[Posted Wednesday, August 17, 2022]
Contributed by Hillsdale NET
After about two years of hunkering down during Covid we would like to bring you up to date on the state of Hillsdale NET. Through the dark times a dedicated group of Hillsdale NETs met virtually on a monthly basis.
Our primary goal was to continue the “business” of our team since we could not meet in person. However, we did participate in all city-wide drills as well as doing an internal tabletop exercise of our own. And we staffed a booth at Hillsdale Farmers Market several times. We also completed or launched the following activities:
Completed outreach and recruitment for NET volunteers and Affiliated Trained Volunteers (ATVs).
Thoroughly reviewed our cache, looking for expired items. We made some additions and finalized an accurate inventory.
Published a series of articles in the Hillsdale News on Emergency Preparedness.
Reviewed, revised and published our Hillsdale NET Operations Plan.
Supported the formation of several neighbor groups focused on mutual support for disaster preparedness ("pods").
Assisted in development of a mapping tool to track where neighbors are and are not well-connected in pods and larger groups of affiliated neighbors ("clusters") and started populating it.
Mailed a postcard about the neighborhood staging area location and a link to preparedness info to all households in Hillsdale.
Strengthened ties with Hillsdale Neighborhood Association, which now has a NET in a new position of Emergency Preparedness Chair.
While precautions are still wise, Covid is not the dominant factor in our lives, socializing and work. Summer has arrived. We are coming out of hibernation, seeking out neighbors and doing those activities we most enjoy.
For the time being our monthly meetings will remain virtual but with at least one meeting in person (with hybrid options for those unable to attend face-to-face) each quarter. While there will be an educational component to every meeting, the quarterly in-person meetings will be most heavily education-based.
Right around the first of each month we will send out the agenda with date/time, items, and location (including Zoom link).
Read more about NET activities over the past two years here.
Hillsdale NET maintains a cache of disaster supplies and equipment. Some of our equipment and supplies are for operations like forms (yup, gotta have 'em), tents for our staging area, food and water for our volunteers and victims in our care, radio equipment and search and rescue tools.
The largest portion of our cache is first aid/medical supplies. We are directed to run a medical treatment area for as long as two weeks after a major disaster. Based on our best guesses we believe we have two or three days' worth of disposable supplies. Our goal is to increase that to two weeks. We have no budget for these supplies. Much of our current cache was paid for by out-of-pocket donations from our NET volunteers.
Would you like to help us build our cache? You can do so without spending any extra dimes: create a Fred Meyer rewards account at https://www.fredmeyer.com/i/community/community-rewards and link your rewards account to Friends of Portland Fire & Rescue Hillsdale.
Questions, comments, thoughts? Email hillsdaleornet@gmail.com.