If your house is on fire, you call 911. A dispatcher alerts a fire station and an engine comes, in a hurry, to put the fire out.  No questions asked.  Citizens invest in that service and they’ve come to expect it, in four minutes or less.  But what happens when an entire community or region is affected by a disaster – whether by flood, storm or earthquake?  The answer is far from clear.

Two student teams from the Community Service Center’s (CSC) Community Planning Workshop are working with several communities in Oregon to tackle some of these larger emergency management questions.  The first team, led by Graduate Teaching Fellow Jennifer Self, will help update the Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan (NHMP) for Jefferson County, as well as produce a model training program for developing and implementing NHMPs statewide.  The second team, led by CSC staff member Josh Bruce, will develop strategic emergency management plans for the Douglas and Coos County Emergency Management (EM) programs. The strategic plan will identify opportunities for regional planning and collaboration between the two counties’ emergency management programs.

On January 17, 2013, both teams traveled to Salem to attend the quarterly Oregon State Interagency Hazard Mitigation Team meeting.  The students observed the meeting and had the opportunity to meet with key state hazards planning professionals.  Oregon Office of Emergency Management staff also led the students on a tour of the state Emergency Operations Center.  While the experience illustrated some of the resource and structural challenges faced by local, state and federal emergency management agencies, the trip also identified opportunities for moving towards a more resilient state.

For more information on natural hazards planning visit the CSC website http://csc.uoregon.edu/opdr/.