What better New Year’s resolution to make than to be ready for Lake Oswego’s potential disasters and safety issues?
In this episode of Business LO, we learn from experience through Lake Oswego’s Fire Chief Don Johnson. He shares the importance of building your own Preparedness Kit, tackling weather-related emergencies and how hands-only CPR can be learned quickly by your employees. Resolve to act and be ready in 2025!
Don Johnson's phone: 503-697-7403
BUSINESS EMERGENCY ACTION PLAN
Mayor's breakfast: Mayor's Business Breakfast - Jan 31, 2025 - Lake Oswego Chamber Of Commerce Business Directory
City council goal setting: City Council 2025 Goal Setting Retreat | City of Lake Oswego
LIZ HARTMAN:: [00:00:00] This is Business LO, a podcast by the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce, which connects, educates, advocates, and champions our business community. We have nearly 500 members from international corporations to home based businesses, and we serve them all. Each episode of Business LO gives insider information to the local business community and the neighbors who support them.
And now let's talk business L. O.
MICHELLE ODELL:: Happy New Year. Let's talk about disaster preparedness. I'm Michelle O'Dell along with Chamber CEO, the illustrious Liz Hartman today, and we're going to talk to the man with the plan. Actually, he has lots of plans for us. Lake Oswego's fire chief, Don Johnson. Thanks so much for being here today.
We really appreciate all of your knowledge. And first thing I want to do, Don Johnson, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you landed here in LO. And then we'll [00:01:00] get to the disasters.
DON JOHNSON:: Sounds good. First off, Love Lake Oswego. Love the chamber. Anything for Liz. That's what I do. The way I landed here is a circuitous route to get here, but I started as a young kid in the city of Sunnyvale, California, as a public safety officer, police and fire.
Worked there for quite a few years, then promoted up the ranks, went to a city down the peninsula, still in the Bay Area, and was a police chief in the city of Los Altos for about four years, and got recruited back to public safety in Sunnyvale to be their chief. And I did that for about seven years. It's time to retire and move to Oregon and take yet another job with the police department here in the city of Lake Oswego.
For about seven years, And then said, okay, now I'm going to retire. And the city manager and council called back and said, we'd like you to come in and take the fire department. So that is the short answer to a long 45 [00:02:00] year route getting here.
Speaker 2: And are you going to ever really retire? Do you think?
Speaker 3: So
Speaker 2: we're going to get into prepare, protect LO's disaster readiness and community safety.
Let's get right into some of the most important things we all want to know here. So tell us about the most common weather related emergencies our businesses should prepare for. And what should businesses prioritize when it comes to a weather occurrence?
Speaker 3: I would love for our businesses to do is to.
Take a look at what their business is. What's essential to them running their business. What's essentially getting them back up and running so that they can prepare for that. I would love it if businesses had a plan during an ice storm. Here's what we're going to do. A, B, C, D, and then they follow that plan and probably in a storm like that.
The most important thing they can do is close their business up as quickly and as best they can and find refuge in their own homes so that they don't become part of the problem.
Speaker: Could you tell [00:03:00] us any, any tales, any stories of what you've experienced in the past during weather occurrences that businesses could be watching out for?
Speaker 3: Well, what we see commonly in the ice storms, we had Over the period of about four days this last year, that were icy cold and that never warmed up, we had flooding, like you can't believe, internal flooding in people's businesses and people's homes. It can be something as simple as part of your plan is that you turn off the water to your business, knowing something like that is coming at us in terms of a weather event.
Shut that off, you won't be victim to the flood that happens. But when a flood happens, somebody's gotta get in and start working to shut that off. The water off, those are the things that I think are really important in planning is to have a plan in place to have some equipment on hand to mitigate it.
So you don't have to go home and find a snow shovel. So you don't have to go home and find a wrench to turn the water off. Those types of things will really help us.
Speaker: [00:04:00] And if there's a business that turns their water off, should they be draining it before they leave?
Speaker 3: Yes, they should. If they have the ability to, to figure that out, to drain it before they leave, they should, and they should do it well ahead of the storm.
And Liz, I got a proposition for you here on the fly. There's only a couple different style wrenches that, that water lines use to be shut off. If the chamber wanted to partner with the Lake Oswego Fire Department, we'd figure out a way to purchase those wrenches and get them out to your constituent group so that they can take action on our behalf and on yours as well.
Speaker 2: It's basically just a specific wrench that works
Speaker 3: for most Typically a slotted wrench that you put over metal handle that turns off. It's like in the shape of an eye, you set it over top of it. And it twists just like a wrench would keep it there at the water line. So you don't have to go find it. If you, if you go to my home now, you will find a wrench at the water line so that if I ever have to shut my water off, it's there.
I don't have to go look for the wrench.
Speaker 2: Dedicated wrench
Speaker 3: just
Speaker 2: for that. [00:05:00] Lake Oswego has a non emergency number, which is the backup. When someone doesn't think. The emergency needs 9 1 1 levels, so talk us through how a non emergency call works.
Speaker 3: We have a call center. It's in the police department at City Hall in Lake Oswego.
And typically there are four dispatchers to, working daily around the clock. During a weather event, you're going to find it staffed with more people. And you'll have people on the non emergency lines. And we have the ability to add lines to that too. So the line won't get overwhelmed. I'm going to give you the number real quick.
It's 503 635 0238. And when you dial that number, that puts you into the dispatch center, but it takes you out of the queue, so the medical emergencies continue to get reported without delay, the fires get dispatched without delay, the police calls get dispatched. And what happens then is, somebody will take all your information.
And trust me, we're going to deal with that. We don't lose [00:06:00] calls. We don't lose the interests of people, even in an emergency. We'll take care of it, but it allows us to put those in a queue to handle them when we can handle them. And you may just have a question is to when the power is going to come back on, that's okay to ask.
You may have. Questions about events that are happening in town. It's okay to ask. What we'd really love for you to do is to, you've got that plan in place, we want you to be informed. And there's a way to be informed, and, and I will, will post this on the notes too, but there's a, a program that we have in the Police and Fire Department called Everbridge.
And you sign up for emergency alerts. We post on that during a storm. We post on that during events of consequence. And what'll happen is you'll get a text alert that gives you instructions. You'll get a text alert that gives you an overview of what's going on so that you don't have to make that call.
You'll be more informed with Everbridge than you will by [00:07:00] calling and asking a simple one or two part question. We'll put out Everbridge alerts to whomever signs up, you have to sign up for it in order to get it, you have to give your number in there and we'll give a barcode that'll get you there. About every hour and a half, we put out an update.
This is how many calls are pending. This is where the worst parts of town are. Stay off the streets. We'll give you instructions. If there were a boil water notice or anything else, we will give it to you so you can sit, watch your phone and get your instructions. So we've made a plan. Now we've added Everbridge to it.
So now we're informed. The next piece of it for me, that I would love for every business to do in the city of Lake Oswego is to build a kit. And the kit starts with enough water to last. If you're trapped inside your business, you're. Has enough water to be in your home for 96 hours without fail. Your kit might have some trail mix in there.
It might have some bars in there, something that you can do to sustain yourself and any other important [00:08:00] papers that you might have in there that might get lost if you can't get to your house or whatever. So we want you to have a kit that you can go to. One of the things that we find out in these storms.
Absolutely surprised us is over the last ice storm, we would have at the fire stations, people coming to charge their phones. So when we build the new fire station on South shore, we're going to build a community portion of that, that people can charge phones. If they need to with all different kinds of chargers, whether it's Samsung, whether it's Apple, whether it's anything else, that is one of the most needed pieces that anybody has.
There are little generators that you can buy online that'll allow you to charge your phone. I'd invest in that. Those are the things that are important for you.
Speaker: A lot of our businesses are not the owners of the building. So how does the building owner find out about what's going on?
Speaker 3: So in Lake Oswego, we do it two different ways.
We catch it through the business license. So if needed, the dispatcher can sit at their [00:09:00] console and look up the, the owner, the building's name and figure that out. They can figure out who owns the business. Typically we'll pick that off a business license information. And as a backup, we can look in our inspection records, our fire inspection records.
We can. Come through once a year to meet and greet people. And we can typically get the most current information off of those records. They're live in each one of the fire engines. They're live in the patrol cars so we can get the information. I don't worry as much about that. That's how we contact business owners in the middle of the night if there are alarms going off.
Speaker 2: Emergencies at businesses could be anything, including a medical emergency. Now, what have you seen in the Lake Oswego area? And what would you advise businesses about how to proceed With employee or customer emergencies.
Speaker 3: The best thing to do is to think it through ahead of time. And as I look statistically, you're probably more likely to run into a medical emergency at a business or a next door business than you are to be caught in the [00:10:00] business in an ice storm.
Right? Because you're open X number of days a year and the ice storm only hits a short portion of those. What I would ask that everybody do, Liz knows me, I'm a CPR proponent like nobody else. Every business owner needs to learn hands only CPR. We have a program in the Lake Oswego Fire Department where we can teach hands only CPR.
It's no breaths. It's hands only to keep the blood flow until emergency help can arrive. And we will. Teach that to anybody I had this last weekend. I was working with the rotary probably a month and a half ago. One of your chamber members hosted a training at the Academy of Martial Arts to teach that we had 40 people there.
So what we're trying to do is catch as many people. And the idea is they will start CPR. They'll look for an automatic external defibrillator and AED. And they'll do their very best to call 9 1 1, get CPR started, and get that AED on the chest as [00:11:00] fast as they can, and that's how we save lives.
Speaker 2: What about active shooters?
I know the schools have drills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the thing that we try to teach people from both the police and the fire side of it is, in order, run, hide. Right? So, if you are caught in an active shooter situation, it can happen anywhere. I would have never expected the events that we've had. I heard on the news a couple of days ago, at this point in the year, we're at 468 active shooters across the state.
That's where three or more people have lost their lives to a shooter. And, and the idea is you need to go into survival mode as quick as you can. You need to recognize it as fast as you can. You need to run as fast as you can away from it. If you find you can't run away from it, you need to find the best place to hide.
And if you're caught with the shooter, you gotta fight. You have to make that decision now that you're gonna fight. If you ever get caught. Caught in that. And there's, you can't run. You can't [00:12:00] hide. You gotta get in and you gotta fight. Cause you're fighting for your life and you're fighting for your kids and you're fighting for your husbands and your wives.
Speaker: The Fire Department came out to the Health Wellness Fair last year and they trained about 40 people as well and as we're planning for the The summer's health and wellness fair. We're certainly bringing the fire department back because if we have the opportunity to train that many people, we'd like to double or triple that this year.
Speaker 3: As
Speaker: far as that business emergency handbook, we have hard copies at the chamber office and we are happy to bring them by.
Speaker 3: The business emergency action plan, the 2022 version that is available in hard copy at the chamber is outstanding. It will walk a business right through. How to make a plan, how to be informed and how to build a kit.
Those are the three things that we ask you to do. It'll talk about everything from cybersecurity in here to how you handle your business records during an emergency. It's just a wealth of information. It's really well put together. [00:13:00] And I hardly recommend it to anyone who hasn't. I'm not a preparedness junkie, but I am somebody who likes to be prepared.
If you're prepared, people are going to come to you and you're going to be able to take care of them. I, I've got a generator at home. I've got water at home. I've got just the basic things and I don't have to think about it once I've done it. If I commit to building a kit, I can put it aside and know that I'm safe.
I may want to look at it in a year just to make sure I don't need to add anything to it. But it's one of the most important things people can do, because we want you to be prepared for a period of 96 hours and I think about how long that is. It used to be three days. Now it's 96 hours. And the reason being in the city of Lake Oswego, no matter how good we are, if we're getting 300 calls during an ice storm, we're certainly going to repeat that with any kind of event that happens.
And you're just going to be in line. So you need to be able to take care of yourself and give us a breathing room to help others. That's what I'd ask you to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir. Aren't we fortunate to have Chief Johnson? Any [00:14:00] questions, can people contact you? Like, after they listen to this episode and they're like, well, I want to talk to Chief Johnson.
Absolutely, they can. Is that okay? Yeah, we
Speaker 3: could, I don't mind posting my number and posting my email. I will talk to. Anybody, and I will train anybody in CPR that wants to learn.
Speaker 2: Are there dedicated training times, like every Sunday at 4 or something like that? No dedicated training
Speaker 3: times. We'll, we'll build it however.
It doesn't matter if, if we were able to get 14 people trained that otherwise wouldn't have been, then I'm happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Is there a minimum then if you would know? Nope. I
Speaker 3: will train whatever number you have. If you got three people that need to be trained, we can train them. It's not an issue.
Speaker 2: So that's a great thing for bosses out there listening.
And you've got a staff. Yes. If you want to, you know, that could be, instead of taking them to lunch, take them to see Chief Johnson.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: How long does it take to learn
Speaker 3: the basics? The hands only CPR. You won't walk away with their certificate. You won't walk away with a handbook. You'll walk away with an understanding of how to save somebody's life.
And. That takes probably 40 minutes, and that includes how to use an automatic [00:15:00] external defibrillator. So we will show you how to use that. We'll let you get your hands on it. We'll let you take some instruction from it so that you get confidence that you could save somebody's life.
Speaker 2: Talk about like a girl's night out or something.
Let's go, let's go learn CPR and then we'll go get a drink or something like
Speaker 3: that. As long as you take the instructor, I don't care.
Speaker 2: We're drinking. Thank you again so much for helping us. Thanks, Liz. Very nice to meet you, Michelle. Thanks again. All right. Now, Liz, let's talk about what you need
Speaker: to know in LO.
Well, let's start with City Council's going to be doing some goal setting. Then you can go and watch them on January 25th at the Adult Community Center. So if you have the time and interest, it's a great opportunity to see how the council determines what's important in Lake Oswego for 2025. But, if you can't make that, come join us for Friday Networking on January 31st at City Hall with Mayor Buck talking business.
So he will give a full [00:16:00] perspective on what's going on with the business community, how the city works with the business community, and any updates of things that affect the business community. So that is Friday Networking. January 31st, this one will be a charge of 15 for chamber members and 25 for non chamber members, and you do need to make a reservation.
And then, if you want to be a networking host, we are already booked through April, so you need to give us a call or give us an email soon, and I'm going to give one of those insider things. And this Insider Thing is the Bob Bigelow Lifetime Achievement Award recipients for 2025. On February 26th at our Community Awards event, we will be honoring Doug and Judy Cushing.
He and Judy have both been done a huge amount of things for our community and for other communities in Oregon. So we are looking forward to honoring them.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, this has been very eye opening. I feel so much better. I'm so glad we had Chief Johnson on. [00:17:00] And until next time, Liz, have a wonderful January and we'll be talking to you again on February 1st.
Thank you, Michelle, and Happy New Year to everybody. And don't forget. Every day is a Chamber of Commerce day in Lake Oswego.
Speaker: The Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce thanks you for listening to Business LO. We would love to have you as a member so you can help Lake Oswego continue to be one of the best places to live, work, and play.
If you want to share an idea for a future episode or become a member, visit us at lakeoswegochamber. com and please like and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for help with your business podcast, go to ModCastProductions. com.