A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019
Scientists warn Oregon is lagging in disaster preparedness
By SARAH
ZIMMERMAN
Associated Press
SALEM — Oregon state
lawmakers abandoned a
multimillion-dollar
proj-
ect to develop early warn-
ing systems for earthquakes
and wildfi res, and scien-
tists warn that the funding
shake-up could endanger
public safety and put Ore-
gon further behind other
West Coast states in prepar-
ing for natural disasters.
Researchers
were
shocked when nearly $12
million to expand Shake-
Alert and AlertWildfi re —
early warning systems to
help detect signifi cant earth-
quakes and wildfi res —
unexpectedly went up in
smoke last month, just days
before the end of the legis-
lative session. Money for
the projects was included
as part of a larger funding
package, but was stripped in
a last-minute amendment.
Disaster
preparedness
has continually been a focal
point as Western states are
poised to enter the hottest
and driest months of wild-
fi re season. And two mas-
sive earthquakes in remote
areas of Southern Califor-
nia this month reminded the
public it’s only a matter of
time before the next destruc-
tive quake hits.
“We don’t know when
the next big earthquake
or wildfi re will strike, but
we know it will happen at
some point,” said Doug-
las Toomey, a seismologist
and earth sciences professor
at the University of Oregon
who helps run both early
warning detection systems.
And Oregon is “woefully”
unprepared, he said.
Gov. Kate Brown, who
included the $12 million
in funding for the projects
in her proposed budget last
year, has told reporters the
decision not to expand the
early detection systems was
one of the “biggest disap-
pointments” of this year’s
Andy Nelson/The Register-Guard
A helicopter heads back to a water source to get more water to dump on a wildfi re in May near the Dorena Grange near Cottage Grove.
legislative session.
ShakeAlert and Aler-
tWildfi re are designed to
detect natural disasters as
they start and alert respond-
ers and the public before
signifi cant damage occurs.
They are managed by a con-
sortium of public univer-
sities and funded through
state, federal and private
partnerships.
In Oregon, the programs
are in the initial phases and
need signifi cant state invest-
ments to expand to a point
that they’ll be useful to the
public, Toomey said.
AlertWildfi re is a sys-
tem of cameras stationed
in some of the most remote
and fi re-prone parts of Ore-
gon, Nevada and California.
It has provided critical infor-
mation to fi rst responders in
over 600 fi res during the past
three fi re seasons, allowing
fi refi ghters in some cases to
contain blazes before they
spiral out of control.
ShakeAlert, meanwhile,
is a sensor system being
built out across Califor-
nia, Oregon and Washing-
ton. The sensors pick up on
faster-moving but less-dam-
aging energy waves that
emerge during the start of
an earthquake. They can
then sound the alarm before
the stronger, more destruc-
tive secondary wave, giv-
ing people seconds or min-
utes to prepare depending
on the size of the earthquake
and their distance from the
epicenter.
Other Western states
have thrown signifi cant cash
behind the two systems,
allowing them to build out
hundreds of earthquake sen-
sors and wildfi re cameras.
Cities and states need
at least 75% of their earth-
quake sensors in place
before offi cials can begin
alerting the public through
the ShakeAlert app.
Los Angeles became the
fi rst U.S. city to make the
app available in January.
The system could be send-
ing alerts to the rest of Cal-
ifornia by the end of the
year thanks to a $16.3 mil-
lion investment from state
lawmakers.
Additional emergency
management funds also
have allowed California to
expand its use of AlertWild-
fi re, and the state is expected
to install 200 to 300 new
wildfi re cameras by October.
Washington’s ShakeAlert
system could be ready by
October 2020, and the state
to the offi ce of Sen. Eliza-
beth Steiner Hayward, who
chairs the legislative com-
mittee in charge of funding
decisions.
Lizzy Atwood Wills,
chief of staff to Steiner Hay-
ward, said ShakeAlert and
AlertWildfi re were some
of the many projects not to
receive funding this year.
Investments are prioritized
“within the limited resources
available,” she said.
Toomey said he still
doesn’t understand why it
wasn’t considered a pri-
ority, saying the money
would have created jobs and
attracted additional federal
matching funds besides pos-
sibly saving lives.
“It feels like the state is
demoting public safety,”
he said. “There are lives at
stake here.”
contributed $1 million this
year to enhance the network.
Meanwhile, only three
wildfi re cameras have been
installed in Oregon, and the
state still has to build over
100 more earthquake sen-
sors before alerts can be sent
through ShakeAlert.
Without any additional
money from the state,
ShakeAlert will remain
dependent on federal funds.
That could mean the system
won’t be online until 2021
at the earliest — far later
than Oregon’s neighboring
states.
State lawmakers didn’t
specify why funding for
ShakeAlert and AlertWild-
fi re was abandoned, but
it’s common for last-min-
ute funding shake-ups to
happen based on avail-
able resources, according
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