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January 25-26, 2020
The Dalles, Oregon
www.thedalleschronicle.com
Vol. 229, Issue 8
When
disaster
strikes
Volunteers learn
emergency
response skills
Sacon
■ By The Walker
Dalles Chronicle
Volunteers with a local
Community Emergency Response
Team (CERT) were trained in
January for everything from first-aid
and “disaster psychology” to proper
storage of household chemicals
ahead of a disaster.
The newly-formed Mid-Columbia
CERT’s trainings on Jan. 10-11 and
Jan. 17-18 prepared volunteers for
a disaster with presentations and
hands-on practice. Volunteers
finished the trainings with new
skills and a CERT backpack full of
disaster response items.
Trainings were facilitated by
Mid-Columbia CERT coordinator
Lynette Black and Mid-Columbia
Fire and Rescue training division
chief Rob Torrey and held at Mid-
Columbia Fire and Rescue.
In addition to training, Mid-
Columbia CERT will continue
to meet monthly, Black said.
Volunteers learned the basics of di-
saster response, including first-aid
and “cribbing,” or rescuing patients
from collapsed structures. They also
learned how to prepare their homes
to help with disaster response and
survival.
Black said volunteers wearing
CERT’s signature green vests will
help lead the recovery process
during a real disaster. “They’re
going to be looking to you to estab-
lish order and restore that sense of
safety,” she told volunteers.
Torrey said preparedness was
Braiden Page practices a head-to-toe patient assessment on Jacob Powell at a Community Emergency Response Team training on Jan. 17 at Mid-Columbia Fire and
Rescue. Page volunteers with Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue where his father, Rob Torrey, is a division chief.
Walker Sacon photos
“The worst time to first
meet someone is during an
emergency.”
Rob Torrey
Division Chief, MCF&R
important to disaster-response.
“This is the basic entry to this as a
lifelong student,” he said.
Torrey was involved with
CERT at his previous job with the
Redmond Wash. Fire Department,
where he retired four years ago
after 31 years with the department.
He said the CERT program there
had 500 volunteers, and extolled
the value of preparing for an orga-
nized response.
“The worst time to first meet
someone is during an emergency,”
Torrey said.
Brian Tuck, a former volunteer
firefighter and EMT in The Dalles
and Sherman County who attended
the training, said he remembers
a lack of manpower as a constant
theme of volunteering. “We always
needed more people,” Tuck said.
“It’s kind of fun to get back into
this after all these years,” Tuck said.
Mid-Columbia CERT’s first
course trained 10 volunteers, and
another course, which meets on
Thursdays through Feb. 20, is
underway.
Black, who has 20 years of CERT
experience, was the coordinator of
Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue training division chief Rob Torrey demonstrates dressing and bandaging a wound on Mid-
Columbia Community Emergency Response Team coordinator Lynette Black during a CERT training on Jan. 17. CERT volun-
teers were trained on how to triage and treat patients in a disaster situation. Find additional photos on page 10.
Clackamas CERT when she moved
to The Dalles 11 years ago. She tried
to get a CERT program going after
the move but didn’t find enough
interest locally.
Now, Black said, more people
want to get involved and she has
received a grant for a cache of re-
sponse equipment. Another round
of basic CERT training takes place
Monday, March 9 through Friday,
March 13 from 1-5 p.m.
High-tech metal printing continues to grow
B. Gibson
■ By The Mark
Dalles Chronicle
I3DMFG, a 3D metal printing
company with corporate offices in
Bend and a manufacturing facility
at the Port of The Dalles continues
to grow and is in the early stages of
planning to expand or relocate its
The Dalles plant, Greg Mercado,
chief operations and quality officer
in The Dalles, told members of The
Dalles Rotary Wednesday.
Mercado said the company was
considering moving its manufac-
turing to the Redmond/Bend area,
closer to where the companies
corporate offices are located, but it
is much too early say if that would
happen, and expansion of the
plant in The Dalles is also under
consideration.
The company currently has
seven metal printing machines in
operation, valued at around $1.5
million each. Six of the machines
print within a 10 inch cube, and
the newest within approximately a
16-inch cube.
“We do 3D metal printing in
different materials using metal
dust and direct lasers in a vacuum
environment,” Mercado said. The
printing of a single part can take
three or four days. “We do a lot of
space stuff, as well as firearms, high
end bicycles and parts for medical
devices,” he said.
Each printer is self-contained,
resembling an office copy machine
with a built in microwave. The
process involves thin layers of dust,
measured in microns, which are
melted from powder into a solid
by the lasers. They use primarily
super-nickel, titanium and alumi-
num alloys. “We are doing some ex-
perimental things as well,” Mercado
said. In the past, efforts were made
to use copper, but that “didn’t work
so well.”
The process is “additive,” each
layer building onto the next. Parts
are designed for “printability,” as
the process is better suited for for
printing some angles and shapes
and not others. The threading of a
hole to receive a bolt, for example,
is better done after the printing is
finished, as the printing process
typically creates to tight a fit.
He said the main benefit of the
process was the ability to cre-
ate “microchannels” within the
INSIDE
See PRINTING, page A2
Greg Mercado, chief operations and quality officer at I3DMFG, a metal 3D
printing manufacturing facility in The Dalles, uses his hands to sketch the size
of the space in one of the company’s larger machines, in which parts are “print-
ed” using metal dust and lasers at a The Dalles Rotary meeting Wednesday.
Mark B. Gibson photo
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Contact Black at lynette.black@
oregonstate.edu or 503-806-7132
for training registration or more in-
formation on Mid-Columbia CERT.
For general information about
CERT visit www.ready.gov/cert.
Winner
announced
Jan. 28
The winning town in the Small
Business Revolution’s voting
competition, in which The Dalles
competed with four other towns
to be the featured town of the fifth
season of its business revitaliza-
tion program, will be announced
at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28, and a
watch party will be held at The
Dalles Civic Auditorium as the
winner is declared.
Doors open at 4:30, with snacks
and a no host bar in the commu-
nity room.
The video presentations can be
watched from seating in the main
auditorium, the balcony, and on a
second screen for overflow in the
Community Room, according to
event planners.
At around 5 p.m. Small Business
Revolution will announce the win-
ner. In the winning town, Amanda
Brinkman, the show creator and
co-host, will step out on stage and
shout the name of the winner.
More information can be found
at lovethedalles.com.
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