Multnomah County Emergency Management's 2024-2029 strategic plan is aligned with the County's updated vision, mission, and values.
Our Impact
Multnomah county communities are prepared for emergencies and disasters, resilient, and able to adapt to impacts from climate change.
Our Outcome
Multnomah County effectively prevents, mitigates, prepares for, responds to, and recovers from natural and human-caused emergencies and disasters.
Emergency Management Guiding Principles
Multnomah County Emergency Management is guided by national and international good practices, standards, research, after-action reviews and improvement plans, and robust, meaningful engagement with our community.
Disaster Resilience
Community resilience is the ability of a community to prepare for anticipated natural hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions.
As a consequence reduction risk component of the National Risk Index, a Community Resilience score and rating represent the relative level of a community’s resilience compared to all other communities at the same level. A community’s Community Resilience score measures its national rank and is inversely proportional to a community’s risk. A higher Community Resilience score results in a lower Risk Index score. Review Multnomah County's risk score here.
The Phases of Emergency Management
Mitigation
Mitigation is the process of turning potential disasters into less harmful occurrences by assessing the risks to life and property posed by a potential event. Emergency Management weighs an event by severity and probability to rank relative risk. This process helps inform actions that can be taken to prevent such events from occurring; or to reduce the impact of an event if it does occur.
Preparedness
Preparedness is the state of being ready for whatever emergencies may occur in your community that could affect you. Readiness is an excellent idea, especially for your home; no one knows your needs better than you and your family, and it’s good to think ahead about what could happen. If you would like training or more information on how you can prepare your home and family, please browse the preparedness links listed on our site menu, or Contact Us. We have local trainings that may be of assistance.
Emergency Response
When you think of emergency response, you may think of ambulances, fire trucks or policemen—and you’re right. These people are often referred to as emergency responders, because their job is to be there for a community when the unforeseen occurs. Far more than these groups, however, are volunteer organizations and government agencies that are poised to bring assistance when an emergency becomes too large for a single group to handle.
Recovery
When an emergency becomes a disaster, communities affected by it will need to rebuild. Recovery is the process of coming back from disaster and restoring the quality of life to what it was before the event happened. Emergency Management may coordinate the recovery process to assist the community in resuming a pre-disaster working and living environment.