Oregon Approves Updated Disaster Recovery Plan – KXL

Salem, Ore. – An updated Disaster Recovery Plan has been formally adopted by Oregon’s Department of Emergency Management, replacing a plan approved back in 2018.

“Of course, a lot of things have taken place in our state since 2018,” says State Disaster Recovery Program Manager Quinn Butler, “With the 2020 Labor Day fires, COVID, multiple floods, wind storms, etc.” Butler says the Emergency Management Department incorporated lessons learned from those events into the new plan, which is a guide for coordinating efforts. “This new plan helps to better align efforts with our federal partners, as well as provide that framework to support recovery planning at the local and tribal jurisdictional levels.” Butler adds, “What was lacking in that older plan was: We needed to better define the roles and responsibilities of those state partners, beyond the response, beyond those couple of weeks, because we know that recovery from many disasters take 5-10 years.” 

The newly approved recovery document is part of a broader State Emergency Management Plan. It’ll be put to the test later this year, “We have a state level exercise taking place in October of this year,” says Butler. “It’s called Lahar’d Times. It’s focusing on a volcanic eruption in the Sisters area. The focus is recovery; what does it look like 30 days after this major disaster?”

He says says now is the time – before a disaster – for Oregonians to make sure they have appropriate insurance, gather supplies to be “two weeks ready,” and are signed up for local emergency alerts.