Opinion: Heat wave underscores our collective responsibility to one another - OregonLive

Dan Herman

Herman is chief executive officer at 211info. He lives in Vancouver.

Since 2020, 211info has served as the Oregon Health Authority’s go-to public information line for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, wildfire evacuation response and more. Our nonprofit also supports local governments, including Multnomah County, in helping residents connect to organizations and resources on a variety of needs.

Along with emergency statewide support, our team answers the calls of thousands of Oregonians who struggle to find food, shelter, child care and financial assistance each day.

When someone isn’t able to find shelter or get to a cooling center, our team takes it personally. The tragic loss of life from last year’s heat wave was devastating.

What 211info has known since its inception – and many of us have awakened to personally over the last two years – is a shared responsibility for one another. With or without an operator headset on, we can have a tremendous impact on the welfare of our neighbors.

And if we are in a position of privilege or leadership, it is incumbent upon us to take personal accountability if we are ever to change the system more broadly.

But a community awakening is hollow without changed action.

Thanks to investments from the state, 211info took immediate action after last year’s heat emergency to expand to 24/7 operations.

We hired a statewide emergency management director, grew our team to more than 150, improved the information on our website, 211info.org, and made it easier for users to find what they were looking for.

We changed the phone message callers hear when they dial 211 to help them connect more quickly to a live person and streamlined the process for evaluating calls, which has helped speed up training for new staff members.

When folks called 211info this year, looking for a cooling center or resources to escape the heat, someone was here to answer – and quickly. Callers often had wait times of less than 30 seconds. For Spanish speakers, it was half that.

But we’re just one part of the puzzle. The most important social and operational shifts must happen at a systems level.

Strengthened coordination between partners meant that this extreme weather event had vastly different outcomes:

• County resources were more robust with more cooling resources, including 24/7 facilities, and more lead time for the 211info team to prepare.
• Collaboration and accountability between partners improved with contracts that better spelled out obligations and expectations.
• Communication increased with more employees working to spread the word through partners, public agencies and local and state media.

This is no victory lap, however.

Tragically, last month’s heat wave appears to have claimed the lives of at least 15 Oregonians. That’s 15 too many.

Transportation challenges persist, especially in rural parts of Oregon. The state Department of Human Services offered Lyft vouchers and many communities offered free public rides to cooling centers. But those solutions fall short in parts of the state where transportation options are limited.

State and local authorities need to revisit their policies. The threshold for opening winter shelters is 25 degrees; that’s too cold for our neighbors to suffer through.

We need to get air conditioners to people who need them. Though air conditioners are not normally considered medical equipment, we know they have a profound effect on health. We’re in discussions with Medicaid health plan providers about this.

Air conditioners were available to those who met certain criteria, thanks to Senate Bill 1536 and other local initiatives. But there was no way to quickly get these units out to folks.

We all know last year’s heat event wasn’t just a one-off. With climate change, more extreme weather and more wildfires are coming.

My team tells me that we heard from more Oregonians concerned about their neighbors’ welfare this year; that gives me a lot of hope – but it also serves as a call-to-action for those of us in the position to influence real systems change.

If 2021 taught us anything, it must be that our collective responsibility is to one another.

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