Businesses in Cascadia - CREW

What about the structural aspects of your building? It’s single-story, cinder-block construction.The Hawthorne building is new, so it is in pretty good shape. Some of the older buildingsprobably are not.UniversitiesOREGON STATE UNIVERSITY (OSU)OSU’s main products are (1) students who graduate (or at least have a positive experience andbecome positive contributors to society) and (2) research.One of the goals of OSU Emergency Management is to shift from response mode into planningmode. Because OSU is compartmentalized, it has no top-down continuity plan. We havehundreds of “businesses” on campus, from individual researchers to larger labs. Some of thecolleges are better prepared than others. The university would benefit from planning at the higherlevel. OSU Emergency Management needs a better handle on where all the campus’ resourcesare.Currently, the buildings typically meet minimal seismic codes: life safety during the earthquake,not usability afterwards. OSU houses about 4,000 students. Residential halls have had seismicassessments (using ASCE-31). These buildings have received more attention than others.Where will students go if buildings lose power and water? OSU Emergency Management hasgood working relationships with the county and the city. The plan is to work with localemergency management to get the students home. Beyond this, the plan does not clearly specifywhat to do during the first 72 hours—that is, nothing is spelled out concerning how we are to getstudents home. Moreover, OSU could have more than 30,000 people stranded on campus, andwith just-in-time inventories, we are not equipped to provide for all these people for 72 hours. (Ifthe earthquake occurs during a game, an even larger number of people could be temporarilytrapped on campus.)[Bryce Ward of Econorthwest noted that the University of Oregon recently hired a contractor tohelp identify university-wide priorities and set up a continuity plan for the restoration of businessfollowing a disaster.]Healthcare FacilitiesFollowing the earthquake, the first step will be to close clinics and pull everybody back. In thismode, our backup measures will allow us to function for about 10 days. During this time, doctorswon’t have access to the data center which houses patients’ records. (This is an IT issue).We house federal caches of medicines for much of the region (including southeast Washington);we can only access these with permission, but these stores of medicine are a potential resource inPortland, Oregon | 15