Imagine a future where a magnitude-9.0 Cascadia subduction-zone earthquake has hit the Pacific Northwest: buildings have shaken off their foundations, landslides have destroyed whole neighborhoods, and bridges tilt perilously over the Willamette River.
In the same way that Metro is responsible for making sure garbage gets to its final destinations, Metro is looking at how to deal with the mountains of debris created by disasters such as tornadoes, floods and earthquakes.
Metro is slated to hire a disaster debris planner in its 2014–15 budget. Their task: craft a strategy to handle disaster debris.
While it is impossible to predict how much damage a major quake would do to the region, the Oregon Resiliency Plan estimates as much as 10 million tons of debris could be generated statewide – 1 million dump truck loads.
Jay Wilson, chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission and coauthor of the Oregon Resiliency Plan, said the hazards to the Portland region include the destruction of historic buildings and any kind of drawbridge.
"We are really set up to lose a lot of critical buildings and infrastructure,” Wilson said.
Metro planner Scott Klag said that brick buildings and hillside communities would be affected.
“If it is Northwest Portland, there may be unreinforced masonry structures that will collapse,” Klag said. “If its been a normal winter and its been raining, it might be landslides along the West Hills.”
In the event of a disaster, this first priority is to clear the roadways to create immediate safe access to hospitals and community centers. All of the debris generated by the event will most likely be pushed to the side of the road.
Paul Slyman, director of Metro’s Parks and Environmental Services Department, said after the roads are cleared, the debris needs to be handled.
“Once there's safe access routes, that rubble needs to go somewhere,” Slyman said. “Someone needs to take responsibility for how it’s managed in the region.”
Current disaster debris plans include proposals to set up temporary storage, disposal and recycling centers. These centers would be found in broad, open spaces, some owned by garbage or earth-moving contractors, and others publicly-owned spaces.
The challenge for Metro's new disaster debris planner is to work out the details with the emergency preparedness community before disaster strikes. Open spaces, dump trucks, and construction equipment will be subject to competing interests.
Klag said that thinking ahead is critical because multiple agencies will want the same resources.
“That's why planning and position like this is necessary so that you can coordinate something that someone wants to use for temporary housing, a large open site,” Klag said. “Whereas you as a disaster planner might want to use it to collect and process debris, so you have to work those things out.”
Another challenge for this position is the mandate to recycle and reuse disaster debris.
Slyman said if the disaster has a federal disaster declaration and federal money is being spent, there is a responsibility to make sure the debris is sorted for highest and best reuse – it isn’t just federal funding to take debris to a landfill.
“Now they want to make sure that when all this debris gets collected, that you do everything you can to reuse and recycle that which may have value,” Slyman said. “This is part of the planning, we don't just scoop up all this debris and send it to a landfill.”
This may involve sorting out bricks from toppled buildings, picking out steel that could be recycled, or wood that could be repurposed. Wilson said the disaster debris management for Hurricane Katrina involved the sorting of termite-infested splintered wood from wood that could be reused.
The task of recovering after a massive earthquake will be immense: In an instant, the state of Oregon will generate as much trash and debris as the Portland region has put in the trash in about a decade.
Slyman said that hiring this position shows drive and forward-thinking.
“This shows a lot of initiative we're willing to fund this position,” Slyman said, “to really look at a disaster and the debris that could be generated from it and what role Metro and Metro's facilities should play in that.”