3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017
Cascadia Day 30: Carry on and prepare for a crowd
Preparing your business
for Cascadia earthquake
Refugees from
west side will
head to the east
EO Media Group
Editor’s note: This is the
third story in a five-part series
about a possible Cascadia
Subduction Zone earthquake
in Oregon and Washington
state.
By JADE McDOWELL
EO Media Group
The Oregon Office of Emer-
gency Management offers
an emergency prepared-
ness scorecard.
Life will go on in Eastern
Oregon if the dreaded Casca-
dia earthquake ever hits the
Pacific Northwest, but it will and government workers who
would likely spend weeks
not quickly return to normal.
It’s unclear how many ref- in the county or at least pass
ugees from the west side of through.
“With that increased popu-
the state will land in Uma-
tilla County, but Joe Franell, lation expectancy, the potential
CEO of Eastern Oregon Tele- is if business owners are pre-
com and chairman of the gov- pared, and if they’ve encour-
ernor’s Oregon Broadband aged their employees to be
Advisory Council, said if half prepared, there is a potential
of the county’s 76,700 resi- for them to see a windfall,” he
dents have family on the west said.
The Oregon Office of
side who come to stay with
Emergency Man-
them the county’s
agement offers an
population could
emergency
pre-
quickly double.
paredness score-
“If you look
card that helps busi-
at what happened
nesses assess how
with (Hurricane)
resilient they would
Katrina, where they
be in a natural disas-
landed is where
ter and helps ask the
they tended to stay,”
“tough questions”
he said of people
about whether they
fleeing the disas-
should reopen.
ter. “I don’t know
Roberts
said
if we can house that
that if owners and
many.”
Joe Franell
employees are per-
At the same
time, some people in East- sonally prepared for a disas-
ern Oregon would join one ter, then they will be able to
of the 50 nonprofits on the return to work more quickly.
National Voluntary Organiza- The business also needs to
tions Active in Disasters regis- have plans in place for com-
try and head west to assist in munication and the possibility
cleanup efforts there. Those they may need to function for
with medical training can get a while without electricity or
pre-credentialed now with the internet (see sidebar).
Customers also need to be
State Emergency Registry of
Volunteers to provide medical prepared for the fact that busi-
nesses may not immediately
services.
reopen, or may operate on a
cash-only basis for a while
Commerce
The earthquake could after the disaster.
prove crippling to some busi-
nesses, especially those that
Mental health
depend on shipping commod-
A month into the disas-
ities to the west side of the ter there would likely be more
state. But Umatilla County stability in meeting phys-
emergency manager Tom ical needs, but mental and
Roberts said other local busi- emotional needs will also be
nesses could see a boon from present.
After Hurricane Katrina
refugees, volunteers, media
Oregon Office of Emergency Management
flooded New Orleans, the
city’s residents experienced
increased rates of post trau-
matic stress disorder, depres-
sion and anxiety. Cascadia,
with its destructive powers and
aftershocks that will likely run
for weeks, could produce sim-
ilar effects.
Monique Dugaw, commu-
nications director for the Cas-
cades region of the Red Cross,
said the nonprofit has volun-
teer mental health profession-
als that it would call upon to
help victims of Cascadia.
Steve Eberline, a prepared-
ness presenter for Red Cross,
said people will be in a bet-
ter place mentally after a big
disaster if they have discussed
it, thought about it and pre-
pared for it ahead of time.
“A family plan is part of
psychologically preparing for
the event,” he said. “A lot of
people don’t want to talk about
it, because thinking of your
child trapped at school across
the river, it’s a tough conversa-
tion to have.”
He said his family keeps
card games and books in
their 72-hour kit, to provide a
“sense of normalcy and com-
fort” if they had to live in a
tent or emergency shelter for
a while. The Red Cross also
keeps stuffed animals for chil-
dren in its emergency shelters.
Services
As life begins to stabilize in
Eastern Oregon, organizations
like school districts will have
to figure out how to carry on
in the face of a “new normal.”
Mike Kay, operations man-
ager for Hermiston School
District, participates in meet-
ings for Umatilla County’s
local emergency preparedness
committee, and said the school
district has relocation plans in
place to evacuate students in
the event of an emergency. It
also plans to offer up its build-
ings and staff as resources to
the Red Cross, National Guard
and other responders.
“We anticipate we, and
any facilities we have, becom-
ing readily available staging
areas,” he said.
Kay said so far the district
has been mostly focused on
what would happen in the
first month after Cascadia
and hasn’t spent much time
discussing how it would
accommodate a large influx
of children from the west
side.
As the district has built
new schools, it has built
them up to seismic stan-
dards. If the county only
sees light shaking during
Cascadia and its aftershocks,
the damage to school build-
ings in Hermiston could be
very minimal. However,
with variables such as time
of year unknown, Kay said
how soon school would start
back up again is “the million
dollar question.”
Other organizations have
similar questions. Roberts
said many of them have been
Bill prohibits employers from
firing workers who use marijuana
invited to an all-day Casca-
dia Earthquake Preparedness
Summit on in May to dis-
cuss “areas to work on” as
the region continues to pre-
pare for Cascadia.
“We don’t have all the
answers yet, but we intend
to start working on them this
spring,” he said.
Coming Thursday: Cas-
cadia after six months.
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By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Most Oregon
employers would lose the right
to fire workers or deny employ-
ment to a candidate who uses
marijuana during nonwork
hours, under a bill proposed by
lawmakers on the legislative
marijuana regulation committee.
The controversial legislation
makes exceptions for certain
industries such as truck driv-
ers, federal contractors and jobs
covered by collective bargaining
agreements.
As a legal substance in
the state, marijuana should be
treated the same as tobacco, pro-
ponents told lawmakers during
a public hearing in the Senate
Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
“The goal with Senate Bill
301 is to protect other sub-
stances that are legal under Ore-
gon law from being a cause of
termination or not hiring people
for a particular job,” said Beth
Creighton, a Portland employ-
ment attorney, who has repre-
sented clients who were fired for
their marijuana use. “Currently,
tobacco is protected, so if you
use tobacco off-site, employ-
ers are not permitted to fire you
because of that. With the onset
of legalized marijuana, mari-
juana should not be treated any
differently.”
The bill still allows employ-
ers to fire employees who come
to work impaired, she noted.
“If you have somebody fall-
ing down drunk in the work-
place, you don’t have to keep
them on duty. You don’t have
to keep them as an employee,”
Creighton said. “You can still
In the event of a disas-
ter, businesses can get back
on their feet more quickly
if they are prepared. The
Oregon Office of Emer-
gency Management’s busi-
ness preparedness website
and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerces Small Business
Recover Guide have a com-
prehensive set of resources
for businesses, including
the following suggestions:
1) Have an emergency
plan and supplies such as
flashlights and first aid kits
in place for if the disaster
hits during the work day.
Make sure your employees
know what the plan is and
where the supplies are.
2) Have a plan for
communication between
employees
and
con-
sider purchasing satellite
phones or walkie talkies for
managers.
3) Seismically safeguard
your office or store and
secure important inventory.
4) Invest in off-site
backup services for your
company website and dig-
ital records you don’t want
to lose. Also have paper
copies of employee con-
tacts, insurance and other
important information on
hand.
5) Learn how your sup-
pliers would operate during
an emergency so that you
can make sure your plans
fit with theirs, and identify
backup suppliers from out
of state if needed.
6) Discuss partnerships
to pool resources with other
small businesses in the
community in the event of
a disaster.
7) Once disaster hits,
document damage carefully
and file insurance claims.
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77 11th Street, Suite H
Astoria, OR
503-325-2300
Click on the task view icon in the
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Paris Achen/Capital Bureau
Heather Kell of Portland sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting at the Capitol
in Salem Tuesday after testimony on a bill to prohibit employers from firing employees
who use marijuana.
be prohibited from coming to
work impaired on any kind of
substance.”
Opponents argued such a
law would violate federal law on
controlled substances and would
be defeated in court.
Employers, including cities
and counties, argued the bill also
could put employers at risk of
litigation.
“I am not generally averse
to symbolic laws that can’t
be enforced. Sometimes you
want to make a policy state-
ment even if it’s unenforceable,”
said Rob Bovett, legal counsel
for the Association of Oregon
Counties.
However, the bill “would
cost our members … significant
dollars to litigate and defend,
and ultimately, it is my strong
opinion, would all be preempted
(by federal law),” Bovett said.
“In this case, we don’t want
to see a symbolic law put on
the books that would not be
enforceable but would cost tax-
payers money.”
Opponents said the bill also
needs to allow businesses that
involve public safety, including
airline pilots, railroad engineers
and schoolteachers, to prohibit
employees from using mari-
juana on or off work.
Portland resident Heather
Kell, who has a bachelor’s
degree in finance, said she lost a
job offer after she disclosed that
she was a medical marijuana
patient and tested positive for
THC, the psychoactive element
of marijuana.
“I feel that even though it’s
legal in the state of Oregon, it’s
awkward that I have to share pri-
vate medical information,” Kell
told lawmakers during the hear-
ing. “I could no longer work
with the recruiting agency, and
I did not know I would be pre-
cluded from all future employ-
ment through the recruiting
agency.”
During the five years since
she started using medical mar-
ijuana, Kell said she had never
been reprimanded or accused of
being impaired due to her medi-
cal marijuana use.
One way to protect medical
marijuana users, without put-
ting the state in conflict with
federal law, could be to change
Oregon’s Disabilities Act to
prohibit discrimination against
medical marijuana users who
use the substance when they’re
not at work, said Jim Westwood,
senior counsel at Stoel Rives,
who spoke on behalf of Oregon
business.
State Sen. Floyd Prozanski,
D-Eugene, the chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee,
said he plans to meet with West-
wood, other opponents and pro-
ponents to discuss that potential
option.
The Capital Bureau is a collab-
oration between EO Media Group
and Pamplin Media Group.
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