When the next big one hits Oregon, here’s one statistic you don’t want to fall in—the 65% of American households that do not have an adequate plan or supplies for a disaster.

That’s one of the reasons behind the City of Lake Oswego’s Emergency Preparedness Fair on Wednesday, April 25 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the Palisades campus at 1500 Greentree Road.

Even if you’re a nay-sayer when it comes to believing predictions that the Cascadian Subduction Zone that runs along the Oregon Coast is going to send us a doozy in the near future, there are other crises Lake Oswego’s Emergency Management Program would like you to be prepared for like severe winter storms, fire and flooding.

Since moving to Lake Oswego, my wife and I have encountered two of the above. Severe winter winds sent our kids home early from school in the 1990s and we spent the afternoon and evening hiding out in our basement. A couple years later a combination of snow and freezing rain shut down our electricity and heat for five days and came back on just as we were about ready to check into a hotel (much to our kids’ dismay). In 1996 our basement flooded and we became the recipients of the City of Lake Oswego supplied sandbags and neighbors helping hands as we moved everything out of our basement and onto our main floor.

So yes, it can happen to you. Yet despite even our track record, we’ve been slow to prepare. This year, the emergency box-on-wheels we bought several years ago, finally started getting stocked with a first aid kit, emergency blankets, water filter, food…and the list goes on. The city’s Emergency Preparedness Fair will make getting organized all that much simpler by having all the information and many of the resources you need all in one place. Here’s what you’ll find:

●Over 20 information booths where you can learn about water filtration and storage, emergency food options, pet preparedness, portable sanitation, seismic retrofitting and more.

●Giveaway of 300 BPA-Free 3 gallon water containers and 1 gallon soft-sided water bags (1 per household)

●Hands-only CPR training

●Sandbag demonstration

●Amateur radio demonstration

●Junior Firefighter course teaching you how to exit a burning house

In addition Jay Wilson, Clackamas County’s Resilience Coordinator with the Department of Disaster Management will be leading a seminar on Cascadia and Other Disasters We Face in Oregon and Being Prepared for Self Sufficiency from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. For more information, check out their website.

Stay tuned for the latest on what’s happening in Lake Oswego and why you should move here if you don’t already call Lake Oswego your home. Click the “Sign me up” button in the top right hand column.