The Applegate Valley Resilience Hubs initiative
Written by:
Megan Fehrman
Let’s say a wildfire starts in the vicinity of your property, the power goes out, and you don’t have cell service. What do you do? How do you find out what’s going on? Where do you go? Many of us have had to consider these questions in real time over the last several years.
A lot of times, folks feel like they’re left with three choices: drive into cell service, head to the Fire District looking for information, or evacuate the Valley entirely. Unfortunately, cell service is often spotty at best, and the Fire District is actively fighting the fire. That rules out two of your choices, leaving one option—evacuating the Valley entirely.
But what if there were locations you could temporarily evacuate to nearby? Places you could go to receive up-to-date information on the fire and a safe shelter without leaving the Applegate? A Greater Applegate (AGA) has been working with local organizations in Ruch and Williams to turn this “safe shelter” vision into a reality. We’re terming these local sheltering spaces “Resilience Hubs.”
To be clear, we’re not constructing entirely new structures to serve as these hubs, but rather using existing community spaces and retrofitting them with needed emergency equipment. For example, locations like Ruch Outdoor Community School and the Williams Grange have been identified as effective “hub sites” depending on where and when the disaster strikes. Our Mobile Emergency Response Vehicle (aka MERV), which was donated by the Red Cross, will also be able to support these sites and more.
Over the last 18 months, we’ve been working with local partners and community leaders to secure needed emergency infrastructure for their facilities (i.e., back-up power) and to build capacity among community leaders to operate these hubs, such as training folks on how to operate on HAM radio and supporting the development of the Williams Applegate Amateur Radio Club (WAARC). The hope is that this pre-disaster planning work will enable the Applegate to better support itself during emergencies, with a particular focus on wildfires.
The Resilience Hubs will be included in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan update that is being led by the Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council, as well as the Plan for a Resilient Oregon project. A Greater Applegate, along with several other organizations from southwest Oregon, has organized local activities that reflect the lived experience of Oregonians already impacted by natural disasters and other compound challenges. A goal of the Plan for a Resilience Oregon project is to create a flexible, actionable framework that identifies Oregon’s most urgent resilience needs and the policy, funding, and community tools to meet them. During the “All Things Fire Fair” in March, Applegaters got to participate in a “Resilience Is…” activity that will be incorporated as data, along with input from communities from around the state. Our Williams Resilience Hub cohort got to provide direct feedback to the plan as well. After reading about these efforts, what does resilience mean to you and our community?
We’re still in the development phase of these resilience projects, but we will be conducting more serious outreach beginning this summer. So keep an eye out over the next several months! The plan is to get informational flyers on where the hubs are located in community spaces. We’ll also have more information on the project at A Greater Applegate’s table at the Applegate Evening Market, which kicked off on Wednesday, May 20, at the Lindsay Lodge from 5-8 pm!
If you have any questions, just want to learn more, or are compelled to get involved, shoot Tucker, AGA’s “Resilience Hubs Coordinator,” an email at tucker@agreaterapplegate.org.
Megan Fehrman
Photo 1: Rachel Couch from the Applegate Fire District displays what 'resilience' means to her at the All Things Fire Fair on March 7th in Ruch. Photo: Megan Fehrman.
