Water water everywhere, but will you have a drop to drink?
Water surrounds us in Western Lane County, but in the event of a catastrophic disaster, would you have enough to drink? That’s a question members of the Western Lane Emergency Operations Group want residents to ask themselves. Safe water sources… and a corresponding discipline… safe sanitation practices… could make a huge difference in the aftermath of an earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
A potential 9-point-oh quake off the Oregon coast would break critical supply lines, power would likely be down and waste treatment facilities would be off-line. That has the potential to leave residents without clean drinking water. Jean Busby and Anne Machalek (muh-HOLL-eck) are volunteers with the West Lane Emergency Operations Group. They have a specific interest in the topic and will be sharing that interest October 13th in the monthly “Living On Shaky Ground” class at Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue.
hey’ll talk about how to properly store water for emergency use; as well as how to purify water that might be available. The importance of good hygiene and sound sanitation practices will be covered too. The class is free, but space is limited so preregistration is requested… you can do so by calling Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue.
Possible Telecom Strike
It’s not clear what the impacts would be locally, but CenturyLink workers in 13 states, including Oregon, are authorizing a strike if union leaders and the telecommunications company can’t reach a contract agreement. More than 88-percent of the members of the Communications Workers of America participating in Monday’s vote backed the action. The current contract expires Saturday night. CWA Spokesman Al Kogler said the union opposes a proposed increase in health care insurance premiums and wants to bring more jobs back to the U.S. Employees covered under the collective bargaining unit include customer servicer agents, network technicians and Internet support workers.
Behind the health care scenes
If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at Peace Harbor Hospital, you’ll get a chance to find out tomorrow afternoon… and then again on October 13th. Peace Harbor will be hosting an Open House later this month, providing rare “all access” tours of the facility with stops in surgery, cardiac rehab, imaging and more. Dr. Ron Shearer and Nena Harvey will be featured on tomorrow afternoon’s Our Town on KCST along with orthopedic surgeon Bruce Watanabe and Imaging Department Director Tom Pummer to talk about operations at the community health facility. Tomorrow’s program is from four to six pm.
