More Than 30 Neighbors Turned Out for the Assembly Area Drill
On May 30, more than thirty neighbors gathered at Rex-Champ Field with Nehalem Bay Fire & Rescue to set up and run a working Assembly Area. Not a demonstration. The real thing, stations staffed and people moving through it the way they would in the hours after a major earthquake.
What stood out most was that people stayed. Many participants were still there at the end of the afternoon, and a good number followed the crew back to the fire hall for the debrief, which turned out to be one of the most informative parts of the whole day.
So what is an Assembly Area?
This was the question we heard most often, and it is worth answering plainly, because we use three similar-sounding terms around here.
An Assembly Area is where you go if you are away from home when disaster strikes. Visitors, renters, beachgoers, anyone caught outside their own neighborhood. It is a safe place to check in, be accounted for and get connected to what comes next.
A Neighborhood Gathering Site belongs to a Prepare Your Neighborhood (PYN) cluster. It is stocked for that neighborhood and it stays active as long as neighbors need it.
A warming shelter is short-term, usually opened during a winter power outage, where you can get warm, charge a phone and have something hot before heading home.
Different jobs, different sites. Knowing which one you are headed for matters.
What the day taught us
Volunteers staffed greeting, registration, resources, medical, communications, water and sanitation, and site assessment. Every one of those teams came away with something to fix, and that is exactly what a drill is for. A drill that goes perfectly has not taught you anything.
We learned that greeters carry more weight than we realized, that our intake paperwork needs simplifying, that every team lead needs a radio operator at their elbow, and that a grassy field in Nehalem Bay has opinions about mud. All of it is already being worked on.
Participants also filled out a short card at the start of the drill and again at the end, so we could actually measure whether the afternoon increased their understanding. It did.
Come be part of the next one
You do not need training or experience to start. If any of this sounds interesting, there is a place for you.
Take a WaSH class. Water, sanitation and hygiene knowledge is useful in any emergency and useful at home.
Learn the radio. We need more trained operators at Assembly Areas across the area.
Show up at the next drill. Volunteer at a station or walk through as a participant. Either way you will leave knowing more than when you arrived.
Preparedness around here is not a stockpile. It is neighbors who have practiced together. Thank you to everyone who came out on May 30.
Ready to get involved? Fill out our Skills and Interest Form or email [info@evcnb.org].