Disaster Preparedness Starts With You
It’s time for citizens to take an active role in planning for the next disaster, and it needs to happen while the memories of recent events are still fresh in our minds.
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Kyle Palmer just started his third term as Mayor of Silverton. He believes that decency is not dead and meaningful discourse is not only possible, but vital.
Natural disasters appear to be a new norm in Oregon. Our old playbook for responding to these disasters isn’t working. It’s time for an update to our disaster response strategies.
In late summer of 2020, much of Oregon was staring down wildfire threats that made many feel like they were slowly finding more and more in common with our neighbor state to the south—conflagration-prone California. Multiple fires stretched the ability of our professional responders to focus on multiple fronts. Entire communities were simply wiped off the map, while others waited to see if their cities would be spared.
In February of this year, the central Willamette Valley suffered a severe ice storm, the magnitude of which I’ve never experienced in my 54 years. My city, Silverton, was the epicenter.
Everyone in our city was without power for at least two days, with many homes (including my own) being dark for up to nine days. Land line phones were down. Cell service was non-existent. Only one market had a generator, and they could only support the non-cooled items for sale. Fortunately, they also had a generator that allowed gas to flow from their service station, but lines were consistently long as residents fueled their generators every day.
These two events exposed the strength of our professional responders but also the limitations of their response in the face of a true disaster. For me at least, it begged the question: “How much can we and should we expect from government when essential services are interrupted?”
Certainly (and predictably), some citizens’ answer to that question was that “they pay taxes” and all of their needs should be met in such times. That’s both unreasonable and impossible.
Governments at all levels and all sizes have a maximum possible response, and when a true disaster arrives, we have to acknowledge that it won’t be enough. That’s not a criticism—I couldn’t have been prouder of the way our city met both of our recent environmental challenges head on, but there’s just no possible way any size staff, budget, or infrastructure can cover all of the needs.
A collaborative approach that merges public resources with private volunteers and organizations is more capable of rising to the occasion. For example, in Silverton, I watched as citizen groups joined police in making daily welfare checks to areas heavy in senior living and to homes with citizens known to be at risk. Our largest community assistance agency opened its food bank to people in need far beyond their normal clients. Our homeless assistance organization coordinated generator distribution and hosted many housed residents at their own generator-warmed space.
Restaurants, many of whom were barely clinging to solvency due to COVID-19 restrictions, opened their doors to provide warming, and in many cases, free food. The response of those who were not first responders was both badly needed and deeply appreciated, but it was also organic and in no way due to prior planning.
For several years, we’ve been hearing that it’s time to prepare for a major Cascadia event - potentially an earthquake of such magnitude that it will incur more devastation than our state has seen in modern times. Are we prepared?
While I know that government at the state level, and the leadership of certain cities, have spent countless hours establishing plans for such an event, has Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones down the street? I’m sure some of my neighbors were prepared to manage the period of recovery from the recent ice storm, but most were not. We can look at that event as a discouraging measurement of preparedness, or we can consider it to have been a pop quiz from Mother Nature—providing us with a small glimpse of what it will take when a much bigger event comes calling.
It’s time for citizens to take an active role in planning for the next disaster, and it needs to happen while the memories of recent events are still fresh in our minds. Disaster preparedness isn’t sexy—in fact it’s one of those things that provides absolutely no value to many people until the day they need it, which of course is too late. As if to underscore that point, in a cruel twist of fate, the recent ice storm in the Willamette Valley left many areas with a staggering amount of fuel on the ground, just as concerns about low rainfall and fears of another wildfire season draw near.
Professional responders understand all of this, and have been trying to spark interest in preparedness for years. There are terrific programs supported by Fire associations, the American Red Cross, Emergency Management teams at various levels of government, and many, many more. Unfortunately, the existence of such programs does nothing to ensure that we use them.
It’s time for citizens to stop thinking they’ll start this tomorrow, and begin the process of protecting their communities today. Citizens should prepare their households and neighborhoods should organize themselves and prepare to be isolated from help. It’s no longer a matter of weathering a few days—help could be weeks away in the worst of models of future disasters.
Police will always be there to try maintain order, firefighters will always put their lives on the line to try turn back the flames, and Emergency Medical Teams will always be there do their best to save every life, but if you want to identify that person most responsible for your overall survival, look no further than your mirror. May 1 is National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day—the time is now.
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