By Ethan Jewett | NET Volunteer
If a major earthquake or a significant regional emergency hit Portland today, what would happen in the first hour? While we often imagine sirens and emergency crews, the reality is that in a largescale disaster, our professional first responders would be stretched thin. In those critical moments, the most important people in your life won’t be paid professionals, they will instead be the neighbors standing on your sidewalk.
This is central to the idea behind Portland’s Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) program and how we should all think about building a resilient community, block by block, neighbor by neighbor. Concordia News serves a sizable portion of the area served by Station 14 at Alberta Park, known as Fire Management Area 14. FMA 14 covers a vibrant and dense section of Northeast Portland, stretching from NE Williams over to NE 59th, and from the Columbia River down to NE Fremont. This includes the historic and busy neighborhoods of Concordia, King, Vernon, Woodlawn, and Humboldt. Your neighborhood’s NET team is part of a localized volunteer network trained to provide immediate assistance when the city’s systems are overwhelmed.
Unlike other parts of the city with steep hills, our challenges are rooted in our density. We have bustling commercial corridors like Alberta Street and Killingsworth, aging infrastructure, and a mix of long-term residents and new neighbors. In a disaster, our “grid” layout is our strength, but only if we know how to use it to check on one another.
Our Role in the Neighborhood
Your neighborhood NET team is composed of your neighbors, local business owners, retirees, teachers, and parents, who have completed the free training with the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM). We aren’t “preppers” or “survivalists”; we are community members trained in basic medical triage, fire suppression, and organizing local resources.
In a crisis, you’ll see us in our orange NET vests and red helmets. Our primary goals are to:
● Coordinate the Community: We help turn willing neighbors into organized teams to clear debris or check door-to-door.
● Establish Communication: When cell towers go down, we use amateur radio, Family Radio Service, and now mesh radios to get vital information to and from community members (that’s you) and the city’s Emergency Operations Center.
● Support the Vulnerable: We focus on ensuring that neighbors with disabilities or limited mobility aren’t left behind.
Resilience is for Everyone
The most important thing to know about the NET program is that we are here for everyone. Whether you’ve lived in Northeast for 40 years or just moved into a new apartment on Alberta Street, you are part of our neighborhood’s safety plan.
Over the coming months, I’ll be sharing simple, low-cost ways to make your household more resilient. We’ll talk about how to store water in a small kitchen, how to navigate the local Basic Earthquake Emergency Communication Node at Alberta Park, and how to build a “neighborly” phone tree.
We are your FMA 14 NET teams. We’re trained, we’re local, and we’re your neighbors.
For more information and to learn how to become a NET, check out portland.gov/pbem/neighborhoodemergency-teams/volunteer.
Ethan Jewett has been a member of Portland NET for 18 years. He is co-Group Scoutmaster of the 55th Cascadia and an ACA-certified River Canoeing instructor and guide.