News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
All ages got information €” and goodies €” at the Sisters Preparedness Fair.
A dark pillar of smoke looming ominously over Sisters Country did not deter folks from turning out for the second annual Preparedness Fair staged by the grassroots community group Sisters Country: Prepared & Ready (SCPR). In fact, with precautionary evacuation notices in effect for some Sisters residents, the Pole Creek Fire lent urgency to the message of self-reliance and preparedness.
"It's not hard to convince people today that they may have an emergency," said Carla Powell, who manned a booth at the fair promoting ways to feed a family in an emergency.
Displays showed how readily a family can organize nutritious and easily prepared meals when a family is forced to "shelter in place" by weather, natural disaster or other disturbance.
"We've got a week's worth of meals," said Sue Anderson. "They're all one-pot meals."
Powell and Anderson are members of the Sisters Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who displayed emergency cooking equipment, food and lighting sources amid the dozens of booths that dotted the Sisters Elementary School playing field. The church has a strong ethic of self-reliance and help-your-neighbor community preparedness.
Ken Lindsey displayed a variety of camp cooking devices that can be deployed when the power is out and your home cooking means are down. A Rocket Stove can be easily made from a metal bucket (do-it-yourself instructions are available online) and it can burn any kind of wood fuel from sticks to pinecones.
Fair patron Diane Flowers noted that not only would the stove be effective in an emergency, it would be fun to use.
"My kids would want to cook every single meal on it," she said.
Much of the equipment a family might need in an emergency can do double duty for camping and backpacking trips. Jack McGowan displayed his personal kit.
"We never go anywhere without this emergency backpack," he told visitors.
The pack contains emergency blankets; a solar/crank powered radio; means of starting a fire; water and a water purification device; hygiene items - all items that would come in handy if he got stranded on the road or cut off from home by an emergency.
Preparedness as advocated by SCPR is not about creating a doomsday survival bunker or spinning out end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it scenarios (your correspondent heard no mention of a zombie apocalypse at the fair). For SCPR it's all about being ready for the kind of "everyday" emergencies that living in the rural hinterland can bring.
Carla Powell recalled one such emergency that has gone down in Oregon lore: The Columbus Day windstorm of 1962. She was a 10-year-old girl when the massive windstorm hit, knocking out power and disrupting infrastructure across the state.
"We didn't have power for a week; we didn't have water for a week," she recalled. "The neighbors all banded together; they all helped each other figure out how to make it work for a week. It was a big block party for a week."
That neighbors-pulling-together spirit is exactly what SCPR is seeking to inculcate in the community.
The fair included a Red Cross blood drive, informational displays by various first responders and landings by AirLink and Life Flight helicopters.
For more information on SCPR's work visit www. sisterscountrypreparedandready.org.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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