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Oregon County Looks to Strengthen Emergency Management

“There’s no doubt that the risk towards Clatsop County regarding earthquakes, tsunamis and windstorms, and any other form of natural disaster, is high.”

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(TNS) - Clatsop County is looking to strengthen emergency management.

The work of responding to natural hazards and disasters — from fires and floods to a megaquake and tsunami — would belong to a new county department instead of the emergency management office.

Along with the restructure, the county will recruit a full-time department director, who will report to the county manager. Tiffany Brown, the county’s emergency manager and director of the Emergency Operations Center, will report to the new director.

The position will be funded by money reallocated from an emergency management coordinator role, which has been vacant since last year.

At a recent county Board of Commissioners meeting, County Manager Don Bohn said he hopes to have someone in place within three to four months.

“There’s no doubt that the risk towards Clatsop County regarding earthquakes, tsunamis and windstorms, and any other form of natural disaster, is high,” he said, “and I think that it’s important as we move forward that the emergency management function be elevated to a department level.”

Next week, commissioners will hold a second reading on an ordinance to remove from the county manager’s assigned duties the direction of the emergency management office.

The move has been considered for more than a decade.

In 2010, emergency management — a statutorily required agency — was shifted from the sheriff’s office to the county manager’s office. In 2015, the county manager at the time considered converting emergency management into a director-led department, but ended up absorbing the duties himself.

This is the first time a full-time director will lead the county’s emergency management functions.

“It’s exciting for me, and should be for the whole community, that the county manager, and the board in turn, has decided to make this investment,” Brown said.

The state, meanwhile, is doing something similar. By law, the state Office of Emergency Management, long under the umbrella of the Oregon Military Department, is slated to become the Department of Emergency Management, and report directly to the governor.

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