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
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