Neighborhoods: Restore air raid sirens for wildfire evacuation

Presenter: Neighborhoods were leaders in asking the city of Eugene to start planning for mass evacuations. Now they’re asking the city to take the next step: Restore the air raid sirens. At the Neighborhood Leaders Council June 24, Tom Peck:

Tom Peck (Friendly Area Neighbors): I met with some of the leadership of the Eugene Springfield Fire Department. They are very worried about wildfire this summer. They are way understaffed. If there was another Holiday Farm Fire, they would be really pressed to be able to fight fire in the South Hills… It really is in our interest to prepare for fire and other disasters.

[00:00:45] Presenter: During public comment at the City Council July 14:

[00:00:48] Cherish Bradshaw (Eugene, executive office coordinator): Our next speaker is Randy Prince.

[00:00:50] Randy Prince (Amazon Neighbors Association): Hi, I am Randy Prince, resident of the Amazon neighborhood. I’m co-chair of the neighborhood association there, but tonight I’m speaking on my own behalf.

[00:00:57] I have been meeting with chairs and co-chairs of three other south and east Eugene neighborhoods. We are concerned about preventing loss of life in the event of an urban conflagration.

[00:01:07] And I would like to urge you to direct Eugene Springfield Fire Department to activate, replace, or repair the high-volume emergency warning sirens that previously were in service at neighborhood fire stations, sometimes referred to as air raid stations. They were, in fact, used in October, 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[00:01:28] For Eugene, the stations that can reach all of south of say First Street would be sufficient, and the default warning signal should be reserved for the event of a fire in progress that is or could likely become an east wind urban conflagration.

[00:01:43] Now, this is not a high cost project, but for the rare case of east wind fires, the event I’m concerned about, it’s not common. We may never see one here on the floor of the Willamette Valley. It’s the result of particular late summer/fall weather phenomena that threatens communities up and down the West Coast.

[00:02:01] It’s led to the loss of many lives and enormous property damages, especially in California. The problem with these events, they’re not forest fires, conflagration of many houses on fire at once, spreading embers in the air, pushing the fire to the west at the rate of many miles per hour.

[00:02:15] Only a hardening of the structures could prevent the widespread fire spread. But we don’t have such measures in the building code right now.

[00:02:23] And, although these conditions are rare locally, they did destroy urban neighborhoods in Jackson County in 2020, as well as Blue River in Lane County. And of course, many cities in California and Bandon, Oregon burned down in 1936. Same type of weather. So yes, it could happen here.

[00:02:40] They’re uncontrollable in their early stages when the wind is bearing down. Evacuation of everyone’s the only option.

[00:02:47] If there are opportunities to suppress the fire and prevent its forward progress, all hands need to be on deck, not notifying, not knocking on doors to notify people. And by the time other units get there, it’s a little too late. Damage done. Lives lost.

[00:03:01] I had a chart here. You can’t show charts here, but these fires move faster than the system will move even with the Genasys system. Even if you turn out that information right away, you’re not going to get to it the way a siren wakes people up in the middle of the night and saves their life.

[00:03:15] Please look into this, see what we can do right away.

[00:03:17] Cherish Bradshaw: Thank you, Randy.

[00:03:18] Presenter: Neighborhoods lead the way in protecting the lives of Eugene residents, by pushing the city for evacuation planning, and developing evacuation tabletop exercises.

[00:03:27] Neighborhoods have also asked the city to help them identify the ownership of overpasses and bridges that might block key evacuation routes, so that residents may help set priorities for bridge retrofits.

[00:03:39] With the revitalization of the Neighborhood Leaders Council, this is a great time to get involved. Learn more by contacting your neighborhood association. They’re listed at the city’s website.

Image: Air raid sirens in Paris published in the East Oregonian (Pendleton), June 5, 1918, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.