ISS's ongoing engagement with the City of Portland on disaster resilience dates from 2017 when we worked with the City to develop the Resilient Infrastructure Planning Exercise (RIPE). This initiative revealed the interdependencies between different infrastructure systems and developed priorities for getting infrastructure assets back online as soon as possible following a disaster. That initial engagement bore a body of work supporting various resilience and recovery efforts in our region.
After RIPE, ISS continued to convene its offshoot the Disaster Resilience and Recovery Action Group (DRRAG), a group of City employees from eight infrastructure bureaus. This group is focused on creating a resilience strategy for Portland, furthering recovery planning, and improving coordination and collaboration across bureaus.
ISS has since engaged in a variety of resilience- and recovery-focused projects across the region. We are committed to transforming the institutional and cultural structures that prevent us from building resilience: centering community—especially frontline and underserved communities—in resilience planning and holding space for recovery planning ahead of a disaster to ensure that we "build back better" and further our vision of a just and sustainable region.
Our current projects include:
- Working with the DRRAG to design a resilience strategy for the City of Portland
- Creating an Earthquake Response Framework for the City of Portland as an annex to their Basic Emergency Operations Plan
- Investigating the risks posed by earthquake-induced hazardous materials releases in Portland's industrial areas
- Supporting Portland's Citywide Asset Management Group to foster equity in decision-making and purchasing
- Organizing community partners to host a Climate Resilience Cohort in the 2022 LSAMP Internship Program
Our past projects include:
Contact Beth Gilden to learn more about disaster resilience