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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 11, 2018)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian A2 Tuesday, December 11, 2018 Oregon gets a new playbook for earthquake response By BEN BOTKIN The Statesman Journal SALEM — Oregon has a new playbook for preparing and responding to a major earthquake that dictates what should be tackled over time versus a list of tasks to get done. The playbook provides a two-week blueprint for the state’s response and expec- tations for prioritizing Ore- gon’s recovery from what would be the deadliest natu- ral disaster in the U.S. Oregon faces the threat of a 9.0 magnitude earth- quake and tsunami that would hit the 700-mile Cas- cadia Subduction Zone, rip- pling from the coastal coun- ties and impacting much of the state and neighboring Washington. Emergency planners esti- mate coastal areas would have as little as 15 minutes notice to escape an incom- ing tsunami, and as many as 25,000 people could die. About a million Oregonians could be impacted in other ways: needing shelter, food and medication while wait- ing for help. To prepare for the worst- case scenario, Oregon’s Office of Emergency Man- agement has updated and revised its response plan, a 100-page document called the Cascadia Playbook. AP Photo/Don Ryan, File In this March 11, 2011, file photo, car headlights from a steady stream of cars form a line as residents evacuate the coastal town of Seaside after the warning of a tsunami surge from a Japanese earthquake was issued. Times for responding and recovering are a key change from two previous editions. Emergency planners have laid out steps they would take after an earthquake based on intervals of time: the first hour, the first six hours, the first 12 hours and beyond. The shift to focus on time comes after the 2016 Cascadia Rising exercise, a four-day regional drill that offered a look at how pre- pared the Pacific Northwest is for an earthquake and tsunami. The newest version gives the state a clearer sense of how to prioritize tasks and track progress, said Andrew Phelps, director of the Office of Emergency Management. “That way, we aren’t wasting any of the avail- able resources on things that weren’t absolutely critical,” Phelps said. In the first hour, the steps are basic: contact the gover- nor, determine what staff are available and start notifying agencies. Forecast for Pendleton Area TODAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY Occasional rain and drizzle Breezy in the morning; some sun Cloudy Cloudy and mild with a shower Chance of a little p.m. rain 50° 38° 47° 37° “The first hour, it’s all about finding your feet,” Phelps said. “That first hour it’s all about notifications.” Within six hours, the pri- orities include having the governor declare a state of emergency, assessing roads and bridges for damages and working to get emergency supplies, establishing com- munications with local gov- ernment and sending infor- mation to the public. Unlike other disasters that are more self-contained — like a dam collapse — 50° 36° 45° 31° 52° 35° 49° 40° 51° 35° 53° 33° 49° 34° 55° 37° OREGON FORECAST ALMANAC Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows. PENDLETON through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Seattle Olympia 54/42 37/34 44/34 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 48/39 Lewiston 52/41 49/41 Astoria 54/43 Pullman Yakima 41/36 51/39 43/38 Portland Hermiston 51/42 The Dalles 49/40 Salem Corvallis 52/39 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 39/35 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 51/39 47/31 42/32 Ontario 38/32 Caldwell Burns 42° 27° 40° 28° 68° (2014) -11° (1972) 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date Albany 51/40 Trace 0.01" 0.52" 6.97" 8.77" 8.99" WINDS (in mph) 38/33 33/23 0.08" 0.09" 0.46" 8.96" 15.33" 11.93" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 37/30 52/41 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 50/38 45/42 42° 28° 39° 27° 67° (1933) -13° (1972) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 51/38 Aberdeen 39/31 37/34 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 51/42 Today Medford 47/35 Wed. SSW 4-8 S 7-14 Boardman Pendleton WSW 8-16 WSW 8-16 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls 40/26 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 7:26 a.m. 4:11 p.m. 10:45 a.m. 8:21 p.m. First Full Last New Dec 15 Dec 22 Dec 29 Jan 5 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 78° in Key West, Fla. Low -16° in Daniel, Wyo. NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY “Everyone that is pre- pared has a better chance of being a disaster survivor and not a disaster victim,” Phelps said. “Are people going to die during a Cascadia earth- quake? Yes, but more people are going to survive.” Stan Thomas would be at the forefront of a response to provide mass care to sur- vivors. He’s an administra- tor of occupational health, safety and emergency ser- vices for the Oregon Depart- ment of Human Services and Oregon Health Authority. The playbook is crucial because everyone respond- ing has to have a sense of what the priorities are, even if communication is lost, said Thomas, currently on assignment at the Camp Fire in California. The Camp Fire response, he said, is a reminder of the need to plan beyond the first day: what happens tomor- row and the next week and beyond. The playbook also is a reminder that multiple agen- cies are involved, all with different tasks. The play- book arranges agency action side-by-side. That helps when coordi- nating a response, said Eric Gebbie, a planning section chief for the Oregon Health Authority’s health security, preparedness and response program. Trump plan to reclassify nuke waste alarms environmentalists By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Associated Press PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST the state has to plan for a response with major infra- structure damage and some staff not able to work. As a result, tools like amateur radio networks would be used for communi- cation instead of cellphones. “We can’t write a plan based on the staff that we have available today, the telephone and internet ser- vice we have today, the transportation infrastructure we have today the energy infrastructure we have today,” Phelps said. “We have to write our plans assuming that most of that stuff is not going to be available,” he said. Within 12 hours, more is known. At least three life- line routes are established, providing a clear, designated pathway for getting help to people. Officials know what Oregon airports are usable for response missions. Infor- mation about hospitals — both damages and bed capac- ity — has been gathered. Within 24 hours, mass care for the displaced has started: medical care, meals and shelter for pets and ani- mals is in place. For Oregonians, emer- gency planning can be done at a household level. That includes having an emer- gency kit of food, water and other necessities for at least 14 days. SPOKANE, Wash. — The Trump administration wants to reclassify some radioactive waste left from the production of nuclear weapons to lower its threat level and make disposal cheaper and easier. The proposal by the U.S. Department of Energy would lower the status of some high-level radioac- tive waste in several places around the nation, including the Hanford Nuclear Reser- vation in Washington state — the most contaminated nuclear site in the country. Reclassifying the mate- rial to low-level could save the agency billions of dol- lars and decades of work by essentially leaving the mate- rial in the ground, critics say. The proposal joins a long list of Trump administra- tion efforts to loosen envi- ronmental protections. Just last week, the Environmen- tal Protection Agency acted to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry. Tom Carpenter of Han- ford Challenge, a nuclear watchdog group, said it wants a thorough cleanup of the Washington state nuclear site, which is half the size of Rhode Island. That includes building a national reposi- tory somewhere else to bury the waste once it has been stabilized. “The cleanup of the site is really at stake,” Carpen- ter said about the proposed change. He noted that Hanford is located in an environmen- tally sensitive site adjacent to the Columbia River and susceptible to earthquakes, volcanoes and flooding. Hanford was established by the Manhattan Project in AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File In this July 11, 2016 file photo, a sign warns of radio- active material stored underground on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. World War II to make plu- tonium, a key ingredient in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The plant went on to produce most of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, the site also contains the nation’s larg- est collection of nuclear waste. The most dangerous is stored in 177 aging under- ground tanks, some of which have leaked. The tanks hold some 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes waiting to be treated for permanent disposal. Cleanup efforts at Han- ford have been underway since the late 1980s and cost about $2 billion a year. Current law defines high- level radioactive waste as resulting from processing irradiated nuclear fuel that is highly radioactive. The Energy Department wants to reclassify some of the waste that meets highly technical conditions. The agency says the change could save the fed- eral government $40 bil- lion in cleanup costs across the nation’s entire nuclear weapons complex, which includes the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina and Idaho National Laboratory. Environmental groups and the state of Washing- ton, which has a legal com- mitment with the Energy Department to oversee the Hanford cleanup, said the proposal is a concern. “They see it as a way to get cleanup done faster and less expensively,’” said Alex Smith of the Wash- ington state Department of Ecology. Carpenter said there “is not much point in doing much else if they don’t clean up the high-level waste.” At the request of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Ore- gon Democrat, the agency extended the public com- ment period on the proposal to Jan. 9. The agency can make the change without the approval of Congress. “No one disputes the dif- ficulty of retrieving and treating high-level waste from Hanford’s aging stor- age tanks,” Wyden wrote to the DOE. “However, lower- ing the bar for level of pro- tection of future genera- tions and the environment by changing the definition of what has always been considered high-level waste requiring permanent dis- posal is a significant change. Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. -10s -0s 0s showers t-storms 10s rain 20s flurries 30s snow 40s 50s ice 60s cold front E AST O REGONIAN — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. Main St., Hermiston 541-567-6211 Office hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed major holidays EastOregonian.com To subscribe, call 1-800-522-0255 or go online to EastOregonian.com and click on ‘Subscribe’ East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published daily except Sunday, Monday and postal holidays, by the EO Media Group, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Periodicals postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Copyright © 2018, EO Media Group 70s 80s 90s 100s warm front stationary front 110s high low CORRECTIONS: The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate and sincerely regrets any errors. 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