Emergency Management personnel from around the state are meeting starting on May 14 for the largest Cascadia Earthquake drill ever held on the Oregon Coast.
During the two-day exercise, around 80 volunteers and first responders will practice assembling an evacuation point at the Newport Airport. The event will also feature rescue helicopter demonstrations and preparedness activities.
Planning for the new Evacuation Assembly Point dates back to the multi-state Cascadia Rising exercise in 2016. According to Ed Flick, director of the Oregon Office of Resilience and Emergency Management, that disaster simulation revealed how unprepared the Pacific Northwest was for the Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami.
“We learned that we needed to have better plans to evacuate people from the coast that would not survive otherwise,” Flick said.
The first Evacuation Assembly Point on the Oregon coast was set up at the Tillamook Airport late last year. Another will be established on the south coast this summer.