October 19, 2025 • 29 mins
The Great Shakeout is a reminder to prepare for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, and here are some things to do. The Oregon Humane Society is helping to shape veterinary social work nationwide.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. This week the
Great Shakeout and preparing for the Big One and how
the Oregon Humane Society is helping to shape veterinary social work.
The Great Shakeout was held on Thursday, and it's to
remind us what to do when an earthquake happens. But
there are things you need to do before an earthquake happens.
(00:27):
Alpha Arizzo with Oregon Emergency Management joins us on Local
Voices ALTHEA, what are we supposed to do when the
earthquake happens?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You drop, you cover, and you hold on.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
If we're at the coast, what do we do?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well? The first thing is you're going to feel the
earthquake and it'll be very very strong over on the coast.
Will you'll definitely know that an earthquake is happening, And
if it is a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, there is
most likely not going to be any kind of alert
(01:00):
or warnings sent out for folks who are on the coast.
The earthquake really is your warning, and that's because there
simply isn't time to issue those warnings and alerts before
the first waves start coming in. And so what you
do is you drop, you cover and hold on and
get through the earthquake and then immediately start to walk
(01:23):
as fast as you possibly can out of the evacuation zone.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Why would it be a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
To drive, Well, For one thing, the roads are going
to be very damaged and you probably won't be able
to go much more than a block, and so we
don't want people wasting time. You know, that is time
you're going to need to get to high ground. It's
just really important for folks to understand that the warning
(01:53):
is the earthquake, and you have to get to high
ground as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What's the best way to protect ourselves when the shaking
is occurring.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We want to make sure that folks are not injured
from falling objects and those kinds of things, because those
are the most common injuries in the US from earthquakes.
And so we want you to get underneath something sturdy,
a desk, a table, what have you. In your local area.
You might look around where you are right now and
(02:25):
see what you can dive under quickly, because you may
not yet any kind of warning that the earthquake is happening.
And then you wait for the shaking to stop, and
then you evacuate the building you're in and going to
a safe place that's out in the open.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Now, a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake could be a magnitude nine.
How long does an earthquake like that last.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It depends on where you are in relation to where
the earthquake starts, but it could be up to two
to four minutes for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. Local
crustal faults tend to be much shorter, you know, in
the tens of seconds.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What will be the effects of a Cascadia subduction zone
earthquake You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but what
would be the effects on roads?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, the closer you get to the coast, the more
damage that there will be. And so there's a number
of ways that earthquakes impact our built environment. You know,
the shaking can actually knock things down. A lot of
our bridges over on the coast were built before we
even understood the plate tectonics, and so a lot of
(03:44):
our bridges on the coast, especially those beautiful Gothic arch
bridges on one oh one, are highly vulnerable to earthquakes.
So bridges maybe down there will likely be landslides, especially
if it's in the winter and it's been very wet.
You can have liquifaction. This is where during the shaking,
(04:05):
the ground kind of turns into putting and things can
sink down into that, or it can shake up out
of that, and so it can really affect our underground utilities.
Or you can have what's called lateral spread where earth
just kind of moves downhill slightly. So there's a number
of different ways that the roads are going to be impacted,
(04:27):
and it may be quite a while before we get
some of those roads fixed and up and running for
common navigate traffic.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Now, in the Portland area, we have a lot of
bridges across the Wilamitt River. If you go south, it
crosses the five crosses the Wilammett River. If you go north,
it crosses the Columbia River. After the earthquake happens, Will
we be able to use those bridges? Do they have
to be inspected before they can be used? Well, there'll
be a period of time when we're really stuck.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Where we are a little bit of all of that.
We'll probably be stuck in to what's called islands. After
the earthquake for a while. Some of the bridges are
being retrofit so that they will be usable after the earthquake.
But yes, they will all have to be inspected after
(05:17):
the main shock, but then again inspected if there is
a significant after shocks, and we're expecting you know, hundreds
of after shocks after the main shock because it just
it takes time to release that energy that was built
up over centuries.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now, as far as utilities, power, water, sewer, what should
we expect.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
There, Yeah, we definitely expect to have utilities affected, especially
you know the closer again you get to the coast.
You know, some areas on the coast may be without
standard utilities for you know, maybe up to a year,
if not longer. Christ Church in New Zealand and it
(06:00):
took a couple of years to get some residential areas
up and running with all of their utilities. And this
is where you know, personal preparedness really comes in. You know,
if you have the means having a generator or ways
to make clean water, and you know, thinking about how
you're going to keep your family and your neighbors safe
(06:22):
and healthy after the earthquake, that's where preparedness comes in.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
How do we know that this type of an earthquake,
a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, is a risk for us?
And how often do they happen?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, so there has been a lot of research and
science done on the history of Cascadia. We've only known
for a few decades about the Cascadia being such a risk,
but we have a deep geologic history that you can
go look at. You can find tsunami sediments that are
(06:58):
on inland lakes up in Washington by the Copelis River.
You have ghost forests where at the last Cascadia subduction
zone earthquake in the year seventeen hundred, the ground actually
dropped a few feet and it dropped those trees down
into the salt marsh and then they died. We also
(07:20):
have some in NESCo In and a couple of other
places in Oregon. And so we have this very long
geologic history, and we've had about forty of these in
the last ten thousand years now. Not all of them
is the full rupture. You know, about half of the
more full rupture, and about half of them are smaller
(07:41):
earthquakes that start, for instance, in the South and maybe
go up to the middle part of Oregon or maybe
up to the Washington Oregon border, and those are smaller earthquakes.
But those smaller earthquakes start out about a seven point
four or seven point six.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That's smaller, it's smaller, I get it, but it stills
that's a bad earthquake. Are we overdue for one of these?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, that's a term that gets thrown around a lot,
but it's not really relevant when you're looking at return
periods for earthquakes. So when we look at these smaller earthquakes,
the average recurrence rate, the time between earthquakes is a
recurrence rate, so the average is about two hundred and
forty years. For the full rupture margin, it's about five
(08:30):
to six hundred years. So while we are over that
average recurrence for a shorter, smaller earthquake, we have not
reached the average recurrence for the full rupture event. You know,
we just have to know that these events can happen
at any time. They're just a no notice event. They're
(08:51):
not like hurricanes, which are polite and you know, can
give you three to five days warning. And that's why
we really stress preparedness for folk.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, let's talk about that. As far as food.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
What should we think about, Yeah, so we really encourage
people who have the means to prepare to be at
least two weeks self sufficient, and so food would mean
shelf stable food for at least a couple of weeks,
and often I really recommend that this is food that
(09:25):
you already eat, you know, for instance, for myself, I
have about two to three weeks worth of shelf stable
foods that are often used in my dairy bake cooking,
and so there are things I know how to cook,
I don't need heat, or I can cook outdoors on
a camp stove. So thinking about that is sort of
(09:46):
your central core preparedness. And then maybe think about having
freeze drive foods available for a longer period of time.
And then if you have the space, can think about
doing some gardening so that you can supplement your emergency
supplies for yourself, your family, and your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Now, how much water should we have and how should
we store that?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So the recommendation is, you know, one gallon per person
per day, and there's a number of ways that you
can do this. You know, most people don't have the
room for large water storage, so you might be buying
in one gallon three gallon maybe five gallon increments, and
so thinking about that storage, you know, you can kind
(10:36):
of tuck one gallon water bottles under your sink, under
the bed, you know, you can tuck the water places.
But also make sure that you're rotating that water. We
do a lot of camping in the summer, so we
rotate through our water, and I just simply replace it,
you know, at least once a year, so that that
(10:59):
water is still good. Now. Other folks might have more
room and be able to store, you know, in fifty
five gallon drums that they keep sanitized, or there are
different ways that you can make clean water, you know,
using filters and different ways to make cream water from
found water that you have around in western Washington, would.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
A water heater be an option to get water at
least for a.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
While, not poddible water unless you are you know, draining
and cleaning your water heater quite regularly. There's a possibility
of build up of metals in the water, so you know,
it is not something that you would want to drink,
but you might be able to use it to flush
(11:48):
a toilet for a.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Little while, sure, wash your hands, like really think about
this being like a camping trip, right, Because for some
of us, an apartment building might be too damaged to
be able to go sleep inside, or your house might
be too damage to sleep inside. So if you're ready
to go camping, you really have a lot of the
things that you might need if you have to sleep outside.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, and that really brings up a good point. You know,
preparedness for these kinds of emergencies doesn't have to be
something that is separate from your daily life. And you
mentioned camping supplies. A lot of Oregonians go camping, you know,
they go fishing, and they garden, and so you probably
already have a lot of things that you're going to
(12:33):
need after Cascadia. It's just a matter of getting it organized.
And then, you know, once you get yourself organized, check
on your neighbors, see what they need and help them
get better prepared so when this happens, you can work
to help your neighbors and your family to survive and
be healthy after the earthquake.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
When the earthquake happens, the kids might be at school,
a spouse might be at work. Is how do you
coordinate getting everybody back together?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, that's where having an emergency plan ahead of time
is really important. You know, we grew up practicing fire
drills in your home and learning how to get out
of your house and where you're going to meet. Well,
have a place that you're going to meet after an earthquake,
because like you said, you could be anywhere. And then
(13:26):
also having an out of state contact so that everyone
can contact that out of state person to let them
know where they are, how they're doing, and that out
of state person can kind of be a conduit for
information going forward. Check your generators, make sure you've got fuel,
(13:46):
make sure that you know how to run your generator,
you know, check the water, check your camping supplies. You know,
if you have kids, you can camp in the living
room and practice what you might be doing. So it's
a just a great opportunity to get out in the
garage and see how your supplies are doing and make
some plans for going forward.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What should we expect as far as our cell phones
will they work?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
They might work for a little while, but cell phone
towers will be impacted and you probably won't be able
to make phone calls, but you might be able to
make texts for a while. You know, if you are
wanting to contact people, you can always get involved with
the amateur radio folks, because that's going to be one
(14:33):
of the major ways that we are communicating, you know,
across communities after Cascadia, is through amateur radio, and so
that's a great fun, kind of nerdy thing if folks
want to get into for preparedness too.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Now, if we have prescription medication that we take on
a regular basis, how should we plan for that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, that's a really good question, and the answer is
really kind of depends. You know, if you have the means,
you can purchase an extra month's worth of prescription, but
you know, pharmacy wals are so prohibitively expensive. What what
I recommend is that, you know, try to keep your
(15:18):
medicine stocked up as much as possible for both you know,
prescription and over the counter. But if you have prescriptions,
make sure that information is somewhere. So when I'm done
with one of my pill bottles, if I have a
new prescription, I will pull off that label and put
it into my documentation so that after an event, you know,
(15:42):
I have all of my current prescriptions so that if
there is an emergency pharmacy set up, you can take
those prescriptions to that emergency pharmacy.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Healthy anything else you'd like to add that I didn't
ask about.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, I mean, preparedness doesn't have to be big, or
expensive or scary. And you know, we know that Cascadia
is going to impact us for a very long time,
but there's so much that we can do to get
prepared because the preparedness that you do today is going
to really make the difference between how your family survives
(16:20):
and stays healthy after the event. And you know, it
doesn't take Cascadia to need preparedness. And when we get
winter storms, we get flooding, we get wildfire. So Caskadia
is just another one of the natural hazards that we
deal with because we want to live in this beautiful state.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So if people want to learn more, as there a
place online they can go.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, if they want a register for the Great Oregon Shakeout,
they can go to shakeout dot org, slash Oregon, or
they can google be two weeks Ready, and there is
a lot of downloadable information on how to get your
family and your neighbors better prepared and ready for Cascadia.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, happy to be here. As always.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
That's althea Rizzo with Oregon Emergency Management and tips on
how to prepare for an earthquake. Ready dot Gov has
tips on how to prepare. Veterinary social workers are helping
families with pets. Kelly Bremkon is a veterinary social worker
at the Oregon Humane Society and joins us on Local Voices. Kelly,
what does a veterinary social worker do?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
A great question, and it feels like there's multiple answers
for that, depending on what area of the work we
want to talk about. So, a veterinary social worker is
first and foremost a social worker, and we want to
help folks, and that includes helping folks with their pets.
(17:52):
I think the best way to describe it is to
say that I'm improving the lives of people so that
I can improve the life lives of their pets. That's
the best way to put it. And veterinary social work
is kind of a newer discipline in social work. But
first and foremost, I'm a social worker, and then it's
(18:14):
just working with populations who are working with pets. So
for me, that includes working with people at the Oregon
Humane Society who are working in animal sheltering, working in
veterinary medicine, but also working with local social services and
helping whatever population they're currently work with and helping their pets.
(18:36):
Whatever population they work with probably has pets. So, for example,
if there are social workers in Multnoma County and they
are housing specialists, they probably have clients that have pets.
So can we work together to try to help the
pets of our community? And that usually involves the people
in there?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Hard answer though, that's okay, that's okay, that's good. The
Oregon Humane Society was a co lead on the national
effort to create guidelines for shelter based veterinary social workers.
What was involved in that and what did it accomplish?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
So much work was involved. It was eighteen months I
think of working on. There were I think a couple
dozen social workers within animal shelter settings. We were meeting
monthly and I was so fortunate to be a co
lead and we were working on answering this question, what
(19:34):
do you do in an animal shelter setting as a
veterinary social worker? This is a new discipline. We haven't
been doing this job very long, and what we were
finding is in these settings there are so many different
ways that we're helping people, and what we wanted to
find out was what are some of the standard practices
(19:57):
we're using, what are some of the guidelines that we
should we be doing, what's our scope of practice? So
we were just asking these questions, what do you do
on a regular basis, how is it happening for you,
who do you report to, who funds your work? What
type of animal shelter are you in? So we wanted
to know a little bit of everything, and we got
(20:18):
there by asking those questions, interviewing folks who do the job,
and just finding out everything we could. So we met monthly,
we found out what does everyone's work entail. And at
the end of this research, we were directed by some
wonderful folks in the business, doctor Janet Hoygerlock, doctor Pam Linden.
(20:40):
They oversaw our research and they were helping us figure
out how to answer those questions. In the end, we
came up with these guidelines and practice standards to say,
this is how we're working in the industry, this is
where we work, how we work, and this is how
we should be working. So really, before we were just
kind of all doing our own thing as a social worker,
(21:03):
we have practice standards and guidelines from the National Association
of Social Workers, so we do have a professional standard
and guideline, but for this particular population that we work with,
we just we didn't know how that fit us. So
this is just answering the question what is it you do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
And so what it really because social work and the
guidelines for families for people have been set, but this
takes a look at it through the lens of also
having an animal that needs to be taken care of. Correct.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
As a social worker, my job is to walk alongside
a client to figure out what is it you are
working with, what do you want to accomplish? How can
I walk alongside you, meet you where you are and
where I'm working with you, asking you questions, reflecting things
back to you. And for a lot of social workers,
(21:58):
you might be working with a very distinct population. For
school social workers, you might be working with school age children.
For homeless outreach, you might be working with folks who
are unhoused. For veterans services, you might be working with
folks who are veterans. But all of those populations might
include pets. So for a lot of us, when we're
(22:21):
working with veterinary social work, we might be working with
all types of different people. So just looking at this
through the lens of whatever person I'm working with, who
is working with pets, who has a pet, how am
I assisting you improving your life? Because I know that
pets are family. So many folks think of their pets
(22:42):
as family. And if we can include your pet in
your support system, if we can include your pet in
your goals that you're working towards, how can we improve
your life because I know that will improve the life
of your pet.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And the goal also is I would imagine to help
pets stay with their families so they don't end up
being surrendered to a shelter.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, so important for us, you know, working in the
animal shelter system, we see so many pets end up
in our care through no fault of their own. We
have wonderful pets in our animal shelter and they end
up here through things like housing crisis and for folks
who end up needing medical care for themselves. And a
(23:23):
pet is no longer able to stay in a very
loving home that can no longer care for it. So
the great thing about having a social worker in animal
sheltering is can we figure out a way to keep
a pet and a person together, because when you're going
through something difficult, we know how important it is to
have that unconditional love and support of a pet, and
(23:45):
we really want you to have that. So are there
ways that we can support you keeping a pet, because
we don't want a pet to end up here. It's
a wonderful shelter. Org. In Humane Society is such a
lovely place and we are a great safety net. We're
a great safety net for this community, and if you
do have to rehome a pet, we want to be
(24:07):
here for you. And also if there's anything we can
do to keep you and your pet together for this community,
we want to do that as well.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Does your work also include helping the animal welfare organization staff?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Correct? That's actually my favorite part of this job. Before
I became a social worker, I spent many many years
being animal shelter staff. So before I was a social worker,
I was a foster care coordinator here at the Oregon
Humane Society, and I was animal care staff for Arizona
Humane Society, and I worked all over in animal welfare,
(24:43):
animal sheltering, and I remember how hard the job was
and I didn't always have the support that I needed
to process the really hard emotional things that happen. We
are very forward facing to the public, and the public
core going through some very difficult things. You're not ending
up surrendering a pet to the animal shelter because you're
(25:03):
going through something great. You're here because something hard is happening.
So the staff is seeing very difficult things on a
regular basis, and I try to provide the support to
staff that I wish I would have had in those days.
So my favorite part of being here at the organ
Humane Society is they recognize how difficult the work is
and how heavy the burden that we carry sometimes. And
(25:27):
here I'm so fortunate that our chief medical Officer, doctor
Steve Katchius, had worked with a social worker before and
he had seen the value in this work, and he
really worked hard to get our executive leadership to see
the value in my work. And I am so fortunate
that I offer our staff on paid time, a chance
(25:51):
to sit down with me and another social worker named
Kelly Grace from Second Growth Counseling. We offer some psycho education,
So we talked staff about the things that they see
here at work. What does it look like to see
folks go through really hard emotional times and how do
you process that and how do you help them? How
do you walk alongside someone, how do you offer them support?
(26:15):
And then how do you care for yourselves after such
a difficult day. Because we want folks to be able
to do this work and show up as their authentic self,
but also take care of themselves. We don't want you
to do this work but burn yourself out. We want
you to have compassion, satisfaction in this role, find those
things that bring you joy and keep you going even
(26:37):
in the face of those hard things.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Now, one of the other guidelines involves equity informed service delivery.
Tell us about that equity.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, we really want things to be We want things
trauma informed. We want equity. We really want the services
that we offer to folks to be equitable and fair
for everyone in our community. We want our programs, whether
it be adoptions, whether it be render, whether it be
community programs, we want those offered to our community in
an equitable way. We really want those things to be
(27:08):
offered to folks in the language they need and meeting
them exactly where they are. And we know that in
VetMed and in animal sheltering. We may not look like
the communities that we serve, So we need to be
culturally aware and we need to be confident and competent
in the way that we're offering things so that we
(27:29):
know that when we're reaching out to the communities that
we serve, we are not solving problems that we think
are the problems, but we're actually asking people what do
you need, and that when we hear what they need,
we believe them and we're offering them exactly what they need,
not what we think they need.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Now, one of the other guidelines is for advocacy for
community and policy changes. Does that mean working maybe with
local governments.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That kind of thing. Being able to be an advocate
for policy change is so important. Fortunate here at the
organ Humane Society that we are able to show our
support for things like survivors of domestic violence or bills
that are impacting our unhoused community to be able to
co shelter with their pets. Last year we were able
(28:17):
to show our support with other local nonprofits for our
unhoused community and animal sheltering groups. We were really in
support of money going to domestic violence survivors and the
unhoused community to be able to keep their pets with them,
to co shelter with their pets so that they didn't
(28:39):
have to face that really hard choice to surrender a pet.
If they had to choose between housing without their pet
or surrendering their pet to a shelter, we don't want
anybody to have to make that really tough choice. So
being able to stand up and advocate for people to
co shelter with their pet and funding for things like that,
those are the types of advocacy that we really appreciate
(29:00):
being able to do here at the Orgon Humane Society.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
That's Kelly Bremkon, a veterinary social worker at the Oregon
Humane Society who helped develop guidelines nationwide for veterinary social
workers across the country. Thanks for listening to Local Voices.
I'm brad Ford. You can hear past episodes on the
iHeartRadio app under the podcast tab. Local Voices is a
public affairs presentation from iHeartRadio.
Welcome to Local Voices. I'm brad Ford. This week the
Great Shakeout and preparing for the Big One and how
the Oregon Humane Society is helping to shape veterinary social work.
The Great Shakeout was held on Thursday, and it's to
remind us what to do when an earthquake happens. But
there are things you need to do before an earthquake happens.
(00:27):
Alpha Arizzo with Oregon Emergency Management joins us on Local
Voices ALTHEA, what are we supposed to do when the
earthquake happens?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You drop, you cover, and you hold on.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
If we're at the coast, what do we do?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well? The first thing is you're going to feel the
earthquake and it'll be very very strong over on the coast.
Will you'll definitely know that an earthquake is happening, And
if it is a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, there is
most likely not going to be any kind of alert
(01:00):
or warnings sent out for folks who are on the coast.
The earthquake really is your warning, and that's because there
simply isn't time to issue those warnings and alerts before
the first waves start coming in. And so what you
do is you drop, you cover and hold on and
get through the earthquake and then immediately start to walk
(01:23):
as fast as you possibly can out of the evacuation zone.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Why would it be a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
To drive, Well, For one thing, the roads are going
to be very damaged and you probably won't be able
to go much more than a block, and so we
don't want people wasting time. You know, that is time
you're going to need to get to high ground. It's
just really important for folks to understand that the warning
(01:53):
is the earthquake, and you have to get to high
ground as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What's the best way to protect ourselves when the shaking
is occurring.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We want to make sure that folks are not injured
from falling objects and those kinds of things, because those
are the most common injuries in the US from earthquakes.
And so we want you to get underneath something sturdy,
a desk, a table, what have you. In your local area.
You might look around where you are right now and
(02:25):
see what you can dive under quickly, because you may
not yet any kind of warning that the earthquake is happening.
And then you wait for the shaking to stop, and
then you evacuate the building you're in and going to
a safe place that's out in the open.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Now, a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake could be a magnitude nine.
How long does an earthquake like that last.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It depends on where you are in relation to where
the earthquake starts, but it could be up to two
to four minutes for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. Local
crustal faults tend to be much shorter, you know, in
the tens of seconds.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What will be the effects of a Cascadia subduction zone
earthquake You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but what
would be the effects on roads?
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, the closer you get to the coast, the more
damage that there will be. And so there's a number
of ways that earthquakes impact our built environment. You know,
the shaking can actually knock things down. A lot of
our bridges over on the coast were built before we
even understood the plate tectonics, and so a lot of
(03:44):
our bridges on the coast, especially those beautiful Gothic arch
bridges on one oh one, are highly vulnerable to earthquakes.
So bridges maybe down there will likely be landslides, especially
if it's in the winter and it's been very wet.
You can have liquifaction. This is where during the shaking,
(04:05):
the ground kind of turns into putting and things can
sink down into that, or it can shake up out
of that, and so it can really affect our underground utilities.
Or you can have what's called lateral spread where earth
just kind of moves downhill slightly. So there's a number
of different ways that the roads are going to be impacted,
(04:27):
and it may be quite a while before we get
some of those roads fixed and up and running for
common navigate traffic.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Now, in the Portland area, we have a lot of
bridges across the Wilamitt River. If you go south, it
crosses the five crosses the Wilammett River. If you go north,
it crosses the Columbia River. After the earthquake happens, Will
we be able to use those bridges? Do they have
to be inspected before they can be used? Well, there'll
be a period of time when we're really stuck.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Where we are a little bit of all of that.
We'll probably be stuck in to what's called islands. After
the earthquake for a while. Some of the bridges are
being retrofit so that they will be usable after the earthquake.
But yes, they will all have to be inspected after
(05:17):
the main shock, but then again inspected if there is
a significant after shocks, and we're expecting you know, hundreds
of after shocks after the main shock because it just
it takes time to release that energy that was built
up over centuries.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now, as far as utilities, power, water, sewer, what should
we expect.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
There, Yeah, we definitely expect to have utilities affected, especially
you know the closer again you get to the coast.
You know, some areas on the coast may be without
standard utilities for you know, maybe up to a year,
if not longer. Christ Church in New Zealand and it
(06:00):
took a couple of years to get some residential areas
up and running with all of their utilities. And this
is where you know, personal preparedness really comes in. You know,
if you have the means having a generator or ways
to make clean water, and you know, thinking about how
you're going to keep your family and your neighbors safe
(06:22):
and healthy after the earthquake, that's where preparedness comes in.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
How do we know that this type of an earthquake,
a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, is a risk for us?
And how often do they happen?
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, so there has been a lot of research and
science done on the history of Cascadia. We've only known
for a few decades about the Cascadia being such a risk,
but we have a deep geologic history that you can
go look at. You can find tsunami sediments that are
(06:58):
on inland lakes up in Washington by the Copelis River.
You have ghost forests where at the last Cascadia subduction
zone earthquake in the year seventeen hundred, the ground actually
dropped a few feet and it dropped those trees down
into the salt marsh and then they died. We also
(07:20):
have some in NESCo In and a couple of other
places in Oregon. And so we have this very long
geologic history, and we've had about forty of these in
the last ten thousand years now. Not all of them
is the full rupture. You know, about half of the
more full rupture, and about half of them are smaller
(07:41):
earthquakes that start, for instance, in the South and maybe
go up to the middle part of Oregon or maybe
up to the Washington Oregon border, and those are smaller earthquakes.
But those smaller earthquakes start out about a seven point
four or seven point six.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That's smaller, it's smaller, I get it, but it stills
that's a bad earthquake. Are we overdue for one of these?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, that's a term that gets thrown around a lot,
but it's not really relevant when you're looking at return
periods for earthquakes. So when we look at these smaller earthquakes,
the average recurrence rate, the time between earthquakes is a
recurrence rate, so the average is about two hundred and
forty years. For the full rupture margin, it's about five
(08:30):
to six hundred years. So while we are over that
average recurrence for a shorter, smaller earthquake, we have not
reached the average recurrence for the full rupture event. You know,
we just have to know that these events can happen
at any time. They're just a no notice event. They're
(08:51):
not like hurricanes, which are polite and you know, can
give you three to five days warning. And that's why
we really stress preparedness for folk.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Well, let's talk about that. As far as food.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
What should we think about, Yeah, so we really encourage
people who have the means to prepare to be at
least two weeks self sufficient, and so food would mean
shelf stable food for at least a couple of weeks,
and often I really recommend that this is food that
(09:25):
you already eat, you know, for instance, for myself, I
have about two to three weeks worth of shelf stable
foods that are often used in my dairy bake cooking,
and so there are things I know how to cook,
I don't need heat, or I can cook outdoors on
a camp stove. So thinking about that is sort of
(09:46):
your central core preparedness. And then maybe think about having
freeze drive foods available for a longer period of time.
And then if you have the space, can think about
doing some gardening so that you can supplement your emergency
supplies for yourself, your family, and your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Now, how much water should we have and how should
we store that?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So the recommendation is, you know, one gallon per person
per day, and there's a number of ways that you
can do this. You know, most people don't have the
room for large water storage, so you might be buying
in one gallon three gallon maybe five gallon increments, and
so thinking about that storage, you know, you can kind
(10:36):
of tuck one gallon water bottles under your sink, under
the bed, you know, you can tuck the water places.
But also make sure that you're rotating that water. We
do a lot of camping in the summer, so we
rotate through our water, and I just simply replace it,
you know, at least once a year, so that that
(10:59):
water is still good. Now. Other folks might have more
room and be able to store, you know, in fifty
five gallon drums that they keep sanitized, or there are
different ways that you can make clean water, you know,
using filters and different ways to make cream water from
found water that you have around in western Washington, would.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
A water heater be an option to get water at
least for a.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
While, not poddible water unless you are you know, draining
and cleaning your water heater quite regularly. There's a possibility
of build up of metals in the water, so you know,
it is not something that you would want to drink,
but you might be able to use it to flush
(11:48):
a toilet for a.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Little while, sure, wash your hands, like really think about
this being like a camping trip, right, Because for some
of us, an apartment building might be too damaged to
be able to go sleep inside, or your house might
be too damage to sleep inside. So if you're ready
to go camping, you really have a lot of the
things that you might need if you have to sleep outside.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, and that really brings up a good point. You know,
preparedness for these kinds of emergencies doesn't have to be
something that is separate from your daily life. And you
mentioned camping supplies. A lot of Oregonians go camping, you know,
they go fishing, and they garden, and so you probably
already have a lot of things that you're going to
(12:33):
need after Cascadia. It's just a matter of getting it organized.
And then, you know, once you get yourself organized, check
on your neighbors, see what they need and help them
get better prepared so when this happens, you can work
to help your neighbors and your family to survive and
be healthy after the earthquake.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
When the earthquake happens, the kids might be at school,
a spouse might be at work. Is how do you
coordinate getting everybody back together?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, that's where having an emergency plan ahead of time
is really important. You know, we grew up practicing fire
drills in your home and learning how to get out
of your house and where you're going to meet. Well,
have a place that you're going to meet after an earthquake,
because like you said, you could be anywhere. And then
(13:26):
also having an out of state contact so that everyone
can contact that out of state person to let them
know where they are, how they're doing, and that out
of state person can kind of be a conduit for
information going forward. Check your generators, make sure you've got fuel,
(13:46):
make sure that you know how to run your generator,
you know, check the water, check your camping supplies. You know,
if you have kids, you can camp in the living
room and practice what you might be doing. So it's
a just a great opportunity to get out in the
garage and see how your supplies are doing and make
some plans for going forward.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What should we expect as far as our cell phones
will they work?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
They might work for a little while, but cell phone
towers will be impacted and you probably won't be able
to make phone calls, but you might be able to
make texts for a while. You know, if you are
wanting to contact people, you can always get involved with
the amateur radio folks, because that's going to be one
(14:33):
of the major ways that we are communicating, you know,
across communities after Cascadia, is through amateur radio, and so
that's a great fun, kind of nerdy thing if folks
want to get into for preparedness too.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Now, if we have prescription medication that we take on
a regular basis, how should we plan for that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, that's a really good question, and the answer is
really kind of depends. You know, if you have the means,
you can purchase an extra month's worth of prescription, but
you know, pharmacy wals are so prohibitively expensive. What what
I recommend is that, you know, try to keep your
(15:18):
medicine stocked up as much as possible for both you know,
prescription and over the counter. But if you have prescriptions,
make sure that information is somewhere. So when I'm done
with one of my pill bottles, if I have a
new prescription, I will pull off that label and put
it into my documentation so that after an event, you know,
(15:42):
I have all of my current prescriptions so that if
there is an emergency pharmacy set up, you can take
those prescriptions to that emergency pharmacy.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Healthy anything else you'd like to add that I didn't
ask about.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, I mean, preparedness doesn't have to be big, or
expensive or scary. And you know, we know that Cascadia
is going to impact us for a very long time,
but there's so much that we can do to get
prepared because the preparedness that you do today is going
to really make the difference between how your family survives
(16:20):
and stays healthy after the event. And you know, it
doesn't take Cascadia to need preparedness. And when we get
winter storms, we get flooding, we get wildfire. So Caskadia
is just another one of the natural hazards that we
deal with because we want to live in this beautiful state.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So if people want to learn more, as there a
place online they can go.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, if they want a register for the Great Oregon Shakeout,
they can go to shakeout dot org, slash Oregon, or
they can google be two weeks Ready, and there is
a lot of downloadable information on how to get your
family and your neighbors better prepared and ready for Cascadia.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, happy to be here. As always.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
That's althea Rizzo with Oregon Emergency Management and tips on
how to prepare for an earthquake. Ready dot Gov has
tips on how to prepare. Veterinary social workers are helping
families with pets. Kelly Bremkon is a veterinary social worker
at the Oregon Humane Society and joins us on Local Voices. Kelly,
what does a veterinary social worker do?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
A great question, and it feels like there's multiple answers
for that, depending on what area of the work we
want to talk about. So, a veterinary social worker is
first and foremost a social worker, and we want to
help folks, and that includes helping folks with their pets.
(17:52):
I think the best way to describe it is to
say that I'm improving the lives of people so that
I can improve the life lives of their pets. That's
the best way to put it. And veterinary social work
is kind of a newer discipline in social work. But
first and foremost, I'm a social worker, and then it's
(18:14):
just working with populations who are working with pets. So
for me, that includes working with people at the Oregon
Humane Society who are working in animal sheltering, working in
veterinary medicine, but also working with local social services and
helping whatever population they're currently work with and helping their pets.
(18:36):
Whatever population they work with probably has pets. So, for example,
if there are social workers in Multnoma County and they
are housing specialists, they probably have clients that have pets.
So can we work together to try to help the
pets of our community? And that usually involves the people
in there?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Hard answer though, that's okay, that's okay, that's good. The
Oregon Humane Society was a co lead on the national
effort to create guidelines for shelter based veterinary social workers.
What was involved in that and what did it accomplish?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
So much work was involved. It was eighteen months I
think of working on. There were I think a couple
dozen social workers within animal shelter settings. We were meeting
monthly and I was so fortunate to be a co
lead and we were working on answering this question, what
(19:34):
do you do in an animal shelter setting as a
veterinary social worker? This is a new discipline. We haven't
been doing this job very long, and what we were
finding is in these settings there are so many different
ways that we're helping people, and what we wanted to
find out was what are some of the standard practices
(19:57):
we're using, what are some of the guidelines that we
should we be doing, what's our scope of practice? So
we were just asking these questions, what do you do
on a regular basis, how is it happening for you,
who do you report to, who funds your work? What
type of animal shelter are you in? So we wanted
to know a little bit of everything, and we got
(20:18):
there by asking those questions, interviewing folks who do the job,
and just finding out everything we could. So we met monthly,
we found out what does everyone's work entail. And at
the end of this research, we were directed by some
wonderful folks in the business, doctor Janet Hoygerlock, doctor Pam Linden.
(20:40):
They oversaw our research and they were helping us figure
out how to answer those questions. In the end, we
came up with these guidelines and practice standards to say,
this is how we're working in the industry, this is
where we work, how we work, and this is how
we should be working. So really, before we were just
kind of all doing our own thing as a social worker,
(21:03):
we have practice standards and guidelines from the National Association
of Social Workers, so we do have a professional standard
and guideline, but for this particular population that we work with,
we just we didn't know how that fit us. So
this is just answering the question what is it you do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
And so what it really because social work and the
guidelines for families for people have been set, but this
takes a look at it through the lens of also
having an animal that needs to be taken care of. Correct.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
As a social worker, my job is to walk alongside
a client to figure out what is it you are
working with, what do you want to accomplish? How can
I walk alongside you, meet you where you are and
where I'm working with you, asking you questions, reflecting things
back to you. And for a lot of social workers,
(21:58):
you might be working with a very distinct population. For
school social workers, you might be working with school age children.
For homeless outreach, you might be working with folks who
are unhoused. For veterans services, you might be working with
folks who are veterans. But all of those populations might
include pets. So for a lot of us, when we're
(22:21):
working with veterinary social work, we might be working with
all types of different people. So just looking at this
through the lens of whatever person I'm working with, who
is working with pets, who has a pet, how am
I assisting you improving your life? Because I know that
pets are family. So many folks think of their pets
(22:42):
as family. And if we can include your pet in
your support system, if we can include your pet in
your goals that you're working towards, how can we improve
your life because I know that will improve the life
of your pet.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And the goal also is I would imagine to help
pets stay with their families so they don't end up
being surrendered to a shelter.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, so important for us, you know, working in the
animal shelter system, we see so many pets end up
in our care through no fault of their own. We
have wonderful pets in our animal shelter and they end
up here through things like housing crisis and for folks
who end up needing medical care for themselves. And a
(23:23):
pet is no longer able to stay in a very
loving home that can no longer care for it. So
the great thing about having a social worker in animal
sheltering is can we figure out a way to keep
a pet and a person together, because when you're going
through something difficult, we know how important it is to
have that unconditional love and support of a pet, and
(23:45):
we really want you to have that. So are there
ways that we can support you keeping a pet, because
we don't want a pet to end up here. It's
a wonderful shelter. Org. In Humane Society is such a
lovely place and we are a great safety net. We're
a great safety net for this community, and if you
do have to rehome a pet, we want to be
(24:07):
here for you. And also if there's anything we can
do to keep you and your pet together for this community,
we want to do that as well.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Does your work also include helping the animal welfare organization staff?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Correct? That's actually my favorite part of this job. Before
I became a social worker, I spent many many years
being animal shelter staff. So before I was a social worker,
I was a foster care coordinator here at the Oregon
Humane Society, and I was animal care staff for Arizona
Humane Society, and I worked all over in animal welfare,
(24:43):
animal sheltering, and I remember how hard the job was
and I didn't always have the support that I needed
to process the really hard emotional things that happen. We
are very forward facing to the public, and the public
core going through some very difficult things. You're not ending
up surrendering a pet to the animal shelter because you're
(25:03):
going through something great. You're here because something hard is happening.
So the staff is seeing very difficult things on a
regular basis, and I try to provide the support to
staff that I wish I would have had in those days.
So my favorite part of being here at the organ
Humane Society is they recognize how difficult the work is
and how heavy the burden that we carry sometimes. And
(25:27):
here I'm so fortunate that our chief medical Officer, doctor
Steve Katchius, had worked with a social worker before and
he had seen the value in this work, and he
really worked hard to get our executive leadership to see
the value in my work. And I am so fortunate
that I offer our staff on paid time, a chance
(25:51):
to sit down with me and another social worker named
Kelly Grace from Second Growth Counseling. We offer some psycho education,
So we talked staff about the things that they see
here at work. What does it look like to see
folks go through really hard emotional times and how do
you process that and how do you help them? How
do you walk alongside someone, how do you offer them support?
(26:15):
And then how do you care for yourselves after such
a difficult day. Because we want folks to be able
to do this work and show up as their authentic self,
but also take care of themselves. We don't want you
to do this work but burn yourself out. We want
you to have compassion, satisfaction in this role, find those
things that bring you joy and keep you going even
(26:37):
in the face of those hard things.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Now, one of the other guidelines involves equity informed service delivery.
Tell us about that equity.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, we really want things to be We want things
trauma informed. We want equity. We really want the services
that we offer to folks to be equitable and fair
for everyone in our community. We want our programs, whether
it be adoptions, whether it be render, whether it be
community programs, we want those offered to our community in
an equitable way. We really want those things to be
(27:08):
offered to folks in the language they need and meeting
them exactly where they are. And we know that in
VetMed and in animal sheltering. We may not look like
the communities that we serve, So we need to be
culturally aware and we need to be confident and competent
in the way that we're offering things so that we
(27:29):
know that when we're reaching out to the communities that
we serve, we are not solving problems that we think
are the problems, but we're actually asking people what do
you need, and that when we hear what they need,
we believe them and we're offering them exactly what they need,
not what we think they need.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Now, one of the other guidelines is for advocacy for
community and policy changes. Does that mean working maybe with
local governments.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
That kind of thing. Being able to be an advocate
for policy change is so important. Fortunate here at the
organ Humane Society that we are able to show our
support for things like survivors of domestic violence or bills
that are impacting our unhoused community to be able to
co shelter with their pets. Last year we were able
(28:17):
to show our support with other local nonprofits for our
unhoused community and animal sheltering groups. We were really in
support of money going to domestic violence survivors and the
unhoused community to be able to keep their pets with them,
to co shelter with their pets so that they didn't
(28:39):
have to face that really hard choice to surrender a pet.
If they had to choose between housing without their pet
or surrendering their pet to a shelter, we don't want
anybody to have to make that really tough choice. So
being able to stand up and advocate for people to
co shelter with their pet and funding for things like that,
those are the types of advocacy that we really appreciate
(29:00):
being able to do here at the Orgon Humane Society.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
That's Kelly Bremkon, a veterinary social worker at the Oregon
Humane Society who helped develop guidelines nationwide for veterinary social
workers across the country. Thanks for listening to Local Voices.
I'm brad Ford. You can hear past episodes on the
iHeartRadio app under the podcast tab. Local Voices is a
public affairs presentation from iHeartRadio.
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