HSC looks back at summer heat, smoke events

Presenter: The Human Services Commission asked the Lane County emergency manager about the summer climate events. On Sept. 21, Monica Larcom: 

Monica Larcom (Lane County, emergency manager): I feel like overall we fared pretty well this summer. Towards the beginning of the summer, I established that I was going to have emergency management coordination calls anytime we had ‘red flag’ or particularly dangerous fire weather and fire behavior.

Thankfully, I only had to initiate one of those coordination calls. And then I did have a smaller kind of office hours-type call for some red flag weather that covered part of the county, but not the whole county.

So as far as our weather this summer, I feel like there were definitely some very warm days that were definitely affecting our populations in the cities. And so I’m really grateful to our partners at St. Vinnie’s and other folks who were standing up cooling centers and respite centers.

And air quality was more of a component, I believe, about seven days throughout the summer. 

But overall, I think we fared incredibly well in comparison to a lot of the state and a good chunk of the country, because we had very favorable winds for all but a few days throughout the summer.

So I’m really extremely grateful for that. Very grateful for the folks who were fighting fires all throughout the state and all throughout the country. 

I know that we burned more acreage in Oregon just between the beginning of fire season and through July than we have ever in ODF history.

So it was certainly not an easy summer overall. But for us, I feel very fortunate in how things went for us.

And then perspective on the overlap, just between emergency management’s work and the safety net, particularly during emergency or extreme situations. You know, there’s this push and this pull between the relationships that you build during emergencies and your ability to rely on those relationships.

That has really been key in the past with the fires and the winter storm and other disasters that have been here in Lane County. And so the last two summers, we did have one fire of considerable proximity and size in the Foley Ridge area out by McKenzie last year. But overall, not too many fires the last two years. And so we’ve had a bit of a peace time in comparison to 2024 and going back for the last six years before that. 

And so whether it is go time, you know, we’re in the middle of an emergency, that hopefully we’ve built systems in place, and I’ve built systems in place, to make sure that, whether we’re building those relationships in peace times or in difficult times, that I’m getting enough face time to build those relationships.

So that when it is go time, when we do have emergencies, we still have that muscle memory and we’re able to make those connections and coordination efforts quickly.

And so that’s what I’ve been working towards this summer is trying to build better systems for our alert and notification system, which is a work in progress. We always want to make sure that that’s improved and improved upon the systems we already have.

And then also making sure that we have good connections and good established systems for stuff like damage assessment. So those have been two of the projects that I’ve been working on this summer, in addition to trying to get out into the communities doing local outreach events and in all areas of the county.

I was in Deadwood this past Saturday. I was in Florence the Saturday before. I was in Cottage Grove about a month and a half ago. And then I’m being in McKenzie Bridge this week. So just making sure that I try and cover as much ground as possible so we have those established relationships when things don’t go according to plan.

Presenter: HSC Commissioner Kori Rodley:

Kori Rodley (HSC): I represent Springfield. So at the Bob Keefer Center, we were going to build out some crisis and climate, you know, emergency. And that was yanked back by the federal administration. So I’m curious how we’re working, how we’re moving forward.

Presenter: Lane County Emergency Manager Monica Larcom:

Monica Larcom: It doesn’t feel like this is the best time or the easiest time to step into this role just because there has been just an overwhelming amount of funding across the board that has been either reduced or removed or cut.

The resilience hub program that we were slated to get so much money for—and that was a huge blow. 

We are attempting to soldier on and I don’t have any grand solutions to some of the very real financial problems we’re facing. We’re trying to soldier on. 

We are progressing with a mass care assessment project that will be putting out for bid, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, to do an assessment for potential locations for either mass care and shelter, and could possibly pave the way for other projects that would establish shelters or, be able to rehab or refurbish areas to make them more resilient serving as that. 

We’ve also been attempting to work with the state and state representatives making sure that there’s feedback, knowing, ‘Hey, here are our problems, you know, what kinds of things could potentially be helpful on the state level?’

And so I’m in regular contact with my regional representative from Office of Emergency Management and also Terra Ralph with OREM at ODHS. We’re keeping those lines of communication. If we’re not able to take advantage of that, hopefully get it to other partners who can. 

It’s definitely feeling like a kind of all-hands-on-deck type of situation. And, you know, there’s myself and two other staff, in the emergency management department for a county that is just smaller than Connecticut. 

So I definitely don’t feel like we have enough resources, but I’m trying to prioritize and make that we focus on the stuff we’re going to get the most mileage out of.

And so I’m always interested in hearing feedback and hearing about, our priorities or our current framework and, you know, incorporating new information in that.

Presenter: The HSC also heard from the director of operations at St. Vinnie’s, Bill Barnard: 

Bill Barnard (St. Vinnie’s, Operations director): Yeah. So we had one activation of five days this summer, which is a little different because generally speaking, we have several more than that and they’re usually shorter. 

But the way it lined up, there was a day in the middle that dropped under the 100 degree mark. And at that point, we had three consecutive days after. It didn’t make any sense to close down. So we just pushed through for that whole five days. 

We had just under 60, it’s right in there, 60ish guests during that time, most of which I would say—well, over half with animals. and they showed up very early and they stayed till the last possible moment, as, you know, the summer shelter system is not an overnight shelter. It’s just day respite to provide relief during that worst part of the day. 

But it was well received. There was some early contention about that, that it wasn’t going to be provided this year, but that changed at the very, very last moment. I’m super thankful it did. And, it makes a huge difference for accessibility. 

And I’m very, very hopeful that that’s not going to be a problem this winter. I’m already pre-Egan mode and trying to do the prep we can for the winter. So, I’m super hopeful that LTD will still be available this winter for that.

All in all, it was pretty smooth. We had a lot of days that were flirting with that temperature line, but that didn’t cross the threshold for activation.

Presenter: Lane County Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

Laurie Trieger (HSC): My question is really about different outreach strategies for hot weather events versus cold weather events, because it’s a very different group of people that are at risk. 

And by that, I mean in the hot weather, I have a lot of concerns about folks, particularly in the outer reaches of the county who might live, say, in mobile homes where they’re not insulated, there’s no cooling. They live in a big, flat, open space with no shade.

A lot of them are elderly. They don’t want to leave a pet behind or inside, but it’s sort of like leaving your pet or yourself in a closed car, right? And the impacts of heat is much swifter. 

I hate that we’re even slicing and dicing this way, but frankly, in extreme cold, a lot of people are at risk of extremities, fingers and toes getting frostbite. But you don’t die quickly from extreme cold, from the cold exposure that we have.

Whereas in the heat, it can be impactful. It can cause death quickly. And in fact, unhoused unsheltered folks do a better job sometimes of getting out into a park where there’s trees and grass and shade or a river, and the temperature is lower than some housed and sheltered folks are in the heat. 

So do you have any sense of who’s taking advantage of cooling shelters relative to, they actually are housed or sheltered, typically versus unhoused and unsheltered for those reasons.

Presenter: From St. Vinnie’s, Bill Barnard:

Bill Barnard (St. Vinnie’s, Operations director): So just to be clear here, there’s not an official data point around this, but true to your point, the demographic between traditional winter Egan (Center guests) and respite during the summer is very different.

I’m not going to say that it’s exclusively one way or the other, but the mix is very different.

In the winter, we have a very small percentage of people that don’t have the capacity to heat their homes. or sometimes it’s their power is turned off, sometimes it’s a broken furnace. But we have housed folks that are coming to take advantage of Egan. That’s a very, very small number.

When we come into the summer, that number goes up dramatically. I would say it’s closer. I don’t even want to put a rough number on it because like I said, there’s no data to back it up. But I would hazard a guess that close to a third of the folks that are coming in during the summer are housed in some variety or another.

And they just talk about not having access to cooling or having issues with the house or broken this or broken that, that kind of thing.

Laurie Trieger (HSC): Yeah. Thank you. I mean, that’s wonderful and terrible to hear, right? But I mean, so many housing units in this community were built before we needed cooling in the summer, right?

So apartment buildings on the floor, apartment buildings. And so I wondered are we still relying on sort of word of mouth and whether the outreach looks different about the cooling respite versus the Egan?

And also the stigma issue of people not wanting to come to something that they perceive to be that’s for homeless people and that’s not me. So if there’s anything else—I see Kate might want to hop in on this.

Presenter: Lane County Human Services Division Manager Kate Budd: 

Kate Budd (Lane County): Regarding the variance of outreach, I would suggest that we do a much broader outreach related to the cooling center options that do exist across the community, for the very reasons that you shared—that we recognize that it goes far beyond just folks who are unhoused and that we’re very fortunate across, you know, all of Lane County to have many community centers that welcome folks not only themselves, but their pets if they are leashed and well-behaved.

And so I think that is, is an enormous strength that we have, and that we do continue to put out press releases, even when there’s hot weather that’s forecasted, so that folks know where to go and get the latest regarding the cooling center options.

We’re so fortunate that St. Vinnie’s is open to kind of taking that ownership of providing cooling options for folks who are unhoused and that we can look to other entities to create an even broader array of options that are not targeted to meeting the needs of folks who are unhoused.

Kudos to libraries! You know, they’re an incredible resource and, you know, are very open to serving as cooling centers and in our experience, and often are, just kind of third locations for folks in general. And so we’re glad that they’re partners in this effort.

Presenter: She asked the emergency manager how the county worked with other jurisdictions in the event of a severe weather event.  Monica Larcom: 

Monica Larcom (Lane County, emergency manager): I am in very regular contact with Althea Sullivan, who is the city of Eugene emergency manager, and also Ken Vogeney, who’s the Springfield emergency manager. And then I’m also in somewhat regular contact with most of the other cities and hamlets, unincorporated towns in Lane County.

As far as in the scope of hot weather and smoke, it really is a kind of a ‘let me know if you guys are in need,’ due to, you know, AC outage or extremely hot weather or, you know, additional hazards that are co-occurring with the heat.

With the broad scope of everything included in my duties, I would love to be able to be a little bit more proactive. But most of the time it’s some communication towards the beginning of the summer about wildfire and smoke season, and then inviting folks to regular meetings or check-ins and then encouraging people to reach out if they have needs or resources or questions.

A lot of our smaller towns are surprisingly resourceful and probably more resourceful than they should have to be. But I was really impressed with the work I’ve seen in places like Westfir and Deadwood where I was a couple nights ago.

And just their commitment to resiliency within their own community, because, you know, when you live in a remote area like that, there are those additional dangers that you are going to have to address and potentially wrestle with in some type of hazardous event, whether it’s high heat or something a little bit more interruptive to life, like an ice storm.

So we’re always trying to think of ways—whether it’s grants or other channeling communication through other agencies about resources available—and trying to get those into the right folks so that they can self-arm themselves for these types of events.

Presenter: The Human Services Commission gets a status report on the extreme weather events from the past season.