2023-2024 NET Program Realignment

Hello! Jeremy Van Keuren here This page is composed in the first person so I can type and edit faster.

This page presents a proposal for realigning elements of PBEM's volunteer programming (which includes NETs, BEECN, and ATVs). The objectives of these changes would be to:

• Address the fall-off of meeting attendance at routine NET Team Meetings;
• Prepare PBEM volunteer programming to meet and weather through the many changes coming to the City of Portland's government structure and the structural changes taking place at PBEM;
• Ensure programming is structured logically to meet the challenges of both climate change/extreme weather events, and the threat of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake;
• Encourage the growth and development of block-scale neighborhood teams.

Summary

The notion of realignment is important for this proposal. There is no intention to radically restructure PBEM volunteer programming. Instead, the intention is to better coordinate disparate parts of what we have and assemble them into a program that opens more doors to participating, from full NET volunteers to untrained neighbors.

Forces Driving Realignment

Climate change

Actual photo of a PBEM intern before and after he found out Jeremy stole his lunch out of the fridge. Also, a fair illustration of climate extremes.

Since NET's founding in 1994, the threat of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake provided the urgency behind disaster preparedness and response programming. That threat remains. But a new fighter has entered the ring: extreme weather events caused by climate change. Extreme weather, such as heat domes and snow storms, have (and will continue to) take lives and result directly in more NET volunteers deployed for more hours.

In the immediate post-COVID era, January 2022 to October 2023, NETs logged approximately 3,917 deployment hours. That includes planned deployments, such as serving as parade guides and first aid response at the Rose Festival or fire fuel mitigation. 61% of those deployment hours were logged in response to events caused by extreme weather. When I started at PBEM in 2012, that percentage was closer to 10%. And the percent attributable to extreme weather events is likely only to climb.

Organizational changes

The City of Portland is undergoing the most radical restructuring of its government in its history. Day 1 of the new government is January 1, 2025. But, organizational transformations and fluctuations will continue well beyond that date as city government settles into its new state of being. This is relevant to us as NET volunteers as all programs are more carefully scrutinized and evaluated. NET should be ready for that scrutiny and seen as one of the strongest community programs in the City (and not just as a specialized emergency response program). We show that strength by demonstrating our connections to our neighborhoods, as opposed to being a program of insular disaster responders.

As the City government changes, PBEM is simultaneously changing. We're undertaking an important reconstruction of our Operations Section. As NET volunteers have worked hard to grow the credibility of the NET program, it has become an increasingly important part of our routine emergency management response structure. For example, NET volunteers are called into the ECC/EOC to help when we have an activation. I am not aware of another CERT program that can say that.

Any organizational restructuring should imply a restructuring of resources as well. Though nothing is set in stone, we should prepare ourselves to have less access to resources in the immediate future, and also prop up the Friends of Portland NET for fundraising more if, for no other reason, than a fiscal safety mechanism. However, few teams are cozy enough with their neighbors to fundraise for their teams, and PBEM/NET needs to encourage a higher level of direct engagement with neighbors at the block-scale level.

Revisiting the purpose of a NET team

Among the most significant change drivers, however, is a simple epiphany or two about NET and why they meet as teams.

1.) Centralized deployments and self deployments

In its history, NETs have never self deployed. To review: a NET self deployment is OK'd by PBEM when two key conditions are met: 1.) a citywide disaster is taking place; and 2.) regular communication systems are not functional. When those conditions are met, the expectation is that NETs check themselves/family/immediate neighbors to make sure they're OK. If so, they deploy to their staging areas and commence their Team Operations Plans.

Only an earthquake, therefore, would ever prompt NETs to self deploy. All other NET deployments have always been, and envisioned ever as, centralized through PBEM. In other words, when there is an emergency, PBEM decides:

• Whether to deploy volunteers
• Where they will deploy from or to
• What responsibilities volunteers will take on
• When the response period(s) will be
• How volunteers will be kept reasonably safe

In a self deployment, NETs propose answers to all of the above in their Operations Plans. But if NETs only self deploy for an earthquake, Operations Plans are, in fact, earthquake response plans.

So: one reason NETs meet as a team is to plan their earthquake response and forward their Operations Plans earthquake response plans to PBEM.

2.) Training and socializing

NETs playing the Disasterville board game earlier in 2023.

But earthquake response planning is not the only reason we've heard from teams that they organize and meet with each other. They also meet to:

• Train together. This is done on different scales...everywhere from tabletop exercises to full blown comprehensive search and rescue at Scenario Village. Training together as a team is important because team members should build relationships and working routines before they need to work together in an intense response situation.
• Socialize. The basic act of socializing together is the most important part of community resilience. After all, as we say at PBEM, the number one best thing you can do to prepare for a disaster is get to know your neighbors.