When Kathleen and Bob Swain moved to Oregon from northern California in May, they brought along years of experience living through dangerous wildfires.
“We know about urban wildfire and what it can do,” Kathleen Swain said last week. “We know how that can go from being far away, to overnight being right next door.”
While the couple shrugged off their first evacuation warning in 2017, by the third one in 2019 they were on their toes. They packed bags with emergency supplies, secured important documents and took photos of belongings around their house, in case everything burned to the ground.
This summer, evacuation warnings followed them to their new home in Oak Grove, as the Riverside fire burned through eastern Clackamas County. While some of their neighbors were lackadaisical about their preparation, the Swains knew better: Californians, Oregonians, and pretty much anyone living anywhere these days needs to prepare for natural disaster.
Emergency kit basics
While many may already have some kind of emergency kit at home, it’s a good time to either refresh your supplies or add to what you have. While the Oregon Office of Emergency Management encourages people to customize kits for their own needs, the agency points to a list of basics put together by the American Red Cross:
1. Water: one gallon per person, per day. Have a three-day supply for evacuation and a two-week supply for home.
2. Food: nonperishable items that are easy to prepare. Again, have a three-day supply for evacuation and a two-week supply for home.
3. Flashlight.
4. Battery-powered or hand-crank radio.
5. Extra batteries.
6. First-aid kit. Get bigger kits for larger households, and regularly refresh expired items.
7. Medications and medical items. Keep at least a seven-day supply on hand.
8. Multi-purpose tool, like a Leatherman or Swiss Army Knife.
9. Sanitation and personal hygiene items. Those include toilet paper, hand sanitizer, extra toiletries and feminine hygiene products.
10. Copies of personal documents: medical information, proof of address, house documents, passport, birth certificate, insurance information.
11. Cell phone with charger. External battery packs are helpful, too.
12. Family and emergency contact information.
13. Extra cash.
14. Emergency blanket.
15. Maps of the area.
“It doesn’t really matter where it is, everybody’s being impacted,” Swain said. “This is sort of Oregon’s future now, too.”
After a year that has seen wildfires, windstorms and flooding across Oregon, even minor tornadoes and earthquakes (not to mention a global pandemic), Oregonians have no choice but to face the reality of future disasters.
According to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, there are seven major hazards Oregonians should prepare for: wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, winter storms and extreme heat.
To prepare for those events, people should stay informed about upcoming disasters, build emergency kits to store at home and in vehicles, make an emergency plan and be prepared to be self-sufficient for at least two weeks, the agency says.
There are plenty of pre-made kits that families and individuals can buy, but Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said it’s important to customize emergency supplies for your own household’s needs.
“Preparing for a disaster is really very personal and needs to be individualized for you and your family, no matter what that looks like,” Phelps said. “As our circumstances change – if we start taking a different medication, if you add family members, if you add pets – your disaster preparedness needs to change.”
People also need to adapt their emergency supplies to the evolving threat of disasters in the Pacific Northwest.
Oregon’s intense wildfires this summer have sent people scrambling to buy air purifiers and high-grade air filters for their homes. The coronavirus pandemic has made face coverings mandatory items to have on hand. And as our society becomes more reliant on smart phone technology, keeping external battery packs charged and on hand is necessary for any prolonged power outages.
Expensive items like air purifiers can be a tough investment for a lot of people, especially if they sit in storage for most of the year, Phelps said. People may need to prepare to improvise solutions instead, like attaching furnace filters to box fans, if need be.
Phelps said the biggest thing his agency struggles to combat is apathy. Some Oregonians have a tendency to procrastinate their disaster preparedness plans, he said, but as climate change brings about more intense and more frequent natural disasters, that’s no longer an option.
“We need to take a level of responsibility for ourselves and our families,” Phelps said. “Disasters don’t wait for you to be prepared, I think a lot of folks have been seeing that over the last week.”
