Winter storms can bring wind, ice, snow and even power outages. How do you get prepared, especially if you rely on electricity for medical needs or work from home? In the Beaverton and Portland Metro Area, Portland General Electric has some tips and a checklist. Check out their Prepare Your Home page for more information. You can also download the PGE checklist. 

This year's International ShakeOut Day was October 16, when millions of people worldwide participated in earthquake drills at work, school, or home.  If you missed the opportunity to do the drill on October 16th, you can register your ShakeOut drill for any day of the year, and drill at a time of your choice. Neighbors Ready! leaders took a few moments out to participate, and they shared how they engaged their families, communities and pets to practice earthquake safety in photos. 

What would you do if an earthquake struck right now? Do you know how to protect yourself? Check out our Earthquake Preparedness page to learn more and get prepared!

Many of us were in our kitchens at the time when we felt the fake rumbles of the earthquake drill. We sought shelter under our kitchen tables, alone or with our pets. Some were at church, and crawled under the pews for protection. And some were at work, and crawled under their desk for temporary shelter during the drill. What would you do if an earthquake struck right now? Do you know? 

How will you communicate with family, friends, and emergency services during a disaster, when your cellphone may not work? Cell phones require working service or the internet and a charged battery to operate. Cell towers may go down during an earthquake, a severe storm, or other type of disaster. Or cell service may be jammed or overloaded, just when you need to communicate the most!  Two-way Radios are one of the many options for communicating in a disaster. To learn more, check out our Emergency Comms Page. 

Cold weather often sets the stage for broken pipes, and when pipes don't work, you may have an extended interruption of sewage service. This scenario happened recently to Trish Reading, one of our volunteers. She set up her handy two-bucket emergency toilet system in her bathroom to get some immediate relief. Then she got to thinking, what do I doo with the poo? Lincoln Thomas, our Cedar Hills Ready! Newsletter editor, searched for answers. 

Despite being off-season, LA's recent wildfires were extremely destructive, killing 29 people, destroying over 18,000 structures, and prompting the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. By these isolated metrics, the wildfires surpassed entire fire seasons in Oregon (including 2024 & 2020). But of course, damage to people tends to be higher when disaster strikes population centers. The similarly urban Maui fires of 2023 remain the deadliest in our nation's modern history, with over 100 fatalities.
One major challenge during LA's wildfires was evacuation capacity. As in the Maui and Paradise fires, limited escape routes caused gridlock, often forcing evacuees to abandon vehicles and flee on foot. Long-term solutions to this challenge are tricky. Perhaps a first step is to simply check this map to see if your community has limited evacuation capacity. Create an emergency evacuation plan that includes multiple routes, and practice those routes when going about your regular business in town. Check out our Evacuation and Assembly webpage and our Family Emergency Planning webpage for more details on next steps. 

When outside temperatures are extreme, the danger increases for heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure. Older adults, young children and people with mental illness and chronic diseases are at high risk. Pregnant people should take extra care to stay cool and hydrated in hot weather.

Heat domes and dry weather create ideal conditions for wildfires. In 2023, Oregon ranked #5 for the most acres burned in 2023. ​Now is the time to do everything you can to protect your family and home against the potentially devastating threat of wildfires. What can you do? Continue reading for more information. 

This is the second in a series of blogs on recipes that you can easily prepare in a disaster or emergency without power.  In this blog, you'll learn how to cook a cheese sandwich with a tealight-candle emergency stove. 
Day 2 - Food Use and Storage
By Day 2 of a power outage, we hope you’ve used up your highly perishable refrigerated items (see Day 1 Blog). If not, and if night-time lows are dropping into the 30s, you may be able improvise a way (think coolers and ice packs) to harvest that cold in the early morning and keep some food in the safe zone for another day (under 40 F). 
​   If it’s not cold enough outside, maybe your freezer goods are still cold enough, and you can move refrigerated perishables in there. This may involve trade-offs: are you saving refrigerated perishables at the expense of what is in the freezer? Also, each time you open the freezer door lowers the temperature inside, so it's best to avoid opening the door. Whether these trade-offs are worth it is entirely your call.
   If you have a generator or solar battery, then you may consider using some of your power to run your fridge, preserving your perishables.

If you attended the "Be Geo-Hazard Smart: Aware & Prepared," on Sunday, Feb 25th, you likely came away with a much better understanding of the local earthquake hazards in the Beaverton and Portland area, and what to do to protect your family and home. We had two speakers: Aaron Fox, a noted geologist and top-notch emergency manager, and Rick Eilers, President of Prepared Northwest, Inc. This article highlights some of the key learnings and provides links for you to continue learning about geo-hazards and residential seismic retrofits.

     One of the cool things about being involved in Neighbors Ready! is meeting and talking to lots of inspiring people and learning from their experiences. Even people new in their preparedness journey can share important information about to how to get prepared.
     Case in point: Yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk with Sherrye Steffens. Sherrye had lived in Hawaii for over 40 years; currently, she lives in a retirement community, an HOA in King City, Oregon, with 1,700 residents who are over 55 years old, some with disabilities. With news of the August 2023 Hawaii wildfires that killed over 100 people and destroyed 2,207 buildings, Sherrye realized that her current home and community was vulnerable to disasters. She is determined to help educate and help her community to get prepared. 

When you have to leave in a hurry, a go bag can be a life saver! If  you missed the Go Bag presentation on Sunday, Jan 28th, 2024, you can find the documents and downloads in this blog post. Also, find our detailed information and videos on our our Go Bag page. For information on Alerts, check out our Stay Informed page. 
Check out these references from the presentation: 

• Slide printout for student notes
• Full slide deck with speaker notes 
• Register for Alerts
• Build Your Kits checklist from the "Get Prepared Now!" booklet (pg 8-9)
• Visual Checklist for you Disaster Supply Kit
• Get Prepared Now! booklet (2020 edition)​

FEMA has released the results of the 2023 National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness. To review the survey results, download the summary presentation.
​Since 2013, FEMA has conducted the National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness. This survey of people from across the United States gauges the nation’s disaster preparedness actions, attitudes, and motivations. The 2023 survey conducted from February 1 through March 14, 2023 included over 7,600 responses. Results from the 2023 survey indicate that slightly more than half (51%) of Americans believe they are prepared for a disaster and 57% took three or more actions to prepare for a disaster within the last year. The most common actions people took to prepare for a disaster were assembling or updating disaster supplies (48%) and making a plan (37%); the least common actions were planning with neighbors (12%) and getting involved in their community (14%).

Could it happen here? On New Year's Day, the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center detected a magnitude 7.5 earthquake near the west coast of Honshu, Japan. Nearly 100,000 were ordered to evacuate. I was staying with friends in Gearhart, on the Oregon Coast. We wondered if we might be in danger of a tsunami. Fortunately, we were spared this time. 
It's always a good idea to be prepared for natural disasters by informing yourself and taking simple steps to have supplies ready to go. When at the coast, look for and practice walking the tsunami routes in areas where you are staying.
What about when your home? Find out where the fault lines lie in your area, using this interactive map by the U.S. Geological Survey. And prepare for all kinds of disasters using the information on this website. 

In the Pacific Northwest, we feel the effects of climate change now. We've seen historic droughts and wildfire seasons, more frequent storms and floods, and searing heat waves that have resulted in nearly a thousand deaths in Oregon and Washington over the last few years. Climate change has revved up and super-sized disasters across all regions of the U.S., making it even more important for communities and individuals to get prepared and for everyone to do what they can to reduce their impact on the environment. ​

What do you do if a mega earthquake happens and you are at the beach? Run for the hills, right?! Knowing what to do, and actually doing it are two separate things, and that's why practice is so important. 
During the International ShakeOut! exercise, I participated in a tsunami drill with the South Tillamook County CERT team. I met new people and learned the routes to two tsunami assembly areas in Neskowin, Oregon. 
If you spend time at the beach, consider walking the evacuation routes as a practice; note how much time it takes you to vigorously walk to high ground. 

Check out this All-Hazards Preparedness Guide from the CDC. It covers basic information about getting prepared for a wide variety of situations, including: 

• Shelter-in-Place
• Advice for those with special needs
• Bioterrorism
• Chemical emergencies
• Earthquakes
• Extreme heat
• Hurricanes
• Landslides and mudslides
• Pandemic Influenza
• Tornados
• And more.