Klamath County currently doesn’t have an emergency operations center. Emergency Manager Ian Thigpen said the county has had to use multiple locations over the past year to coordinate emergency responses, which has created delays and confusion.
During a meeting with county commissioners Tuesday, Thigpen said Klamath Falls needs a centralized location because it is one of the two sites in Oregon designated by FEMA for support operations in the event of a major Cascadia earthquake.
“We're gonna get 70,000 people coming through the county in addition to our 70,000 population," Thigpen said. "So doubling the county population, and we don't have a place to run our show?”
The FEMA response plan for the Cascadia earthquake notes that the airports in Klamath Falls and Redmond are expected to sustain little to no damage and could be used to fly in emergency supplies and stage resources before distributing them.
Thigpen has proposed remodeling two county buildings to create an operations center and a bunk house that the county can rent out to incident management teams.
The emergency operations center would be located on Vandenberg Avenue, currently the temporary home of the county juvenile department. The county's Veterans Service Office, also located there, would not be affected by the renovations.
The bunkhouse would be located in an unused county building on Summers Lane. Thigpen said volunteer organizations have recently used the space to house volunteers, and the Oregon State Fire Marshal's Office has expressed interest in using the space. The board has already allocated $25,000 for renovations, and rental revenues could fund further improvements, he said.
If just two larger wildfire management teams rent out the space each year, Thigpen estimated the county could save around $54,000 annually.
The facility could also be used for community events when not needed for emergencies.
"Effectively, it's going to be a classroom on steroids," Thigpen said, "so we can do events and things of that nature, rented out to locals in the community."
The center could also be used as a backup for the Klamath 911 Emergency Communications District.
County commissioners were cautiously optimistic about the proposal. The county is facing a budget crisis, with revenues falling short of expenses.
"It's almost a destination EOC for Eastern Oregon," said Commissioner Andy Nichols. "If there's a big fire going on in Lake County or Harney County, we've got the large capability for an EOC."
Renovating the Vandenberg space would be contingent on securing a federal grant. Thigpen said the county hopes to receive up to $2 million from FEMA through the Emergency Operations Center Grant Program to cover the cost.
