North Lincoln County CERT

  A street in Roads End in 2019 It's that time of year when it starts raining, temperatures drop, winds pick up, and storms impact roads, mountain passes, and our electric power reliability. As Fall is just getting started, this is a good time to plan for the events most likely to affect us at the Oregon coast. Here is a quick reminder, from  THIS  NOAA Website (program recently defunded), regarding last year's billion dollar impact storm event: Winter Storm, 1/12/2024 - 1/14/2024  - A strong arctic front moved across Western Washington and Oregon on January 12 and 13 dropping temperatures below freezing. This allowed freezing rain to impact areas along the coast and the Willamette Valley northward into southwest Washington. Numerous locations including Springfield and the Portland metro area were affected by the icing and strong winds, which caused significant tree damage and power outages. Numerous homes, businesses, vehicles and other infrastructure were damaged. ...

  By Laura Joki Let’s pretend, for training, that CERT responds to whale strandings. We don’t. But this incident gave us a clean, textbook version of human behavior to study. It showed exactly how emergencies unfold when people arrive before professionals. Saturday evening (11/15/25), a whale washed up tangled in gear, exhausted, rolling in the surf, and visibly distressed. People reached the whale fast, and our instinct pushes us to help other living things. What happened next is the problem. An untrained bystander cut off the entangling gear and turned it in, and there was reportedly still debris in its mouth as well. People surged toward the whale with heavy surf behind it in wind and rain. They surrounded it, even though being near the whale at all is a violation of federal law. Some tried pushing it out during high tide, in the dark. Overnight during low tide, they poured water on it. By morning, untrained citizens tried again to push the whale during high tide, some knee-deep...

  Mack Bryson stealing a white elephant from Gerry: It is with deep sadness that we share the news that our CERT Team member and good friend, Mack Bryson, passed away on December 3rd. Mack was one of the founding members of North Lincoln County CERT. His commitment to CERT, our community, his family, and his friends was evident in everything he did. His cheerful attitude and wonderful sense of humor endeared him to all who knew him. His wife, Nancy, shared these comforting words with us: "He went quietly and peacefully. He caused no more upset in dying than he ever did in his whole life. He told everyone who came to visit how CERT brought good meals and visited with him. That all mattered to him more than I realized! I bless everyone, including you, for bringing such happiness to him in his last few months." Mack was truly an ambassador for CERT to the community. We could always count on him to secure gift baskets from local businesses for our fundraisers. His "can do...

  The Board is steering the CERT ship toward "everyday" disasters and preparedness. Teaching major disaster skills is also highly relevant for everyday disasters but focusing exclusively on major disasters is a missed opportunity since all of us experience "minor" disasters in life. Broken limbs, cuts, vehicle problems, deferred home maintenance, etc, all lead to minor disasters. As a readiness and preparedness organization, our goal is to educate ourselves and the community to help mitigate and avoid these problems in the future. To that end, the training program (monthly meetings) focus will shift a bit and follow the schedule below: The Board believes these changes will encourage more community participation by focusing on "everyday" preparedness while retaining the key elements of major disaster readiness.

  Changes are coming to the CERT Basic Training Program in our Fire District. These changes are happening to streamline and focus the material on both major and everyday disasters in an effort to be more relevant and accessible to the community. And, NLFR will take a more active role in the training process with EMT/Paramedic, Hunter Pariani, heavily involved (YAY). One big change is going from eight, 2-hour classes to four, 2-hour classes. That means some material from the FEMA training will get moved either to the regular monthly meetings and/or the skills practice and Mock Disaster Drill that happens on a Saturday, following the classroom sessions. To be clear, these changes are NOT originating from FEMA. Rather, they are being done locally, for the reasons stated above. And, the classes will be held at Station 16 (St. Clair, behind the Otis Cafe in Taft) rather than OCCC starting  Thursday, April 9th , 2026, at 5:30PM. The classes will continue every Thursday through April...

  By Stephen Milldrum January 2026 During the recent power outage throughout Lincoln City, and the much longer outage in my area of Nelscott caused by a large voltage spike (see article above), I gave my backup power setup its most prolonged usage to date, and it went perfectly. When planning the setup, the goal was not “life as usual” but rather to keep the necessities (and comfort) operating normally. My definition of necessities in this case is lights, internet, TV, refrigerator, tankless gas water heater, controls for the fireplace and distribution fan, gas kitchen range controls, recharging for computers and phones. By powering these items only, our power needs drop to around 250-350 watts. Items I consider non-essential during an outage include the dishwasher, washer and dryer, electric wall heaters, water pressure pump and microwave. In previous years, I have relied on my gas generator connected to a permanently mounted generator input plug that I installed on my house. This...