Portland River Public Safety Study: More Coordination Needed

Portland River Public Safety: More Coordination Needed

On Wednesday October 11,2006 Sam introduced a resolution, which Council approved, to accept reports for Phase 1, and the River Public Safety Charter work of Phase 2, of The Portland and Multnomah County Public Safety Collaboration. Over the past year, the City and County have been developing a framework (phase 1) to improve the systems for planning and budgeting public safety services and to identify immediate and long term opportunities (phase 2) to improve service delivery. The second phase identified River Public Safety as one of four areas in which to develop and implement strategies to improve the results achieved in public safety at the same or a reduced price. The resolution approved by Council on Wednesday approved the reports and identified a list of improvements with implementation timelines. A companion resolution by Multnomah County will be considered on October 19, 2006 with assurance of passage. The River Public Safety Report and Phase 1 Public Safety Collaboration are attached.

The good news is that waterway users in distress feel confident they will receive adequate public safety services when they need help. Multiple providers will often arrive whether the incident is one of extreme distress where lives are in danger and the several providers are useful, or non life-threatening, such as a boater stranded on an island out of fuel. The core mission of the public safety is to protect lives and property, and that is being done well.

However there is no common methodology used by all service providers to record and track river safety incidents and calls for service. Distress and non-distress calls aren't well differentiated, performance and budget data are inconsistent, absent, and un-reliable as comparative or absolute measurement tools, there is lack of adequate radio communications among the agencies, not enough or not well coordinated education and outreach programs, and no consistent and clear operating protocols and command systems among the various providers. As the Portland Tribune article pointed out Communication, coordination and data collection is tangled and needs to be straightened out.

Multnomah County has 100 miles of shoreline and the rivers in the county are the most used bodies of water in the state. We have over 1,000 houseboats, more than 80,000 registered boats, and the Ports of Portland and Vancouver handle over 14,458,000 metric tons of commerceOn the River annually. Improvements are necessary for efficient and effective use of public safety resources. Equally important, the coordination, communication, clarity of roles and a well-defined command structure which need improvement are key for emergency preparedness purposes.

Marilyn Roach, one of the citizen volunteers on the River Public Safety Team, shared this story that illustrates the problems of public safety on our rivers.

"It's a small incident, but one that exemplifies some of the overlaps and confusion in service on our waterways: After our first meeting in March as a committee, Lt. Reiser arranged for an introductory boat ride for anyone who hadn't seen the subject of our work - the rivers. I had not been on the water much, so gladly took him up on it. Part way into the ride, where Sgt. Lautenbach pointed out problem areas, service provider sites and such, he got a radio call. A body had been found.

When we got there, police and sheriff officers were trying to decide who had jurisdiction, because the body was part way in the water and part way on land. It took 45 minutes before they decided the police should take charge. Then, after the medical examiner arrived and did his work, the dozen or so officers who had gathered couldn't carry the body up the steep, rocky bank, because he was so water-logged and heavy. They had to call back the River Patrol boat to help them get the body out of the water."

The River Public Safety Team was led by a private citizen, Brad Howton, who is a long-time river user, and owner of a boat moorage business on Hayden Island. The 8 member team included public safety providers who supplied operational experience and knowledge, a labor representative, and two other private citizens unrelated to city/county river public safety delivery services. Support staff provided organizational assistance and financial and legal expertise. The team launched in March, meeting for 2 half-day work sessions every other week and doing research and related projects in between.

It was a hard working team. By late May they had inventoried the river public safety services in our region, gathered input from multiple customers-citizens-groups who use the waterways, contacted or interviewed over 30 provider agencies, businesses, and organizations to gather information and ideas, developed a set of strategic service delivery options, and established performance measures to evaluate effectiveness of the service quality.

As summerized in The Oregonian,  the resolution charges a task force comprised of 2 private citizens and leaders with decision-making authority representing waterway public service providers to:

1.  Design and implement an effective and reliable reporting system to define and collect data;
2. Develop improved radio communication and standardized emergency dispatch methods;
3. Develop comprehensive operating protocols;
4. Establish service guidelines and rate structures from private businesses for non-distress river calls.

The Task Force is scheduled to complete this work by November of 2007. Multnomah County Sheriff Giusto commented at the Council session: "Commissioner Adams has certainly set an aggressive timeframe, but, yes, it's good."

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