ON JANUARY 26, the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) tested its new citywide emergency notification system. It failed miserably, reaching just 3 percent of the 317,000 Portlanders it targeted. And now volunteers working on another of the bureau’s bulwarks against catastrophe—its Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NET)—are saying the bureau is failing again.
It’s a failure, they warn, that could cost some Portlanders their lives.
The program is supposed to work like this: Whenever a disaster strikes—and one day it will—volunteer team members from all across Portland will be asked to aid overwhelmed first responders. These volunteers, trained by PBEM in emergency preparedness, will likely reach victims even before paramedics or firefighters.
But the volunteers, who call themselves NETs, worry that may be a pipe dream. Their program is underfunded, they say. They also complain that the bureau’s list of volunteers is outdated and just three of Portland’s 95 neighborhoods actually have active teams with about 15-20 people each. Worse, the NETs also say training is too infrequent and that the bureau doesn’t follow through afterward.
“There’s a huge disconnect once you get out of the training and try connecting with your neighbors,” says Mark Ginsberg, a NET team leader near SE Woodstock.
Ginsberg says he struggled to find NETs in his neighborhood. When he asked PBEM for a list of members, the bureau was reluctant to share its database. Then, when he got his list, it was out of date. PBEM, using that old information, currently estimates some 1,200 trained NETs in Portland. The real number is likely much lower.
“There is a lot of frustration from some members,” says Marcel Rodriguez, an emergency medical technician and NET team leader in Southwest.
In October, tensions flared badly enough that PBEM hired a mediation group, Resolutions Northwest, to help settle disputes between NETs and the city. Adela Basayne, who conducted the initial mediation interviews, said the bureau also asked mediators to investigate the value of the NET program. Resolutions Northwest will present its recommendations for changing NET later this month.
Basayne, after interviewing 24 people and reviewing 30 written statements, wound up with a litany of complaints: from gripes about a lack of support from PBEM after training and out-of-date contact info, to complaints about how infrequently NETs are trained in the first place. NETs also reported PBEM wasn’t adequately funding NET, citing the part-time status of the program’s current coordinator, William Warren.
Warren was on medical leave and unavailable for comment.
In general, NETs told Basayne that the program—despite the city’s reliance on it—would be “inadequate” in a major disaster.
What worries NETs most is “the big one,” a magnitude 9.0 earthquake—think Japan last year—that’s expected to slam the Northwest any time in the next 100 years. January 26, the day PBEM picked for its emergency test, marked the 312th anniversary of the region’s last massive earthquake. Rodriguez tells the Mercury it was NETs who had pushed the bureau to mark the event somehow.
“So we finally get something, which is great, but it turned out be a botched warning,” say Rodriguez.
“There has been doubt about my bureau’s commitment to the [NET] program,” says PBEM Director Carmen Merlo, “and I would like to say this is a project that I feel very committed to and sincerely want to improve.”
Merlo says her bureau is taking steps to address volunteers’ concerns, including updating its database, and adding online-only training sessions. As for whether NETs will be ready for “the big one”?
“There is no such thing as being fully prepared,” Merlo says. “But I think the training, as rusty as it might be for some folks, will kick in.”
Merlo disputed other claims, including volunteers’ assertion that there are only a few dozen active NETs; Merlo thinks the number is closer to 400 or 500. But she did agree the program was inadequately funded. Most funding for the NET program comes from grants from the Department of Homeland Security, she says.
According to numbers provided by PBEM, these annual and semi-annual grants fluctuate wildly, are often shared with Multnomah County, and give NET only about $30,000 a year.
Mayor Sam Adams, who oversees PBEM, says the city is overhauling all of its emergency preparedness programs, including NET. The changes will be based on a 2009 audit of those citywide programs. Adams says he expects to sit down with NETs in the next several weeks.
“I agree with many of the concerns,” Adams says.
One NET team leader, Ethan Jewett, said he won’t buy any excuses about lack of funding.
“They will tell you they don’t have any money,” says Jewett, “and they will say it’s not the bureau’s place to go to city council and rattle sabers and scare the citizenry about disasters. I get that, but that leaves us in the same situation.”
As a NET I can tell you that the HIGHLY doubt there are 300 physically able people who are part of this program. I have met with many, lets try being honest.. Our program and its “active” participants are elderly and disabled.. There are a handful of active participants I would trust are physically able to perform light search and rescue and those people are spread out across the metro program.. I have talked to CERT leaders from around the country and around the state and the city of Portland should be ashamed of its program just as much as the participants are. Members have been citing problems for YEARS and it has gone to blank stares and deaf ears. This city is facing a major earthquake science proves that.. FEMA and Citizen Corps has made training available that other cities have truly taken advantage of. We have willing people in this city who want to be part of a team and want to be ready to support their community and we just cant make that happen with two training sessions a year.. We should be holding them twice a month.. Actively promoting the program and seeking out new young and able people. We could look towards high schools and colleges, we could take advantage of the core group of people we have, we have members who have completed degrees in emergency management, search and rescue volunteers, technology and communications specialists, certified red cross instructors and a myriad of other people who could help this program a wonderful program.. Yet the city continues to tie our hands with constant “No’s” Bureaucratic dogma and excuses about budget.. Many of our well trained volunteers have thrown their hands up and walked away, walked to other agencies, other programs, started their own preparedness consultation businesses, retail businesses, published books.. or simply retired from the program.. when approached about this article i declined to comment but given the afterthought I really should have spoken up about how broken this program is.. And Ethan is correct “they will say it’s not the bureau’s place to go to city council and rattle sabers and scare the citizenry about disasters. ” But the truth is as Taxpaying citizens it IS our place.. We can spend over a million dollars on police to poke protesters but we cant spend more then $30,000 on our volunteer emergency responder program.. Does that sound right to you?
Joshua
NET Team leader with 26 people in his team.. 4 of which he has ever gotten a return email or phone call from..
Wake up Portland, the real emergency is that we have left the same people in charge at this Bureau for far too long collecting fat paychecks and FEMA grant funds and leaving the residents worse off than they were under the old Civil Defense protection protocols. I was trained through NET and it is a failure the way it is run. If it weren’t for the help and skill provided by the Emergency Managers at Multnomah County I would have sold my house and left town long ago, but while they provide the hope and some dedicated inspired forward thinking residents provide the man power we can only pray someone takes over from the Fire Dept. to make NET whole for everyone’s sake, before it is too late.
As a current NET member, I’ve been aware of the conflict that has existed between PBEM and factions of the NET population. All of the bluster that I’ve heard regarding the City’s lack of follow through disregards NET’s operations structure, and who is ultimately responsible for engaging volunteers. Following training, Team Leaders are given a list of new volunteers, and it is their responsibility to follow up and integrate them into the teams structure. PBEM is essentially hands off at this point in terms of retention, as that responsibility falls to the individual teams. If people aren’t motivated to follow through, or don’t feel valued, or aren’t contacted at all (as was my and many others personal situation), can PBEM really be blamed for the lack of retention? You’re a team leader…build your damn team, or step aside. Likewise, given PBEM’s many other obligations, the tracking of current, active volunteers should be the responsibility of individual team leaders, and reported back to PBEM on a regular basis. If the TL’s do so, the inaccuracy of the master list is irrelevant from an operations standpoint. You’re asking whether the city is doing enough…are you upholding your end of the bargin as well?
The NET program (and by extension, PBEM) provides volunteers with the training and structure to assist your family, friends, and neighbors in the event of a major incident. If you’re called upon by the City to help out, great…but the program is not training you to be an auxiliary fire or police force. They teach you the basics to help, and hold down the fort until the big guns are free. To that end, the money portion is really irrelevant, as what really needs to be done on the team level costs virtually nothing – get out in your community, talk to your neighbors, and build a plan that accounts for all possibilities. When the time comes, I can guarantee you’ll be able to pull together a miracle, because you’ll have a whole neighborhood of support (NET members and otherwise). If you want to learn more skills, that’s fantastic…but that’s not what the program is designed for, and not their responsibility.
In truth, I think the real problem does not lie with PBEM, its leadership, or any lack of funds. The problem is that although most people want to help, many people who volunteer in the program are disappointed that they aren’t given the toys or authority to play cowboy whenever they feel like it. So they decide not to be involved, or complain incessantly about how the think things SHOULD be, rather than working with what they ARE.
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
Aristotle
The problem is we are no better off as a community through the efforts of NET and the leadership that touts this program. It is a falsehood to portray it as such and it will cost lives. I hope they can live with that at this Bureau, especially after saying this last Public Alert was successful. It was, but only based on their first attempt. There is much more work to do in PDX to create a culture of preparedness.
As a long time NET member, my central belief about the NET is it current has a nearly impossible job.
There is a tiny fraction of the necessary trained NET members, NET leaders are tasked with community organizing with zero training on community organizing, no supported coordination with other neighborhood organizations/agencies and in a city with basically zero culture of preparedness.
WOW more of our cities flawed bureaus and programs…where does it end? Over the years I have called upon numerous city programs everything from crime prevention, drug house reporting, traffic management, parking enforcement (violations of handicap parking), neighborhood inspections(disabled/abandoned vehicles) nuisance and code violations,(debris/illegal dumping) as well as liquor liscensing specialist….with litttle or no help, phone numbers no longer working, people or agencies passing the buck, no answers for my conceerns and now this.. PBEM (disaster prepardness?) Good grief, agencies full of people pulling in fat paychecks/bennies all the while squandering resources/monies…where do I sign up for an “no skill required/no accountability”….cushy paycheck? How can community members support or participate in anything if there is no leadership? I am a physical challenged senior who attends neighborhood associatin meetings/community conversations and still have no idea what to do or where to go in case of a disaster.
I’m writing to correct a statement the reporter made in quoting me. Mr. Gilles wrote that Resolutions Northwest had been asked by the Bureau to investigate the value of the NET program. This is the exact opposite of what I told him. Resolutions Northwest was not asked to evaluate the program. That is not what we do. We provide mediation and facilitation for dispute resolution. The recommendations we have made to the Bureau regarding the NET program are all in support of resolving conflict and improving the experience for all who are involved. We’d appreciate a correction.
Thanks,
Adela Basayne