CRESWELL – In its most recent study on Climatology of Weather and Climate Disasters, the National Centers for Environmental Information reports that, between 2020 and 2024, there were just 16 days on average between U.S. billion-dollar disaster events compared to 82 days in the 1980s.
“Shorter time intervals between disasters can mean less time and resources available to respond, recover, and prepare for future events,” the study reads. “This increased frequency of events produces cascading impacts that are particularly challenging to vulnerable socioeconomic populations.”
Pleasant Hill resident Jim Origliosso is the president of the Oregon chapter of Disaster Airlift Response Team (ODART), which is a network of volunteer pilots who specialize in disaster response and operate out of small airports like those in Creswell, Albany, Bend, and Aurora.
Origliosso, a licensed amateur radio operator, has been an Angel Flight West command pilot for 13 years, where he assists in free, non-emergency air transportation. He is also a DART pilot who practices emergency airlift services of transporting supplies and personnel to affected areas.
“I always wanted to fly ever since I was a little kid. I just dreamt about flying all the time,” Origliosso said, who got his start in aviation in Creswell. He said that when he first took to the skies, “I made pretty much every mistake in the book. Get lost, run out of gas. None of them fatal … but great learning experiences.”
During one of those “learning experiences,” Origliosso has an epiphany. “I decided, ‘Well, if I’m allowed to survive this, I’ll do something good,’ and that’s when I decided to get involved in public benefit flying.”
Origliosso learned about the nonprofit pilot network called DART. California DART began in the mid-’90s, and the Washington DART started in the early 2000s. There was no DART for Oregon.
Seeing a need, Origliosso started ODART in 2022, driven by the looming threats of “The Big One” and other natural disasters.
Today, there are 300 pilots in the Oregon network, with six to eight operating out of Hobby Field Airport, running disaster simulations.
Preparing for the unpredictable
According to the NCEI, from 1980 to 2024, there were 41 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each in Oregon, including 16 droughts, three floods, one freeze, two severe storms, 16 wildfires, and three winter storms.
The 1980–2024 annual average is 0.9 events; the yearly average of the most recent 5 years (2020–2024) is 2.0 events.
Scientists predict the Cascadia Earthquake will hit the West Coast in the next 50 years. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is estimated to produce a magnitude-9.0 earthquake. It was determined to have last hit in the 1700s and happens approximately every 500 years.
With Oregon’s present preparedness levels, residents are expected to be without services and assistance for at least two weeks, if not longer, when it strikes, as reported by Oregon’s Department of Emergency Management. Along with the total estimated statewide casualties, exceeding 12,000, and over 290,800 estimated displaced individuals.
A local tsunami will hit the Oregon coast, arriving within minutes of an earthquake. Regions along the Columbia and Willamette rivers, including Portland, are under serious risk from liquefaction – the phenomenon where water-saturated sediment briefly loses its rigidity and behaves like a fluid due to severe shaking.
The most significant risks facing the southern Willamette Valley are more akin to slides and intense shaking. Lane County is predicted to lose up to $1.36 billion in earthquake-related damages, according to the State Library of Oregon.
This will affect critical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, creating an obstacle to access essential resources, such as food, water, and medical supplies.
That is where ODART comes in, which emphasizes boots-on-the-ground training, or in this case, wings in the sky. Through a coordinated effort, ODART supplies can aid Creswell residents and nearby communities in the case of an emergency.
“The Cascadia event may not affect Creswell, but we sure as heck had the ice storm that was pretty awful. So, these resilience hubs are designed to be gathering spots for people where they can get some food and shelter, get warm, get their devices recharged, and those sorts of things.”
In June, ODART conducted its “Whale Run,” a training scenario for how ODART would respond following a Cascadia Subduction Zone + Category 1 Typhoon event.
This training consisted of groups on the ground, on the radio, and pilots packing their planes with food and supplies to transport to various locations that would need them in the aftermath of an earthquake event.
“It’s our philosophy: The more people we can get involved in exercises, the better our ability to help when it happens,” Origliosso said.
