Summer 2022

After about two years of hunkering down during Covid we would like to bring you up to date on the state of Hillsdale NET. Through the dark times a dedicated group of Hillsdale NETs met virtually on a monthly basis. Our primary goal was to continue the “business” of our team since we could not meet in person. However we did participate in all city-wide drills as well as doing an internal table top exercise of our own.  And we staffed a booth at Hillsdale Farmers Market several times. We also completed or launched the following activities:

·         Did outreach and recruitment for NET volunteers, as well as, for Affiliated Trained Volunteers (ATVs)

·         Did a thorough review of our cache, looking for expired items. We made some additions to our cache and finalized an accurate inventory.

·         Published a series of articles in the Hillsdale News on Emergency Preparedness.

·          Reviewed, revised and published our Hillsdale NET Operations Plan.

·         Supported the formation of several neighbor groups focused on mutual support for disaster preparedness ("pods")

Assisted in development a mapping tool to track where neighbors are and are not well-connected in pods and larger groups of affiliated neighbors ("clusters") and started populating it

 Mailed a postcard about the neighborhood staging area location and a link to preparedness info to all households in Hillsdale 

 Strengthened ties with Hillsdale Neighborhood Association, which now has a NET in a new position of Emergency Preparedness Chair

 

While precautions are still wise, Covid is not the dominant factor in our lives, socializing and work. Summer has arrived. We are coming out of hibernation, seeing out neighbors and doing those activities we most enjoy.

For the time being our monthly meetings will remain virtual but with at least one meeting in person (with hybrid options for those unable to attend face-to-face) each quarter. While there will be an educational component to every meeting, the quarterly in-person meetings will be most heavily education based.

Right around the first of each month we will send out the agenda with date/time, items, and location (including Zoom link).

 

May 7 City-Wide Disaster Drill

On May 7^th, 5 Hillsdale NET volunteers participated in a City-Wide Disaster Exercise. We joined 17 other Southwest region volunteers to make up the Southwest Neighborhood Emergency Team deployed for the drill. City-wide there were about 131 volunteers participating. If you are a disaster readiness geek or are simply interested in what NET volunteers are called to do in a disaster have a look at the information we all got at the beginning of the drill as well as inserts (read surprises) we got over the course of the drill.

City-Wide Drill

And a HUGE shout out to the volunteers from Portland Prepares who planned and  executed this city-wide drill. As always, it was a great experience for all who participated. We learned a lot about our knowledge and skills, as well as, “opportunities for improvement”.

 

 

Did you know that the greatest number of people who are rescued in a disaster are rescued by their neighbors ? Emergency Medical Services (fire, paramedics, police) will not be able to meet the demands of all victims. Our small but dedicated Neighborhood Teams (NETs) contribute greatly to the rescue and recovery effort. Would you like to help rescue and support your neighbors when disaster strikes ? 

Read the article, reprinted with permission Plan Now to Bring your Skills and Resources to a Future Emergency

 

 

Search and Rescue – Equipment and Supplies

Hillsdale NET maintains a cache of disaster supplies and equipment for use on deployment and, periodically, for exercises. We do annual inventories to verify the equipment and supplies are present, intact and not outdated. Some of our equipment and supplies are for operations like forms (yup, gotta have em), tents for our staging area, food and water for our volunteers and victims in our care, radio equipment and search and rescue tools.  The largest portion of our cache, though, is first aid/medical supplies. We are directed to run a medical treatment area for as long as two weeks after a major disaster. But we must also guestimate how many casualties we will see and treat. The best advice from seasoned disaster professionals for medical supply cache is “get more than you think you will need.” Much of our modeling is assisted by John Kaib, a retired emergency physician.

Based on our best guesses we believe we have, maybe, 2 or 3 days worth of disposable supplies. Our goal is to increase that to 2 weeks. We have no budget for these supplies. Much of our current cache was paid for by out-of-pocket donations from our NET volunteers.

Would you like to help us build our cache ?  You can do so without spending a dime.

 

 

 

Mark your calendars – setting up Hillsdale NET Staging Area

On August 21, 2022 (1-4 pm) the Hillsdale Neighborhood Emergency Team will practice setting up our disaster staging area in DeWitt Park. We will set up our two operations tents plus our new privacy (read “pee/poo”) tent. We will review the contents of our disaster cache and examine our new role based “job in a box clipboards”. We will also break down and store our cache.

All active Hillsdale NETs and ATVs are invited to participate. This drill is not open to the public. Please do not bring friends, family or pets (except approved service animals).

We hope to see you there.

 

 

Questions, comments, thoughts ? contact Editor