Premium
Battered New Orleans benefits from Portland's extraordinary assistance effort
Author(s) -
Scharfenaker Mark
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.2006.tb07553.x
Subject(s) - sewerage , service (business) , truck , hurricane katrina , emergency response , engineering , emergency management , disaster response , environmental planning , business , political science , geography , medical emergency , law , natural disaster , environmental engineering , medicine , marketing , meteorology , aerospace engineering
This article discusses Portland (Oregon) Water Bureau's (PWB) extraordinary utility emergency response model to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the Gulf Coast region. Staffed with management and operations crews trained to respond to earthquakes that threaten the Pacific Northwest community, the PWB responded to an urgent request by the Sewerage and Water Board (SWB) of New Orleans for gate‐valve control trucks and mobilized a fleet of its own service vehicles and 70 employees for a two‐month field mission. As described by PWB and SWB officials and witnessed by the author, PWB's pioneering response has most likely altered the water utility disaster‐response landscape permanently.