Thousands of Oregonians streamed to the coast under sunny skies for the start of spring break, but locals angrily told visitors the welcome mat is not out.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is not just an opportunity for a traveling vacation,” said Tillamook Mayor Suzanne Weber in a video message. “It’s a threat to our very lives.”

The crowds came despite directives from Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, to “stay home, stay healthy” and avoid nonessential travel to keep from spreading the coronavirus. Thousands paid no heed. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, just hours after encouraging Portland residents to stay home, tweeted, “Bumper to bumper traffic headed to the coast. … I cannot stress this enough. #COVID19 continues to spread because people don’t know they have it."

The city of Warrenton responded rapidly, giving visitors 24 hours to leave town and closing campgrounds. Tillamook County announced Sunday morning it had closed all access to state and local parks, including day use, boat launches and county parking lots and will limit access to beaches. The county is also closing hotels and short-term rentals to visitors not providing essential services.

On Sunday evening, the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners ordered all lodging, hotels, short-term rentals and campgrounds in Seaside to close, effective Monday. The city of Seaside restricted access to public buildings and parks, streams and some beach areas.

Manzanita also served visitors with eviction notices with other coastal towns preparing to follow.

“We have a full-time population of 600 with an average age of 60. It’s a more at-risk population,” said Manzanita Mayor Mike Scott. “People became frightened. Everyone is considering what to do. They all feel they have to do something—not just Manzanita, but all of the Oregon Coast.”

He noted Oswald West State Park and other beach turnouts were overrun with people -- as if it were a typical spring break. Local residents are “totally up in arms,” he said.

It wasn’t just college students on spring break, which started Friday, but families and people of all ages took to the highways and headed to the beach.

The fear is not only that visitors will spread COVID-19 — as of Sunday, no coastal counties had identified a positive case of the virus—but that most coastal communities have limited medical services.

Lincoln County is considering how it might legally also evict tourists, said Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall. “If significant numbers of people do become ill, we have about 50 hospital beds in the county. We probably won’t have the capacity to serve our own people, let alone visitors.”

Stories of rude or aggressive behavior were posted on numerous social media sites. One woman reported a visitor told her she came to the coast because she can get products she can’t get at home, and the motel would provide toilet paper.

Parked cars lined the roadway near Agate Beach in Lincoln County over the weekend.Courtesy of Chan Christiansen

Hall shared a story from a retail store in Lincoln City, where an employee asked a customer to follow some guidelines aimed at keeping everyone healthy.

“His response was: ‘I’m not (expletive) sick.’ He left, then came back in, grabbed the manager by the shirt and coughed all over him,” she said. “The aggressiveness of some people, the denial of some people is quite disheartening.”

The crowds caught many coastal communities off guard as most towns had been quiet through Thursday. But that all changed on Friday as beaches, state parks and popular tourist neighborhoods suddenly filled.

Jeff Schons and Mary Jones, owners of the Pelican Brewery, Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa and other businesses in Tillamook County, made the decision Saturday to close restaurants and hotels. They had originally planned to provide take-out and delivery services and rent rooms in a way they believed could be “safe and comfortable” while complying with social distancing guidelines.

“A couple of days into it we realized there were way too many people coming to town,” Schons said. “We just didn’t feel safe for our employees, the community, the world at large. It just became really uncomfortable, so we just decided we should close everything. We basically just feel we should adhere to the guidance of the CDC.”

Schons wasn’t sure how long the closure would last, but said he hoped it would not be more than a month. The business owners have also put on hold a plan to build a new brewery on Siletz Bay. That project could be delayed for at least a year.

“We’re turning all of our focus to, how do we come through this and help all our employees?” Schons said. “It will be different for sure. We think we’ll make it through, but it’s going to take everyone working together. The good thing, we’ve been through this a couple of times. 9/11 was tough, but short-lived. The 2007-2008 recession was devastating. Everyone pulled together, made sacrifices. This is different. There are lives at stake, a lot of them. It isn’t just financial like it was, it’s just a whole different game.”

-- Lori Tobias, Special to The Oregonian/OregonLive