Bend emergency management outlines hazards, asks accessibility committee for input

Carrie Carl, the city of Bend director of risk and emergency management, told the City of Bend Accessibility and Advisory Committee on March 27 that emergency planning and response start and end locally and that the city needs COBAC's accessibility expertise in preparedness and recovery planning.

"Emergency management and emergencies begin and end locally," Carl said, adding that "it is always the jurisdiction having authority that is closest to the incident that has the responsibility for it." She described the department's mix of responsibilities — occupational health and safety, workers' compensation and emergency planning — and asked committee members to help identify barriers and community assets that should be included in planning and outreach.

Carl reviewed the four phases of emergency management — mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery — and the related mission areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery. She used the Bridge Creek watershed and the city's water filtration facility as a mitigation example: sediment buildup in the watershed could raise turbidity after a wildfire and hamper drinking-water treatment, so the city is seeking funding and pre-incident work to reduce that risk.

She emphasized coordination protocols for resource requests: the city must progress requests through the county before the state or federal government can engage. "If we don't have a resource or we need to request a resource because we've exhausted all of our resources that has to go to the county," Carl said.

Carl described local hazards the city plans for, including hazardous-materials transport along Highway 97 and the rail line, utility failures, transportation incidents, Cascadia-subduction-zone earthquakes, ice-dam flooding on the Deschutes River, landslides, volcanic events and wildland-urban-interface fires. She reminded the committee that risk varies across Bend depending on soil, proximity to river corridors and road access.

On outreach and special-needs registration, Carl said Deschutes County uses Everbridge for Deschutes alerts and that the county permits people to register access and functional needs. "Deschutes County is one of the only counties in Oregon that, when people sign up for alerts, can register an access and functional need," she said, noting the city encourages residents to use the county system and that the city can amplify messaging and target local resources when registrants are known.

Rebecca Roseberry, the emergency management intern, described outreach done with local power utilities and programs that help customers with durable medical equipment sign up for notifications and rebates for backup power. She said local organizations have compiled county-level research that the city is adapting for local use.

Committee members suggested concrete outreach and planning steps. John Halen suggested capturing needs during vehicle disability-placard registration so emergency planners would know of households that may require evacuation assistance. Carl said she would follow up with the state about that possibility and reiterated the city’s immediate priority: encouraging registration in the Deschutes alerts access-and-functional-needs list.

Committee members and staff also discussed where emergency management can provide input on development proposals to avoid creating new evacuation pinch points. Carl said the department historically has not reviewed development plans but that the position is new (created March 2023) and that a council goal to revise code for wildfire resilience may create more opportunities to integrate evacuation-routing and resilience standards into development review.

Carl asked COBAC to review and advise on a short emergency-preparedness pamphlet the city is preparing. She said the city will bring a draft to the committee for review and asked members to identify local organizations and events (for example, the Breaking Barriers event) where emergency management could table and register residents for alerts.

Why this matters: Carl framed the request as a means to reduce disproportionate impacts. "Disasters disproportionately impact and displace a significant number of people, but in particular persons with disabilities," she said. Integrating COBAC's accessibility lens into mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery planning would help the city prioritize life safety and reach residents with functional needs before, during and after incidents.

The city provided examples of collaboration already in progress: conversations with Pacific Power and Central Electric Cooperative on durable-equipment registries and rebate programs, discussions with Cascades East Transit about transportation agreements for evacuations, and coordination with food-provision contractors such as Rogue Food Unites for mass-feeding in recovery.

Carl ended by asking COBAC members to help identify assets, gaps and communication channels. She said the city's emergency management team will return with a draft pamphlet and urged members to participate in outreach and t abling events to connect residents to Deschutes alerts and local preparedness resources.