CARLSBORG — The Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the American Red Cross wants to be prepared if and when disaster hits here.
The magnitude 9.0 northeastern Japan earthquake of March 2011 left 125,000 homeless people crowded into some 2,000 emergency shelters, many of them having to sleep on floors instead of cots with blankets and pillows.
Michelle Kelley, executive director of the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the American Red Cross — which serves both Clallam and Jefferson counties — hopes that doesn’t happen on the North Olympic Peninsula.
But she said the area in many ways parallels Japan, especially when it comes to the threat of a strong quake and tsunami that could devastate coastal communities.
“They’re mirror images,” she said at the Red Cross office located at the Carlsborg Business Park, which she has headed the past three years.
She described the Japan quake as a “wake-up call” for the Peninsula.
The Peninsula is near the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a sloping fault where the Juan de Fuca and North America plates converge about 30 miles off the Pacific Coast.
The last great Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake occurred 312 years ago in 1700.
It is difficult to know when the next one will hit because the interval between these great earthquakes is highly irregular.
Bill Steele, a member of the seismology lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, said earlier this month there’s a 15 percent chance the next one will occur in 50 to 60 years.
The possible threat of a quake is why the nonprofit organization that relies on private donations and grants to help others is conducting an all-out campaign to raise money to buy 1,000 cots and bedding kits for Clallam County.
Next on the agenda: Take the fundraising drive to Jefferson County, which also is short on cots.
The initial effort to secure 1,000 cots for Clallam County is a sizable increase over the inventory of 180 cots today.
Of that number, only 55 are designated for Sequim, 25 for Port Angeles and 25 each in Forks, Clallam Bay-Sekiu, Neah Bay and LaPush, considered the most at-risk part of the region.
“It’s the vulnerable people who don’t have cots and blankets that keep me awake at night,” Kelley said.
The cots and bedding kits would cost $65,000 in total, or $65 each.
The military-style “Auto-Cot” costs $45 and can be set up in 30 seconds.
It is 19 inches high and 6 feet long and can support up to 500 pounds.
Bedding, which includes a waterproof non-woven fitted cot cover, twin flat cotton sheets, a poly-fill pillow, non-woven pillow case and Polar Fleece blanket, costs $20.
Clallam County Fire District 3 Chief Steve Vogel is helping to spearhead the “Cots for Clallam” campaign, which is endorsed by the Clallam County Fire Chiefs Association.
“Between Port Angeles and Sequim, there aren’t that many cots,” Vogel said, adding there are enough shelters, except for the R Corner area, which he is working on securing.
The cots and bedding kits would be strategically placed in Clallam County, with the majority stored in Sequim and Port Angeles, which have the county’s largest populations, Kelley said.
The Red Cross would like to stage at least 50 sets in Joyce and train a disaster action team there.
An additional 25 sets would go to the Disaster Emergency Response trailers in Forks, Clallam Bay-Sekiu, Neah Bay and LaPush.
Each community would store 50 cots, 50 bedding kits, a generator and additional supplies to open a shelter in a remote location.
Free disaster shelter training is available to community volunteers who wish to become Red Cross Disaster Action Team members, Kelley said.
The Red Cross is a charitable organization, not a government agency, Kelley stressed.
The organization depends on volunteers, with some 200 across the Peninsula. There is always a need for more, she said.
Send donations to American Red Cross Olympic Peninsula Chapter, Cots for Clallam, P.O. Box 188, Carlsborg, WA 98324.
Kelley can be reached at 360-457-7933 or email at michellekelley@olypen.com.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
