The Oregon Resilience Plan – Critical and Essential Buildings – February 2013 80 <br /> <br /> <br />Target State of Recovery <br />The importance of emergency operations centers, police stations, and fire stations to the post- <br />earthquake response and recovery is widely recognized. Building codes have required for some time <br />that these facilities be designed to a higher standard, with the intent that they will remain operational <br />after a major earthquake. The public also recognizes that these facilities are the centers for first <br />response, and there is consequently a general expectation that they will remain functional after the <br />disaster. For these reasons, the target state of recovery for these facilities must be Event Occurs as <br />indicated in the recovery matrix, Figure 4.2. <br />Sector Specific Recommendations and Conclusions <br />To our knowledge, a mandatory program with a formal mechanism to identify deficient structures and <br />require their upgrade with a firm timeline does not currently exist. ORS 455.400 requires seismic <br />rehabilitation of publicly-operated emergency operations centers, police stations and fire stations by <br />2022, but with the caveat of being, “subject to available funding.” As a result, it appears to have had <br />only limited effect in this and other essential and critical building sectors. Typically, the impetus to <br />evaluate these types of buildings to determine their seismic-resisting capability is motivated at the local <br />level, often by the public agency itself. Once the evaluation has been completed, a determination can be <br />made about whether a particular building or group of buildings requires seismic rehabilitation. The <br />agency will then submit a request to the voters within that community to support a general obligation <br />bond to accomplish the needed work. This was recently done within the city of Portland, where a <br />general obligation bond was passed in 1998 to rehabilitate the city’s fire stations (See Figure 4.4). The <br />last fire station rehabilitation was completed in 2012. <br /> <br />Figure 4.4: Some cities in Oregon have already started seismic rehabilitation program to strengthen the fire stations that are susceptible to <br />serious damage in an earthquake. Fire Station #1, the largest in Portland, was retrofitted in 2009. It should now be in working order after an <br />earthquake, serving downtown Portland. (Source: Peck Smiley Ettlin Architects)