Hello folks. Here’s an update and some takeaways from today’s meeting that was hosted by Fire Chief Henley and attended by our sheriff, the Talent and Phoenix City Managers, both City’s Police Chiefs and other county and city representatives. Sorry for the long post.

– FEMA money will flow from the FEMA Office of Emergency Management to Jackson County and then to Phoenix and Talent. The state government will not be able to short change Southern Oregon as has been the case with other funding.

– They spoke of a disaster assistance center being set up within or near our relatively small disaster footprint of about 2 miles x 14 miles. This center would house agencies such as the Army Core of Engineers, Small Business Administration and The Red Cross just to name a few. At our request they are considering the Phoenix Civic Center as the location for the assistance center. Officials need to assess whether this location is suitable or somewhere else is better suited.

– It was mentioned that if somebody wants to rebuild and they are able to use the same original building plans that this would speed up the rebuilding process.

I’m getting lots of questions about the cleanup process for destroyed homes. I can’t believe how complicated the process is. And expensive, $50,000 to $150,000 per site. WOW!

The consensus seems to be to adopt the “boiler plate” Army Core of Engineer’s remediation guidelines.

– Every disaster site must have a lot assessment and this is being done now by a government appointed team. They did 300 homes during a partial work day yesterday so the process should be fairly quick. To keep it simple, is a home completely destroyed, partially destroyed or not affected? It is their job to make this determination and report back to the county.

– The first step in the remediation process is to screen areas to protect from the runoff of hazardous materials.

– Next, professionals need to eliminate hazards such as propane tanks.

– Next, the site can be reviewed for salvageable items. It is highly recommended that property owners not sift through the grey dust and debris on their property, this can be hazardous. If you chose to do so, again this is not recommended, please wear rubber boots, gloves, a masks, and googles. We have been contacted by Good Samaritan’s Purse with regards to having them assist property owners with finding items on their property that they’d like to salvage. Their workers wear hazmat suits as they sift through the debris from the burned homes. More good news from the Samaritan’ Purse to follow.

– Each site must have a plan regarding testing and having an Army Core certified contractor make piles of debris that are tested and removed. Rogue Disposal has experience doing this with the Weed California fire and they should be of assistance during this process.

– The DEQ/EPA needs to certify each site prior to occupancy.

It was stressed during our meeting that property owners should not remove the hazardous debris from the property. Once you remove it you own it and disposal can get very complicated and expensive. Let the professionals handle it. It was also stressed to not get ahead of the process as a property owner. Let the proper process play out which helps with FEMA funding.

On a separate topic, we stressed the need to open more of Highway 99 (Main Street) so businesses can begin to operate. This will take place tomorrow and Saturday.

The Shoppes at Exit 24 will open tomorrow and maybe Rays too.

5 pallets of bottled water were delivered to Phoenix

Sorry for the long post but I felt this info should be disseminated.

Again, non-stop work going on behind the scenes that will help all of us over the short and long term.

Take Care,

Mayor Chris Luz