Getting On Solid Ground

By Michael Burnham, PSU Planning student

We live in a region of fault lines and volcanoes, but most of us don't think about natural disaster risks often enough.

If a major earthquake were to rattle Portland, topple bridges and block roads, emergency responders would not be able to reach all neighborhoods immediately; residents would be their own responders for at least the first 72 hours, as a general rule. Where would you seek help? How would you help your neighbors? Which hazardous areas of your neighborhood would you avoid? These are important questions with major physical and economic implications.

A recent University of Oregon study notes that every dollar spent on hazard mitigation can save a society $4 in response and recovery costs. For such preparedness planning to be effective, however, it must be institutionalized in the local decision-making process, the study underscores.

This spring, a team of Portland State University students studying urban planning is working with the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods to develop a community disaster-preparedness plan. This collaborative planning effort, called On Solid Ground, aims to improve the resiliency and sustainability of North and Northeast Portland citizens by increasing awareness about community assets and vulnerabilities, as well as laying the foundation for durable trust, coordination, and communication.

The graduate student team, called Terra Firma Planning, is conducting interviews with experts in the fields of disaster preparedness and response, as well as eliciting feedback from community stakeholders at focus groups and neighborhood association meetings. In late May, the PSU team — composed of Andrew Parish, Jacob Nitchals, John Boren and myself — will present NECN a plan with recommendations and multimedia tools for bolstering community coordination, education, and communication. We will provide maps of community assets and vulnerabilities; criteria for selecting neighborhood disaster communications hubs; and, ideas for how NECN and its neighborhood associations could engage and educate citizens about preparedness.

There are plenty of ways North and Northeast Portland stakeholders can weigh in. We are eliciting feedback via a disaster-preparedness survey at http://solidground.necoalition.org. We are also inviting residents, workers, and other local folks to attend open houses we're hosting in early May. The first open house will be on 

• Friday, May 4, from 4-7 p.m., at the Mississippi Marketplace, 4233 N. Mississippi Ave; and 

• Tuesday, May 8, from 4-7 p.m., at the Oregon Red Cross Trail Chapter headquarters, 3131 N. Vancouver Ave.

PSU alumnus and Humanitarian Resources International principal Arif Khan, who is advising us on our planning effort, is also hosting a disaster-preparedness exposition on Saturday, June 2, at the King School, 4906 NE 6th Ave. For more information about this event, please visit www.resiliencePDX.org.

Using the feedback we gather, we hope to create a durable and replicable model for helping neighborhoods prepare for a wide range of emergencies. Planning scholars define a "resilient" or "sustainable" community as one that can weather sudden or slow change and emerge closely resembling its former state and functionality. Anyone whose life has been upended by an earthquake, volcanic eruption or other major disaster might call it simply, getting back to normal.

We hope you'll agree preparedness is something worth thinking about early and often.