Officials from the Oregon Department of Human Services visited the Port of Tillamook Bay to share information about two Conex containers housing emergency supplies that were recently delivered to the airport on May 30.
The containers hold the necessary supplies to set up an evacuation assembly point at the Tillamook Airport that can receive and triage survivors before deciding on the appropriate next step for them.
The two, 20-by-8-foot containers were delivered in late April, making Tillamook the first location in the state to receive such supplies from the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS). The county partnered with the Port of Tillamook Bay and Nearspace Corporation to accommodate the containers at the port, where they are situated adjacent to the Nearspace facility.
Together, the containers hold supplies that are designed to sustain 100 people for two weeks after an emergency event. There are 17 identical, 18-by-16-foot tents that will house a mess hall, medical tent and shelter for survivors, among other facilities, a main, command tent, an 8-stall shower tent and six two-stall field latrines in the containers along with generators, water purification, meals ready to eat and other survival supplies. When all these supplies are deployed, the containers are designed to sustain 20 emergency support personnel and 80 survivors for two weeks.
In a major disaster scenario, the assembled facility would serve as a point for assembly and distribution of people and supplies for the north coast.
Small helicopters would be used to ferry survivors in need of medical attention or evacuation to the facility from points on the north coast. Once there, survivors would be evaluated by medical staff, who would determine whether they could return to their homes or if they need to be evacuated further over the Coast Range.
Larger helicopters would be used for those evacuations and to deliver emergency workers and supplies to the airport, whence they would be distributed along the coast. ODHS officials noted that anybody visiting the coast during an emergent event would be prioritized for evacuation back to their home.
The Conex containers do not contain many medical supplies, according to the ODHS officials who spoke at the meeting. Instead, the agency maintains a central stockpile of supplies that it distributes on an as-needed basis in emergencies.
The containers were placed at the Port of Tillamook Bay because of its location outside of the tsunami inundation zone, meaning that they should survive even a maximum Cascadia zone subduction event. ODHS is in the process of placing another set of containers at the Siletz Bay State Airport in Lincoln County and is working to identify a suitable site on the south coast for more.
Although the containers were designed to respond to a large seismic event leading to a tsunami, their contents can also be deployed partially or in whole in response to other disasters, like power outages, wildfires or potable water shortages.
The initial deployment of the kits will be the responsibility of local officials in Tillamook before ODHS staff are able to arrive to support their efforts. Each of the smaller tents takes two people about ten minutes to erect, while complete setup takes around an hour per.
ODHS officials will return to Tillamook later this summer for a day-long class with more detailed information on the containers’ contents and its assembly for emergency response officials and volunteers. Sometime after that, they plan to return for a two-day training, where they will unload and assemble the evacuation assembly point before breaking it down and returning it to the containers.
The ODHS officials said that the containers contents are scalable and that they plan to deliver a satellite communications system later this year to enhance the communications capabilities of the command center.