Seaside School District
Clatsop County
Request: $81,950
Seaside is a small resort town on the coast of Northwestern Oregon. The year-round population was 7,164 in 2023 and the number of people during the summer surges each year, due to the town being a popular destination for tourists. In 1964, on Good Friday, the town of Seaside experienced a tsunami after a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Alaska, that caused $276,000 ($2.7M today) in damages to homes, cars and businesses. At that time, the population was 3,877, about half of what it is today. No lives were lost during the 1964 tsunami, however, the event did spur the town to begin learning about and taking precautions for the event of another earthquake and tsunami. The City of Seaside has designated five evacuation locations in the case of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. While the Seaside School Complex is not one of those designated sites, it has been deemed to be outside of the inundation zone. In 2021, the Seaside School District completed construction of their new middle and high schools, which resulted in all school campuses being located in a higher ground location. This ensured that, in the event of a tsunami during the school day, children and staff would not be on a campus in the danger zone. It also created an ideal location for evacuation and reunification. The Seaside School District understands they will likely be an important hub in an emergency and is therefore seeking to be better prepared for a predicted three to four week delay in outside emergency services arriving to assist.
This grant request is to fund the purchase of a mobile water purification unit, which could be used by the School District after a natural disaster to ensure that any persons taking shelter on the campus will have clean drinking water. The unit in question has the ability to clean up to 3,000 gallons of water per day, and will be delivered to the School District in a fully contained and enclosed trailer that can be towed to any water source and used to fill clean water containers.
