By Micha Wolf | Contributing Writer
At about 10:45 a m on Wednesday July 10th, Mayor Ted Wheeler read a proclamation in recognition of the Neighborhood Emergency Team’s 30th anniversary on behalf of the Portland City Council.
“I hereby proclaim July 10th, 2024 to be Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team Day in recognition of their 30 years of service and I encourage all Portlanders to observe this day.”
To celebrate the anniversary, City Commissioner Rene Gonzales invited representatives of the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) to the City Council meeting at City Hall.
History of NETs
The main presentation was made by PBEM Community Resilience Manager Jeremy VanKeuren. He said that PBEM is preparing for the Cascadia Subduction earthquake and he discussed how Neighborhood Emergency Team curriculum was developed.
After the Mexico City earthquake in 1985, the Los Angeles Fire Department established the need to train civilians in basic emergency response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) adopted programming for Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in 1993 and promoted it nationwide. Portland’s NET program was initially launched in 1994 by a Portland Fire and Rescue Services Coordinator named Rachel Jackie. FEMA estimates that there are now 2700 such programs nationwide.
The purpose of basic CERT is to prepare lay people to safely and effectively render aid in the aftermath of a major disaster and today, Portland has one of the most venerable CERTs.
Since its inception, Portland NET has graduated 3889 community members from 93 NET classes and presently has 1124 currently active volunteers. 85% of Portlanders now have a nearby NET member. According to FEMA, 90-95% of all people rescued in a disaster are rescued by a neighbor and not by a professional first responder.
In addition, NET volunteer and PBEM employee Amanda Westervelt spoke about the longest NET volunteer effort to date, The Portland Mask Project. Over the course of 18 months, 68 volunteers worked to distribute over 20,000 masks to the community.
Rounding out the presentation were also Marisol Lozano Peralta (Community Engagement Specialist, building a bridge to the Spanish speaking members of the community) and Jeff Bissonnette (Board President of Friends of Portland NET.)
The Value of NETs
NETs average about 30 deployments per year and since 2018, NETs have logged an average of 31,000 volunteer hours. Independent Sector, a national membership organization aimed at supporting non-profits, estimates that the average volunteer hour in Oregon is worth $32.37, which means that NETs provide the city of Portland about $1.1 million worth of services every year.
About 35 active NETs applauded the presentations and got to have their picture taken with the mayor.
Micha Wolf ha s retired from teaching primary school, loves being in nature and believes in building community through engagement.