Oregon Counties Say They’ll Do Better During Next Storm

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(TNS) – Multnomah County sheltered up to 1,300 people in a dozen temporary sites for the first five nights of Portland’s extreme January weather emergency — a record-breaking feat.

When county officials closed all 12 warming centers last Wednesday morning, based on an optimistically warm forecast, they faced backlash as the weather remained perilously cold and icy.

That decision forced hundreds of people to navigate dangerous conditions amid a lack of public transportation to find spots to set up tents or other resting places that could offer reprieve from the storm.

A common question reverberated: Why didn’t warming centers remain open for at least another night or two?

Serena Cruz, Multnomah County chief operating officer, explained the county’s rationale this week: Weather forecasts predicted warming temperatures and thawing ice and the county faced challenges finding enough workers to staff the shelters.

No suspected hypothermia-related deaths have been announced for the nights that followed that decision, though that could change as death investigations proceed. But Cruz said the five nights of all-comers-welcome shelter achieved its mission: prevent deaths.

“We can’t be here every night, but we are trying to be there on the coldest nights … That is when people die,” Cruz said.

Officials agree, though, there are lessons to be learned.

Much of the discussion has since turned into finger-pointing between the city and county, as each casts blame on the other for shortcomings during the storm.

Multnomah County officials said the county likely could have kept warming sites open longer if the city had been more willing to pitch in. For their part, Portland officials say longer accommodations for those seeking respite would have been easier to provide if the county had been more cooperative.

Both entities have the same goal to protect lives. But both say a breakdown in collaboration and communication held back progress.

Navigating a Storm

Multnomah County did not pop up warming shelters overnight. The plans were rooted in an ongoing improvement process that allowed the number of weather-related emergency beds to grow each year.

After last year’s winter storm, county staffers identified a list of potential shelter locations where supplies could be stored year-round, making it easier to quickly open warming centers. The county also signed a short-term lease in early January for a shelter on Southeast Powell Boulevard and created a program to offer incentive pay to property owners who offered buildings for temporary use — which prompted the Salvation Army and Ascension Catholic Church to provide sites for guests last week.

As snow forecasts loomed about 10 days ago, Multnomah officials began mapping out their response. County workers reached out to facility operators who agreed to convert their buildings to shelters. Workers fanned out to map how each would operate, taping off rectangles on the floor where each guest would sleep.

Pallets of supplies were delivered to sites that didn’t have them. Coffee, soup, cocoa, oatmeal, bagels, sweatshirts, socks and handwarmers were all on the list. They also worked to provide supplies unhoused individuals would need when they ventured back out: tents, tarps and sleeping bags.

County workers were scheduled to work shelter shifts days before the snow landed. The afternoon before temperatures plummeted, the county also asked for community volunteers and on the second day of the storm, they asked for city workers to pitch in as well. In all, 350 shifts needed to be staffed each day. Each six-hour shift at each site required two behavioral health workers, two medical professionals and a security worker plus one general staff member for every 15 shelter guests, said county spokesperson Julia Comnes.

“For us to put together 12 sites was incredibly complicated logistically,” Cruz said.

By policy, Multnomah County opens winter shelters when temperatures are forecast to dip to 25 degrees or below, if snow accumulation is forecast to reach an inch or more or if an inch or more of rain is forecast to fall overnight with temperatures at or below 32 degrees. Those conditions must be forecast to last for four hours or occur between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. to trigger shelter openings, according to the county. The county’s chief operating officer may also consider any other conditions that could increase the risk to the community.

On Jan. 11, forecasters predicted a Friday snowstorm, though the snow didn’t in fact fall until Portlanders awoke Saturday morning. But on Jan. 1, 344 people flocked to warming centers. That more than doubled on the evening of Jan. 13, a Saturday, and continued increasing each day until the numbers of guests peaked at 1,269 on the evening of Jan. 17, a Tuesday.

Although emergency planning began on Jan. 9, it wasn’t until four days later, on a Saturday, that county officials asked the city to request their staff volunteer. The county also requested to use the city’s Charles Jordan Community Center for overnight guests that morning as well.

Both the county and city offered employees pay premiums to work shelter shifts.

“We would not have been able to stand up nearly 1,300 beds if the city didn’t make Charles Jordan available to us,” Cruz said.

Cruz concedes that weather forecasts issued last Wednesday quickly proved falsely optimistic. At the time the county closed shelters, the temperature was 31 and thick sheets of ice remained on many sidewalks.

“It was an awful transition,” Cruz said of the closures. “Whether we are closing in decent weather or horrible weather, it is hard to ask people to leave because we all want them to have a roof over their heads. We were working incredibly hard Tuesday afternoon not to close. We were just trying to figure out how to get past Tuesday night, so the next morning we leaned into that positive forecast. It is a very tough situation.”

Days later, the county opened overflow beds in one of its year-round shelters in Gresham as ice conditions in eastern parts of the county grew worse.

If more city employees had stepped up to volunteer, Cruz said, it may have been possible for county warming centers to stay open more than five nights.

During the winter storm that struck the Portland area in February 2023, 42 percent of 1,027 needed shifts at Multnomah County emergency shelters were filled by county employees while 27 percent were filled by city employees. For this most recent storm, by contrast, 69 percent of the 2,386 shifts were filled by county employees and just 7 percent by city employees. Volunteers, state workers and others filled the remainder of shifts.

“The need (for shelter) in our community has grown and the weather has become more severe,” Cruz said. “These used to be very short events. They didn’t last a week.”

Cruz said she and other county leaders learned from this month’s crisis to recruit more staff and train more workers ahead of the next climate event.