Tag: CIty of Madras Oregon

Top 3 Lessons Learned Throughout the CPW Process

Team Madras Hazards Plan Integration OPDR Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience CPW Community Planning Workshop
Team Madras: Sarah Allison, Project Manager with team members: Emily Kettell, Laura Stroud, Elizabeth Miller, Drew Pfefferle, Ross Peizer (photo taken at Smith Rock State Park, Terreborne, Oregon)

Team Madras (Madras Hazards Plan Integration) is made up of five first-year Community and Regional Planning graduate students enrolled in the Community Planning Workshop (CPW). The team’s project consists of taking Jefferson County’s Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (NHMP) and integrating it with Madras’ comprehensive plan, the City’s regulatory planning document. For most of us on Team Madras, we came into the project knowing next to nothing about natural hazard planning. Some people devote their entire careers to hazard planning, and we were just taking on a six-month project. So, how were we to catch up, or at least begin to learn the basics of hazard planning and completing such an important project? This blog provides insight into some key lessons that our team learned about the project we have been working on.

1. Case Studies Can Provide a Huge Base of Knowledge
Aside from reading information from FEMA, and some pretty lengthy policy documents, our team found that the best way to learn about natural hazard planning was through case studies. Understanding what other cities have done to succeed (and fail) in the field of hazard mitigation, and more specifically, in the integration of the NHMP with the comprehensive plan, was extremely helpful for everyone on the team.

If we had just stuck to reading lengthy policy documents, we would have only had some abstract ideas as to what natural hazard planning was all about. The main lesson we learned about case studies is that by reading them, our team members were able to ground ourselves in natural hazard planning through concrete examples. After reading the case studies, our team began working on our project with a greater understanding of what we needed to accomplish moving forward.

2. Check In Often
While our team is working from Eugene, our client is three hours away in Madras and we need to make sure that we check in from time to time. As we create our revised natural hazards chapter, our client has been willing to review our goal and policy language, to ensure that what we write matches the standards and expectations that he has set for the final stages of the project.

Aside from our client, we have checked in with our Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) twice and had a conference call with Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) representatives to discuss our hazard inventory, as well as our goal and policy language before it becomes finalized. The main lesson that our team learned was that by checking in frequently, we can make changes early in order to try and avoid any conflicts at the end of the project.

3. Public Participation is Key to Successful Deliverables
One of the most important aspects of creating our final deliverables has been the public participation input. We held a public forum and realized that some people hold strong opinions on matters that affect land use and regulations. In an attempt to receive the greatest amount of input as possible and keep the dialogue productive, we created a set-up of stations so that we could have one-on-one conversations with attendees. This allowed us to gather valuable input, start dialogues, and diffuse any potential air of conflict by addressing concerns upfront.

The resulting input that we received has directly informed the goals, policies, and implementation measures that we have included in our primary deliverable, the hazard mitigation chapter for the comprehensive plan. The input not only gave us a sense of what would be more or less popular with citizens, but also clued us into specific language that we should or should not avoid using. We learned that including public input and understanding the public’s point of view would create a stronger end product that wins more public support. While we will never win everyone’s support, by including public input, we can create a product that the public feels better about because their input has been included in our process.

Conclusion
Over the course of this twenty-week project Team Madras has learned several lessons in the process. Our hope is that in the future other cities can learn from our process as they proceed in comprehensive hazard mitigation planning.

 

Elizabeth Miller Madras Hazards Integration Plan CPW Community Planning Workshop
Emily Kettell University of Oregon Community Planning Workshop CPW Madras Hazards Plan Integration

 

About the Authors: Elizabeth Miller is a Community and Regional Planning student at the University of Oregon, and is additionally pursuing a certificate in Nonprofit Management.  She is from Kalispell, Montana, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with degrees in Fine Arts, Political Science, and Peace Studies. Emily Kettell is a first year Community and Regional Planning graduate student. She moved to Eugene from Chicago where she received her Bachelors degree from DePaul University, majoring in French and Public Policy, with a concentration in Environmental Studies.

Hazard Planning? Sounds Fun to Me!

It’s scary to think about hazards. No one wants to imagine a river breaking its banks and flowing unrestrained through their town, or watching the walls of their house beginning to sway as the earth below them shakes back and forth.

But, with our Community Planning Workshop (CPW) project focusing on hazard mitigation planning, it’s become our job to plan for these things that no one really wants to think about. Throughout the course of this project, we’ve realized there’s an easier way to get people thinking and talking about natural hazards: make it a game!

Here are some good places to start –

Pandemic is a cooperative board game where players work together, instead of against one another, to save the world from a viral outbreak. It’s a great example of making hazard planning entertaining and educational. It didn’t take long for us to the notice the similarities between the board game and our Community Planning Workshop project. While we are not saving the world from a biohazard, we are all working together to protect the city of Madras from natural hazards. Unfortunately, we didn’t save the world in Pandemic, but we did realize how much fun we were having learning about hazard planning!

Our team has been joking that since we enjoyed Pandemic so much, we should make an Oregon-specific version of the game. Instead of playing as a group of scientists saving the word from an epidemic, our Oregon version would have players step into the role of planners to prepare Oregon against natural hazards. While we would love to make this game a reality, our main goal is raising awareness about hazard planning and how it can be both entertaining and educational!

  • Natural Hazard Car BingoHazard Planning? Sounds Fun to Me Drew Pfefferle Laura Stroud Ross Peizer  CPW Community Planning Workshop Madras Hazards Plan Integration

On our last visit to Madras, we brought along an Auto Bingo game that kept us on our toes the entire six-hour car trip to Madras and back to Eugene. For the next trip, we discussed creating our own natural hazard bingo game. It could consist of watching for signs of a past hazard like trees charred from a wildfire, flood hazards like creeks or drainage ditches clogged with debris, or signs of preparedness like fire hydrants. The possibilities are endless. This activity can get children and their parents thinking about and discussing natural hazard planning.

  • Emergency Kit Dinner NightHazard Planning? Sounds Fun to Me Drew Pfefferle Laura Stroud Ross Peizer  CPW Community Planning Workshop Madras Hazards Plan Integration

Part of hazard planning is making sure folks know how to prepare themselves and their families in the event of a hazard. Families should make sure they have their emergency pantry stocked with a three-day food supply.

To further prepare yourself, you can have an emergency kit dinner night! Check out this FEMA resource to learn what to pack in an emergency food kit and this Red Cross resource for everything you need to know to make your food and water last in an emergency. For extra fun, try cooking on a camp stove instead of your electric or gas range (which shouldn’t be used after a disaster). Just don’t forget to restock your food and fuel after you have your fun!

Hazard Planning? Sounds Fun to Me Drew Pfefferle Laura Stroud Ross Peizer  CPW Community Planning Workshop Madras Hazards Plan  Integration
About the Authors: Drew Pfefferle, Laura Stroud and Ross Peizer are all first year Master of Community and Regional Planning students. They hail from around the country and all worked professionally before beginning the graduate program. Their experiences outside of the classroom inspired them to go back to school to study planning as a profession.