See the exciting message below from Yumei Wang, Geotechnical Engineer at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI):

Dear SRGP colleagues,

I am excited to inform you that the just-released 2015-2017 Governor’s recommended budget includes $100 million for earthquake safety of public schools and emergency response facilities (page 408 of http://www.oregon.gov/gov/priorities/Pages/budget.aspx). If approved by the next Legislature, this would mark a significant increase over the 2013-2015 budget of $30 million for schools and emergency response facilities.

Many more thousands of lives will be protected. Funds would be distributed to through the state’s seismic rehabilitation grant program (SRGP), which was initiated by Oregon Emergency Management and now administered by the Oregon Business Development Department. This grant program uses DOGAMI’s 2007 seismic needs database, available at http://www.oregongeology.org/sub/projects/rvs/default.htm.

To date, this grant program has funded 22 K-12 schools, which has helped to protect over 8,600 school children, 3 higher ed institutions and 18 emergency response facilities in our communities. It is slated to fund additional ~$30 million in grants on February 15, 2015. This critically important progress would not not have happened without many key players, especially Senate President Peter Courtney, OSSPAC, staff from OEM, OBDD and DOGAMI, Ted Wolf, SRGP committee members, as well as other partners including many of you.

In our future, we still have a whole lot of work ahead to meet the state deadlines of seismically safe schools and emergency response facilities. My hope is to make our school children safer and community resilience a reality.