The Oregon Office of Emergency Management has released a report detailing shortcomings in the state’s response to last month’s heat wave and how it intends to fix those ahead of excessive heat warnings now forecast for parts of southern Oregon.
The report points out failures to staff a 211 non-emergency line and cooling centers, and a lack of “established triggers” within state agencies for sharing heat-related information and coordinating a unified response. The state will now become more proactive in planning for, and potentially responding to, extreme weather any time the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat watch or warning.
Several of the report’s findings corroborate a review by The Oregonian/OregonLive into the state and local governments’ failed response during the record-setting heat wave, when temperatures hit 108, 112 and 116 degrees at Portland International Airport.
A confirmed 83 Oregonians ranging in age from 37 to 97 died of hyperthermia, or elevated body temperature, in the heat wave during the last weekend of June, and an additional 32 deaths remain under investigation. Most of those who died were found alone with no fans or air conditioning. At least 54 people died of hyperthermia in Multnomah County.
“This is an unacceptable tragedy. We understand that many of the folks who did lose their lives lost their lives alone at home, and without air conditioners,” said Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, in a press conference Wednesday.
“Many of these deaths, in my mind, were preventable.”
Cooling centers were set up in Multnomah County but 211 Info, a nonprofit intended to help users find and get transportation to those centers, wasn’t adequately staffed or prepared to help callers locally or statewide until the afternoon of June 27, according to the report. The temperature in Portland hit 112 degrees that Sunday.
Once the line was staffed, callers asking for information on the cooling centers were met with long wait times and a confusing list of prompts, none of which clearly led to info on how to find or be transported to the centers.
The Oregon Department of Human Services, in partnership with the 211 nonprofit, has staffed the line 24/7 since the heat wave and will continue to for the rest of the fire season and during future extreme conditions, according to the report.
But on Wednesday, amid excessive heat warnings issued by the National Weather Service for parts of southern Oregon, and five cooling shelters opening at noon Thursday in Portland, the help line had yet to add a cooling center prompt. The line lists other prompts, from vaccine information to rent assistance, for two minutes before landing on a general line option. Once at that general line, the caller is asked if they want to take part in a survey about their experience with the help line before being placed on hold to speak with the next available person.
In response to questions about the absence of a prompt on the help line at the press conference, Lisa Morawski, a spokesperson for the department of human services, said a prompt will be added to the line by Thursday at 8 a.m.
The help line was not the only slow fix during the heat wave. One of the main challenges pointed out in the report is a delay in sharing information on deaths to other organizations and to the public.
Gov. Kate Brown, unaware of the grimly large heat-related death tally announced for the first time June 30, continued with her jovial COVID-19 reopening ceremony for the state the same day.
Oregon State Police spokesman Capt. Tim Fox later took the blame for failing to inform Brown’s office about the death toll in advance of alerting the public and said he would “be more diligent in doing so in the future.”
Compiling and announcing the grave effects of the heat wave earlier would have allowed state and local agencies to increase the urgency and gravity of their messaging, Phelps said at the press conference.
“Having access and being able to share the actual impacts in almost real time, being able to allow that data to drive decision makers, will allow us to change our posture,” he said.
Two people died while working in Oregon during the heat wave. The report briefly mentioned that Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health division will implement new rules requiring business owners to supply cool water, shade and rest to workers in high temperature events.
Oregon did not have specific rules in place to protect workers from extreme heat prior to the heat wave, although the state did have general rules requiring employers to provide shade and water to workers.
It was only in the wake of the heat wave and the death of Sebastian Francisco Perez at Ernst Nursery and Farms on June 26 that Brown directed Oregon OSHA to immediately adopt emergency rules to protect workers from extreme heat. Permanent rules, already in the works but delayed by the pandemic, are expected in the fall.
The report outlined several other immediate recommendations, including eliminating fares on public transportation during extreme weather events or providing vouchers for ride services or taxis to cooling shelters. But that recommendation applies to local governments and transit systems, and the state took no ownership of ensuring those changes happen.
Oregon also listed eight long-term recommendations in its report for future extreme heat events, including an updated emergency response plan, and the need for the state medical examiner to update its management plan to establish criteria for tracking deaths involving events from heat.
The report did not provide a timeline for those goals, however, and a spokesperson could not immediately provide one.
“What we learned from June’s extreme heat wave is that we must do more at every level — state, county, local, and individually — to prepare for extreme weather,” Oregon’s governor, who spent the hottest day of the June heat wave at a strategic planning retreat at a winery, said Wednesday on Twitter.
“With triple-digit temperatures expected this weekend,” Brown added, “I am directing state agencies to work proactively with local emergency management partners to implement the recommendations in this report immediately.”
The National Weather Service predicts Portland could hit 98 degrees Friday. An excessive heat warning begins at 11 a.m. Thursday for southern Oregon, from Roseburg to Ashland.
By Friday, the temperature there could hit 106 degrees.
-- Jack Forrest
jforrest@oregonian.com; 541-222-9808; @Jackmandu55
Jamie Goldberg of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.