Sandy area plans ahead for disaster

Central gathering places and small radios will be key in maintaining communications

By Jim Hart

The Sandy Post, Feb 2, 2010

City Councilor Don Allen uses the same type of two-way radios within his family that the city has made available for use in emergencies.

Jim Hart / Sandy Post

ADVERTISEMENTS

Emergency managers in Clackamas County cities are planning a system of disaster response that involves a lot of people.

Communication between those neighborhood and civic leaders is essential to the success of any effort to keep people safe during trying times.

Assuming power outages will be common and travel will be restricted in any emergency situation, it is important to have communication devices that work without external sources of power, according to Kathleen Reiter of Corbett’s emergency operations center.

Among the methods of planning for an emergency in east Clackamas County is the establishment of what is called a “trap line,” an informal method of distributing information to various parts of the city.

“If we had an incident, and we wanted to be sure the public had accurate and updated information,” said Alice Lasher, fire prevention officer for Sandy and Boring, “we would put up a billboard at (a community gathering place).

“There would be other places on the trap line – places where people tend to congregate, such as coffee shops, taverns and cafes – where we would leave small hand-held Family Radio Service (FRS) radios to stay in contact and send updated information.”

To supplement all forms of communication that might be out of service in a disaster – such as cell phones and TV or radio stations – east county cities are planning to use ham radios as well as the FRS radios, which have a range of up to 1 mile in unobstructed areas. But in a city, FRS radios might transmit only a few blocks because of obstructions.

Reiter presented a workshop for the benefit of all Sandy city councilors and some city staff several weeks ago. The workshop’s purpose was training in the use of FRS radios for those likely to be involved in emergency response.

Reiter told the councilors when communications go down, there are only two forms of communication that will continue to work: ham radios and hand-held battery-powered radios in the FRS frequencies and General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) frequencies.

1 | 2 Next Page >>