The most popular class in the history of Oregon Coast Community College’s community education offerings is returning next month.
The two-session class on how to prepare for a disaster will be taught by Jim Kusz, a retired captain at North Lincoln Fire and Rescue in Lincoln City. Kusz and the college are donating the $15 registration fee to the Echo Mountain Fire Relief Fund.
The class will be online via Zoom from 3:30-5 p.m. Feb. 2 and Feb. 4. It will also be made available online to people who register for the class but cannot attend.
The class – “Disaster Preparedness for the Pacific Northwest — summarizes some of the fundamental risks that threaten to strike the Northwest and how to prepare for one.
Also helping with the class is Jenna Trentadue, a state fire plan coordinator who will speak about defensible spaces around homes in fire-prone areas, and Dr. Lesley Ogden, chief executive officer of Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital and Pacific Communities Hospital, who will talk about COVID-19 and how pandemics and other health risks can be incorporated into the list of circumstances to prepare for.
In 2015 The New Yorker published a cover story, “The Really Big One,” that detailed in stark, sobering language the risks of a “Cascadia event” and the tsunami it would cause.
As a result, attendance in the college’s already popular disaster preparedness class ballooned as people heard Kusz explain how to craft appropriate “go kits” for home and autos, and how to be prepared to ride out the earthquake, tsunami and the days or weeks of isolation that would likely follow.
Many were surprised when each class began with the same refrain from Kusz: “The wildland fire is going to get us long before the tsunami will.”
To register for the class, visit oregoncoast.edu/communityed, or find the online “Catch the Wave” course schedule at bit.ly/wintercatch. Or, register by phone, at 541-996-6222.
