Ensuring communities have what they need to stay safe

The recent wildfire and wind event presented a unique situation and opportunity for our state’s emergency management community. Thanks to our partners with the weather service, we had time to be as ready as possible. It was one of the few events where we found ourselves better positioned to collectively prepare and reduce our shared risk.

Knowing the potential wildfire threat, likelihood of power outages, limited resources, strain on first responders and potential impacts to our infrastructure, we activated the state ECC to facilitate information sharing and resource coordination. We were able to proactively work with our county, tribal, state, federal and key partners like the Red Cross to ensure folks had what they needed to stay safe, including evacuation and shelter messaging as situations quickly evolved.

Our local jurisdictions know their communities best – their risks, resources, and how and when to reach out to us for help – and they did exactly that, working with IMTs, response agencies, the Governor’s Office and utility partners, which prioritized clear and consistent communication to keep folks informed of PSPS areas, estimated shutoff times, outages and restoration. Additional state partners like OHA and ODHS shared related messaging, such as the importance of food safety, medical devices that rely on electricity, and warning of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Thank you to Governor Brown, who invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for several wildfires as life safety threats emerged. We also want to recognize our fire partners, including ODF and OSFM, and the efforts and dedication of our firefighters for saving lives, protecting communities and preserving our natural resources. These partners had a challenging time dealing with new fires across the state and intense growth on existing fires during this event.

Information sharing was key for this event, and every available effort was made to get information and resources out to help Oregonians be informed and stay safe. Our electric utilities did an incredible job providing updates and helping to manage the expectations of those impacted by service outages, while DEQ kept Oregonians informed on air quality alerts and smoke impacts. This was yet another weather-driven event and another reminder that we need to continue our work to build a culture of preparedness in Oregon.

We know there is still much to do and lessons to learn from this event; for example, power outages mean challenges with communications, outreach and access. But overall, we’re incredibly pleased with the level of coordination, communication and messaging by all of our partners – and grateful for a shift in the wind. Thank you!

Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
Andrew Phelps, Director, Oregon Department of Emergency Management

Governor Brown has sent a formal request to President Biden to approve a federal emergency declaration for Oregon due to the state's extreme wildfire conditions. If approved, Oregon would be the first state to receive federal assistance for wildfires under the 1988 Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. It would allow the state to request direct assistance from federal government agencies including FEMA to help fight and recover from wildfires. This assistance would include emergency power generation and communications, evacuation support, mass care and debris removal. Read the Governor's full statement on Oregon Newsroom. 

The Seismic Rehabilitation Grant Program (SRGP) is an Oregon competitive grant program that provides funding for the seismic rehabilitation of critical public buildings. Public K‐12 school districts, community colleges and education service districts are eligible for the grant program, as are emergency services facilities, including hospital buildings with acute inpatient care facilities, fire stations, police stations, sheriff's offices, 9‐1‐1 centers and Emergency Operations Centers. There is $55 million available for school projects and $25 million for emergency service projects. The maximum award for the seismic program is $2.5 million per building. Business Oregon has updated its forms to include all of the latest requirements, including engineering. The SRGP is accepting applications through Dec. 16. Learn more and view the forms needed to apply on Business Oregon's website.  

FEMA is accepting requests for exercise support as part of the National Exercise Program (NEP) Fall Exercise Support Round, with support requests due by Nov. 1. FEMA provides assistance for exercise design, development, conduct and evaluation at no cost to state, local, tribal and territorial jurisdictions and their whole-community partners through the NEP to buy down risk and build national preparedness. FEMA is offering several one-hour webinars hosted by its National Exercise Division to cover the process for requesting exercise support and the benefits of submitting an exercise to the NEP (all webinars will cover the same content). Webinar dates are Sept. 20, 22, 27, 29 and Oct. 4. Learn more, view times and register for the webinars at the NEP webinar page.

“If You See Something, Say Something” Awareness Day, also known as #SeeSayDay, is Sept. 25. Encourage your communities to visit dhs.gov/SeeSayDay that day to look up the suspicious activity reporting phone number for wherever they live, work or spend a lot of time – and save it in their phone. By saving their local reporting number, people can do their part to keep communities safe by contacting law enforcement when they notice something suspicious. Visit DHS's website to find resources, including ready to use social media graphics. 

The K8515 Virtual Cybersecurity Symposium will bring together emergency managers and cybersecurity professionals to focus on the challenges of responding to a cybersecurity incident before, during and after an event, while advancing awareness and examining the latest technologies and service. Attendees will be able to share best practices and key lessons learned between government and industry. The symposium will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 19-20 and Oct. 26-27. You must participate all four days to obtain full credit. Learn more and apply at FEMA Training's website.

The National Weather Service (NWS) Pendleton Forecast Office has updated the Local Standard Radar as an option under its radar menu at weather.gov/PDT and as an additional offering to the Enhanced Radar (GIS) display at radar.weather.gov. This update offers a simpler product as an option to meet either restricted bandwidth or for application development needs. The pages now have a similar look and feel to its Enhanced Radar pages and are even more mobile-friendly. The update also increases support for Standard Radar webpages to 24/7. The updated pages provide low bandwidth users a reliable, fast loading website for radar images, radar loops and warning polygons in effect, with radar loops and images automatically updated every five minutes.  

Resource typing – a key component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) – is defining and categorizing, by capability, the resources requested, deployed and used in incidents. Resource typing enables organizations from across the country to work together during incidents of all types and sizes. The Resource Typing Library Tool (RTLT) is an online catalogue of national NIMS resource typing definitions, job titles and position qualifications, and Position Task Books (PTBs) that are easily searchable and downloadable. View the RTLT on FEMA’s website. 

The Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) program has developed an Emergency Relocations Toolkit with information on how centers for independent living and other community-based organizations can access emergency services funding through FEMA for the federally declared COVID disaster. The toolkit is provided by the National Save Institutional Lives Via Emergency Relocations Coalition. Learn more and access the toolkit at ILRU’s website.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is hosting a three-day, virtual National School Safety Summit Nov. 1-3. This event will convene school safety experts, practitioners and leaders across the country to discuss current threats to school safety and explore research-informed strategies for addressing security challenges and risks in K-12 schools. Sessions are planned for all members of the K-12 community and will include keynote remarks, one-on-one interviews, and panel discussions on issues such as targeted violence, violence prevention, cybersecurity, emergency planning and physical security. Learn more and register at CISA's website. 

In honor of National Preparedness Month, FEMA recently held a webinar panel discussion: Getting Your Community Engaged in Preparedness. You can find the presentation slides and the recording at Adobe Connect. In order to watch the recording, you'll need to log-in to the Adobe Connect platform; no password is required, just list guest if you don’t want to put your name. Find previous webinar recordings and a variety of other preparedness resources on the FEMA Region 10 Individual & Community Preparedness Resource Dashboard.

LandScient is sponsoring the Landslide Scientific Assessment Conference: Landslide Hazard from Oct. 18-20. This will be a virtual presentation of relevant scientific articles by researchers, an exhibition of new research advances, and a Q&A session. The conference is aimed at anyone interested in reducing the risk of disasters due to landslides. Presentations will be made in English and Spanish. Learn more and register at LandScient’s website.

Portland General Electric helped run a PGE Recharge Relief Center on Sept. 9, parked at Sheridan High School, in anticipation of a forthcoming public safety power shutoff. A 36-foot trailer served as the center, equipped with resources to aid community members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Sheridan and Willamina due to the potential of a wildfire threat. The trailer, open Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., offered ice, water, Wi-Fi and charging stations for mobile devices, as well as chairs and tables for visitors to relax outside. Fire Dawg, a Yreka, Calif.-based operation that provides equipment and trained personnel to incident management operations was also on hand. Additionally, two cooling stations were set up in churches in Sheridan in preparation for the PSPS event. Both Willamina and Grand Ronde started to lose power the afternoon of Sept. 9. Thanks to advance notice from PGE, Willamina School District made the decision on Thursday night to close Friday; the superintendent also moved the Friday night high school football game to the rival’s field. Power started to be restored to the communities by 12:30 p.m. Sept. 10. Thanks to close collaboration across city, county, tribal and private sector boundaries, the emergency management response was prepared and ready for the critical situation.