere with Shell Oil’s drilling in the Arctic Ocean. That opportunity: A Finnish icebreaking boat, the MSV Fennica, had torn a hole in its hull, and a Portland ship-repair company was going to fix it.
The Fennica had arrived July 25 at the dry dock of Portland’s Vigor Industrial. When it was ready to leave, the 381-foot icebreaker would head north on the Willamette River, passing under three bridges to get to the Pacific Ocean and back to the Chukchi Sea. If Greenpeace could block one of those bridges, it could keep Shell’s contracted ship out of the Arctic.
According to conversations with three Greenpeace organizers, the world’s most visible environmental organization summoned a team of 26 activists—including 13 who volunteered to rappel off the bridge and hang there as long as they could.
But now, with minutes to go before the activists began their descent from the deck of Portland’s most beautiful bridge, Turnstone could see police cars arriving at the east end of the St. Johns Bridge.
Too late.
Turnstone and the others were already over the railing.
Above Turnstone, a cloudless night twinkled with stars. Below, the lights of kayaks in the water looked like a reflection of the Milky Way. Police flashlights shone along the bridge.
She took a breath, and plunged into darkness.
She dropped 100 feet. For the next 39 hours, Turnstone and the others dangled in midair—and Portland was held in suspense.
The rest of the world watched as well. It was audacious, simple and a photo op of optimal proportions. Unfurling red and yellow banners, the activists looked like an art installation. By refusing to budge from the sky, they made it impossible for the Finnish icebreaker to leave.
The protest also stretched taut the contradictions within Portland. This remains an industrial river city, one where thousands of jobs depend on the marine commerce that hums up and down the Willamette. It is also a place with a pulsing environmental conscience, and hundreds of activists eager to take a local stand to save a warming planet.
The standoff at the St. Johns Bridge pressed those two identities face to face—and forced Gov. Kate Brown and Mayor Charlie Hales to pick a side.
Within two days, the impasse was over, and all sides could claim victory. Shell got the boat to the Arctic, a mere 12 hours after its scheduled departure. Greenpeace and its local allies gained national attention for their cause. And local officials ended the protest quickly, without a significant injury and with just two arrests.
The resolution was so pacific that some observers wondered if it had been orchestrated from the start.
In fact, the players barely talked to each other. Shell and Greenpeace took their grievances to a federal court in Alaska. Neither side had a single phone conversation with Oregon’s elected officials. Brown and Hales were somewhat confused who was in charge, and ultimately deferred to the U.S. Coast Guard for an endgame. Greenpeace never even coordinated its movements with hometown activists, and left quickly: The organization removed most of its aerial team from Portland within 24 hours of leaving the bridge.
Despite the TV helicopters, drone cameras and real-time tweets, few of the people who took part in the bridge battle knew the full scope of its strategy. It took days for them to piece together the full story of what everyone saw in open air.