Update from OPQRS

Dear friends of OPQRS,

Today marks the second anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed thousands, destroyed towns, triggered a nuclear crisis, and devastated the country’s economy.

Scientists tell us the Cascadia subduction fault off the coast of Oregon is the “mirror image” of Japan’s. A major earthquake could strike on this fault at any time. And yet we remain unprepared.

OPQRS is working to help raise awareness among parents and grandparents statewide, and to pressure the state government to accelerate and expand Oregon’s commitment to fix the more than 1,000 public school buildings that are considered to be at high risk of collapse in a major Cascadia earthquake.

We surpassed our first petition target—1,000 signatures—in January, and presented our petition to Governor Kitzhaber’s education advisor Ben Cannon and public safety advisor Cameron Smith. We asked them bring the critical issue of school safety to the governor’s attention. They heard us, and they have conveyed our message.

Here’s what we’ve been up to since:

·      At the recent annual meeting of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in Seattle, OPQRS participated in a panel on school earthquake safety advocacy for several hundred engineers and other seismic specialists.

·      We continue to work with our local school district, Portland Public Schools, and helped to pass a successful school bond that will bring seismic safety repairs to more than three dozen Portland schools and fully rebuild three unreinforced masonry (URM) high schools.

·      We are working with Oregon Emergency Management to instigate a school-based event to celebrate the achievements of the state’s Seismic Rehabilitation Grants Program, and to engage the governor and the state’s education leaders. Stay tuned!

Oregon needs many more school retrofits and rebuilds and we need them urgently. We will keep our petition open until every Oregon child can learn in a building made safe from earthquakes.

If you haven't already done so, will you sign our petition? If you've signed it, will you share the petition with one more person, and help spread the word to make Oregon Schools Quake Resistant? The state mandates K-12 school attendance; every child has the right to attend school safe from earthquake hazards.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Amanda & Ted

co-founders, OPQRS

Inaugural post: please sign our petition!

Oregon parents:

Welcome to our blog. We are Portland parents Amanda Gersh and Ted Wolf, and we want you to sign our petition. Here's why.

Oregon is due for a megathrust earthquake and tsunami similar to that which devastated Japan on March 11, 2011. Great earthquakes along the Cascadia fault off the Oregon Coast have shaken the state at least forty-one times in the last 10,000 years. The most recent occurred 311 years ago. Thirty-one of thirty-nine intervals between past earthquakes are shorter than 300 years. The Cascadia fault is now “nine months pregnant" and an earthquake could happen without warning at any time.

California fears its Big One. But according to leading scientists, we have an even Bigger One to contend with and we have done far less to prepare than our neighbors to the south. World-renowned earthquake scientist Chris Goldfinger puts the probability of a great earthquake as higher than 1 in 3 within 50 years for southern to central Oregon, with significant risk radiating throughout the state. And yet many Oregon schools were built decades before the first seismic building codes, and few have been upgraded. More than 1000 Oregon school buildings, housing 300,000 children, face a high or very high risk of collapse in an earthquake.

Every single school day, we are gambling with our children's lives. That is not an overstatement. Civil engineer Yumei Wang, Geohazard team leader for Oregon's Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), reminds us "Kids are mandated to go to school, and we’re sending them to schools that are not safe." For years, scientists and representatives from DOGAMI have been trying to alert the public and the government to the dangers we face in Oregon, without much success. It is time for parents to speak up.

We must take a hard look at what has and has not been done to prepare our schools for what will certainly come to our region. We must tell our governor, elected representatives, and local school boards to address the issue, without delay.

Oregon's voters amended our Constitution to allow the state to borrow funds for investment in seismic retrofits back in 2002, based on a law pledging to bring all schools up to minimum seismic safety standards by 2032. The state's first retrofit grants for K-12 schools were funded in 2009. But the retrofit program is vastly inadequate and has faced cuts and delays. Even schools designated "retrofitted" on their survey reports may not have earned their status: lack of funds may have left planned retrofits incomplete. This is unacceptable to OPQRS, and we want to remind the State of Oregon about its obligations to protect our children in their public schools.

As Oregon parents ourselves, we know the fear and despair that can accompany the hard facts of our situation. But there is reason to hope for change. Progress can be made, even in these tough economic times. Parent groups in other states and in Canada have banded together on this issue and seen results in their communities. It is not too late. We can do it. But not without you.

We need your voice. Please sign our petition. We encourage you to share this page with fellow Oregon parents. Anyone who has a child in an Oregon school—or has a child who will attend or has attended an Oregon school—please sign!

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. Please see the links below for more info.

Sincerely,

Amanda Gersh, co-founder and Richmond Elementary School parent (Portland)
Edward Wolf, co-founder and Grant High School parent (Portland)

USEFUL LINKS:

New York Times: Oregon schools are in trouble
CNN: What happened to Japan will happen in Oregon
The Oregonian: An earthquake will devastate the Northwest
Education Week: Our schools have deadly defects