OREGON
A8 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2022
OEM director says treat mass shootings like other disasters
By TERRI HARBER
Medofrd Mail Tribune
SALEM — The director of
Oregon’s Offi ce of Emergency
Management says Oregon isn’t
doing enough to prevent mass
shootings.
Mass shoot-
ings should be
given the same
emphasis — and
emergency man-
agers should use
the same tools —
Phelps
as measures to stop
other disasters such as fi res,
fl oods and construction mishaps,
said Andrew Phelps, director of
Oregon’s Offi ce of Emergency
Management.
“We tragically lost nine Ore-
gonians in our 2020 Labor Day
wildfi res, an event that led to
sweeping changes to our laws and
hundreds of millions of dollars
in investments to protect Orego-
nians from similar wildfi re disas-
ters,” Phelps told the Mail Tri-
bune May 26, two days after the
mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas,
that killed 19 students and two
teachers and injured 15 others at
Robb Elementary School.
“Yet, when nine Oregonians
lost their lives in the Umpqua
Community College shooting
in 2015, we saw no signifi cant
change,” said Phelps, who has
led the state agency since Jan-
uary 2015.
“This is a lightning rod of
a policy issue that’s caused so
much divisiveness, while our
collective inaction continues to
cost lives,” he said. “From an
emergency management stand-
point, we must strip away any
specifi c political agenda or ide-
ology and take action to reduce
our risk from mass shootings as
we do with other hazards.”
Phelps said his job is to pro-
tect Oregon communities from
all hazards and to reduce shared
risk.
“A massacre like the Uvalde
mass shooting is by every mea-
sure a disaster. So was Parkland,
and Sandy Hook and Umpqua
Community College right here
in Oregon,” Phelps wrote on
Twitter May 25. “Emergency
managers need to lead policy
discussions about reducing
THIS risk, one that has taken
more lives than wildfi res or fl ash
fl oods or earthquakes in this
country over the past 25 years.”
Emergency managers provide
Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press, File
A law enforcement personnel lights a candle outside Robb Elementary School in
Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022. Desperation turned to heart-wrenching
sorrow for families of grade schoolers killed after an 18-year-old gunman barricaded
himself in their Texas classroom and began shooting, killing several fourth-graders
and their teachers.
advice to elected and govern-
ment offi cials about how to miti-
gate risk from disasters and need
to be comfortable doing the same
thing when working to mitigate
the risk of mass shootings, he
said in an interview.
Many disasters aren’t “nat-
ural,” but are the result of
choices and policy decisions, he
said on Twitter.
Maximizing the safety of
new construction projects, for
example, includes recommen-
dations that can be seen as con-
troversial, such as land use
and building codes about how
and where to build, he added.
Reducing risk often means
“change this policy, adopt that
code or amend these laws.”
With mass shootings,
emphasis has been primarily on
managing consequences and not
on prevention. The Columbine
High School shooting in Colo-
rado in 1999, in which 12 stu-
dents and a teacher were killed
and 20 others were injured,
prompted conversations about
infrastructure hardening on
school campuses, Phelps said.
Adding panic buttons and
double locks have improved
safety, but emergency managers
must begin providing input about
policy and legislation that could
prevent these shootings, he said.
Because there are so many
issues related to mass shootings,
trying to prevent such crimes
may require a patchwork of miti-
gation strategies.
For wildfi res, fl ooding and
construction safety, emer-
gency managers rely on advice
from experts in those areas. To
prevent mass shootings, law
enforcement, advocacy groups
and other knowledgeable people
could be consulted, Phelps said
Monday.
“And we can look at what’s
worked across the nation,” he
added.
When Oregonians are most likely to get lost in the wilderness — and why
By JAMIE HALE
and DAVID CANSLER
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — The
call came in at about
10:30 in the morning: An
employee at the Bonne-
ville Fish Hatchery in the
Columbia River Gorge had
spotted a plume of smoke
coming from the cliff s at
Munra Point. It wasn’t a
forest fi re — it looked more
like a smoke signal.
Soon, a team of nearly
two dozen search and
rescue volunteers and
coordinators had arrived,
loading their packs with
ropes, medical supplies,
food and extra clothes.
Crews determined that the
smoke signal was coming
from a man who was stuck
on the cliff s, and it looked
like he might be in rough
shape.
Brian Gerkman, head
search and rescue coordi-
nator for the Multnomah
County Sheriff ’s offi ce,
was on the scene that May
morning. Aside from the
quick-witted smoke signal,
it was typical of many
search and rescue missions
in Oregon — a stranded
hiker, unprepared for the
elements, in need of a
technical rescue from the
wilderness.
“He was not prepared to
go hiking,” Gerkman later
said of the man on Munra
Point. “Certainly not pre-
pared to spend the night on
a cliff .”
That rescue was one
of 364 in Oregon through
May this year — part of a
continuing trend of rescue
missions that peaks every
summer as more people
fi nd outdoor adventures in
farther-fl ung wilderness
areas.
Like clockwork, the
number of search and
rescue missions in Oregon
begins rising along with
temperatures in May,
according to an analysis
of statewide data since
2011 by The Oregonian. It
climbs again in June before
peaking in July, with an
average of 122 rescue call
outs — or nearly four a day.
Sunny August remains
nearly as high, recording
the second most missions
of the year.
Scott Lucas, the state-
wide search and rescue
coordinator for the Oregon
Offi ce of Emergency Man-
agement, said the spike in
summer is simply about
there being more people
outside doing a wider
variety of activities. Snow-
melt gives better access to
the mountains, and warm
days drive people to rivers,
lakes, beaches and forests.
It’s not necessarily that
there’s more reckless or
dangerous recreation in
the summer, he said, there
are simply more people
recreating.
Just fi ve Oregon coun-
ties account for roughly
half of all rescue missions
year-round: Jackson, Lane,
Deschutes, Clackamas and
Douglas. Lane, in partic-
ular, peaks in the summer,
recording more calls on
average than any other
jurisdiction in June, July
and August.
Lucas said Lane County
is unique because of the
vast diversity of terrain
it covers, stretching from
the Cascade Mountains to
the Oregon coast. In the
summer, when that whole
area becomes more acces-
sible, search and rescue
teams typically have their
hands full.
“If they’re not rescuing
people out in the water,
they’re saving people in the
snow,” he said of the rescue
crews.
While Lucas said the
statewide numbers are cer-
tainly higher than they
were a few decades ago,
they have more or less
remained consistentover
a decade — even as the
state’s overall population
grew by about 10%.
In 2021, Oregon
recorded 1,078 search and
rescue missions in Oregon
compared to 1,049 missions
in 2011. In that time, annual
numbers spanned between
The Bulletin
SALEM — Oregon’s
natural beauty is the No.1
draw for visitors, but brew-
eries, restaurants and
shopping rank second,
according to a survey by
the Oregon Values and
Beliefs Center.
But with that attraction
comes angst from residents
who feel tourism makes
biking, hiking, fi shing and
camping more diffi cult to
enjoy, according to the
May 6-12 survey of 1,674
residents 18 and older.
“More people are
moving here, and there are
already too many people,”
said Daniel Olson, a
75-year-old-plus Deschutes
County resident. “Ulti-
mately it increases traffi c
and drives up costs, espe-
cially housing.”
Olson’s comments
mirror the survey, where
61% of the respondents
believe that tourism causes
traffi c in their community.
But two-thirds of those
surveyed believed that
tourism brings benefi ts,
particularly economic
ones, which is the same
as when surveyed in 2021,
according to the center.
Just about half of those
surveyed supported a
tourist fee for peak seasons
that can be given to the
aff ected communities. The
survey showed that 51%
believe tourism contributes
funds to public services,
48% said it provided a high
quality of life and 48% said
it off ered well-paying jobs.
Despite the criticism
of tourism, most surveyed
recognized the benefi ts to
the state and foresee an
increase in visitors this
summer will be a posi-
tive for their community,
according to the survey.
About eight in 10 res-
idents 75 and older say
tourism contributes to
a strong economy. But
among the 18- to 29-year-
olds that belief drops
signifi cantly to 58%,
according to the survey.
More than half of those
surveyed in the under
30 age group — 56% —
believe tourism contrib-
uted to the lack of aff ord-
able housing, according the
survey. But about 34% to
50% in all other age groups
surveyed believe tourism is
a contributing factor to the
lack of aff ordable housing,
according to the survey.
The Oregon Values and
Beliefs Center is an inde-
pendent, nonpartisan orga-
nization. The center part-
nered with Pamplin Media
Group and the EO Media
Group, which owns The
Bulletin.
Of note is that one-third
of those surveyed in the
under 30 age group say
recreational marijuana is a
tourist draw, according to
the survey.
The survey has a
margin of error of about
2.4%.
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involved, most search and
rescue missions are suc-
cess stories. Since 2012,
nearly 99% of rescue mis-
sions ended with lost or
stranded people found
alive, the department said.
In that time, 99 people died
who were reported missing
or lost, and 80 were never
found.
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Survey shows mixed feelings
about tourism among Oregonians
By SUZANNE ROIG
a low of 924 missions in
2015 and a high of 1,305 in
2019.
“I think if you were to
keep the population the
same for 10 years and not
have anyone new come into
Oregon, we’d have really
low numbers,” Lucas said.
Although stressful
and often scary for those
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