NEW ORLEANS — The textile mills that once served as the backbone of Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, were shuttered long ago, and officials believed federal money would be key to the town’s overdue revitalization. They hoped an improved stormwater drainage system and secured electrical wires — funded through a program to help communities protect against natural disasters and climate change — would safeguard investments in new businesses like a renovated historic theater to spur the largely rural economy.

Mount Pleasant was about to receive $4 million when the Federal Emergency Management Agency eliminated the program. City officials say their plans — years in the making — and those of hundreds of communities nationwide supported by the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program have been upended.

“This is a generational set of infrastructure projects that would set us up for the next hundred years and it just — poof — went away,” said Erin Burris, assistant town manager for Mount Pleasant, 25 miles east of Charlotte.

FEMA’s elimination this month of the BRIC program revoked upwards of $3.6 billion in funding earmarked for communities like Mount Pleasant. Though President Donald Trump has openly questioned whether to shutter FEMA completely, local officials said they were blindsided by the move to end BRIC, which was established during the Republican’s first term.

Many affected communities are in Republican-dominated, disaster-prone regions. FEMA called the BRIC grants “wasteful” and “politicized” tools, but officials and residents say they were a vital use of government resources to proactively protect lives, infrastructure and economies. Money would have gone toward strengthening electrical poles to withstand hurricane-force winds in Louisiana, relocating residents in Pennsylvania’s floodplains and safeguarding water supply lines in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley.

Disasters affect most Americans — 95 percent live in a county that since 2011 has had a federally declared weather disaster, said Amy Chester, director of Rebuild by Design, a nonprofit focused on disaster prevention.

BRIC program administrators told communities, “We’re going to help your community be stronger ahead of time,” she said. “Cutting one of the sole sources of funding for that need is essentially telling Americans that it’s OK that they’re suffering.”

Across multiple states, officials said the BRIC program was far from perfect — they were often frustrated with the wait for funding.

But in southeastern Louisiana, Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said despite his issues with FEMA’s bureaucracy, he’s seen firsthand that money invested to fortify homes and infrastructure works.

The hurricane-ravaged state receives the highest rate of federal disaster assistance per capita, with more than $8 billion pouring in since 2011, according to Rebuild by Design. Lafourche Parish has seen more than a dozen federally declared extreme weather disasters since 2011.

Lafourche had been set to receive more than $20 million from several grants to replace wooden electrical poles with steel ones and take other steps to lower the soaring costs of home insurance.

Chaisson, a Republican whose parish saw 80 percent of voters support Trump in November, said he backs efforts to streamline federal agencies — as long as funding continues to flow for disaster prevention.

“I’m hopeful that that’s what the president’s trying to do with this,” he said. “Is there some other way to get the money so we can continue to do these projects? … No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, the programs themselves and the dollars allocated make our communities more resilient.”

Research backs him up: A 2024 study funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found every $1 invested in disaster preparation saved $13 in economic impact, damage and cleanup costs.

Democratic officials in states that lost money have publicly expressed outrage. Few Republicans have joined in at a national level, even though about two-thirds of the top 15 states in total FEMA funds received, spending per person and number of federally declared disasters lean heavily Republican.

An exception has been Louisiana’s senior U.S. senator, Bill Cassidy. He took to the Senate floor this month calling for BRIC’s reinstatement, saying it’s “a lifesaver and a cost-saver.”

About $185 million intended for Louisiana evaporated, and officials had to shelve dozens of applications for hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding, according to data compiled by state and federal agencies.

“This isn’t waste,” Cassidy said. “To do anything other than use that money to fund flood mitigation projects is to thwart the will of Congress.”

More than $3.6 billion of BRIC funds will be returned to the federal Disaster Relief Fund for disaster response and recovery, and $882 million more will be returned to the U.S. Treasury or reapportioned by Congress in the following fiscal year, FEMA said. Agency officials did not comment further for this story.

Twenty-two mostly blue states and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit demanding the federal government release obligated funding, including FEMA grants.

The lawsuit highlights Grants Pass in conservative southern Oregon, where FEMA has refused to release BRIC funding awarded for a $50 million water treatment facility.

Flooding could knock out the water supply for 60,000 people for months, said Jason Canady, city public works director. Funding would have been used in part to build a modernized plant on higher ground.

“If you can’t provide drinking water, hospitals, groceries, restaurants are going to have trouble,” he said. “Economically, it would be devastating. It really is the cornerstone on which the community is built.”

In Stillwater, Oklahoma, Mayor Will Joyce spent two years working with FEMA on a BRIC application to overhaul and provide backup supply for a regional water system used by 100,000 people. Its 36-mile-long pipeline is at risk of damage from tornadoes and flooding. If it breaks, Stillwater has less than a day’s worth of reserve drinking water.

“We can’t just hope nothing bad happens,” Joyce said. “This project is a necessity.”

Without FEMA’s support, he said, Stillwater will have to double the cost of water for residents to fund the project.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr., a northeast Pennsylvania Republican, in an open letter urged FEMA to revive BRIC, saying communities in his district would struggle to fund disaster adaptation work, including relocating families in flooded homes.

Bresnahan wrote that “programs like BRIC are not wasteful, but well within the purview of federal coordination of disaster relief efforts” and noted that Trump “promised not to leave the forgotten men and women of America behind.”

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By DAVID A. LIEB
Associated Press

Conflicting federal policies may force thousands of residents in flood-prone areas to pay more for flood insurance or be left unaware of danger posed by dams built upstream from their homes and worksites, according to an Associated Press review of federal records and data.

The problem stems from a complex set of flood policies and some national security precautions taken after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

To get the best discount on flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s points-based rating system requires communities to chart all the homes, businesses and critical facilities endangered by a potential dam failure and warn people of their risk. But that’s difficult or even impossible in some communities, because other federal agencies restrict the release of such information for hundreds of dams that they own or regulate across the U.S., citing security risks.

The quandary has persisted for years, though federal officials have been warned of its implications.

Federal “dam information sharing procedures costs communities points, homeowners money, and potentially citizens lives,” a California emergency services official warned in a January 2020 presentation to FEMA‘s National Dam Safety Review Board at an invitation-only meeting attended by dozens of federal and state officials.

The meeting’s minutes were provided to the AP this summer, nearly two-and-half years after the news organization submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to .

Since that meeting, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun publicly posting maps of areas that could be flooded if one of its hundreds of dams were to fail. But similar information remains restricted by other federal agencies, including by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates about 1,800 power-producing dams, and by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, whose 430 dams in the western U.S. include some of the nation’s largest structures.

The Bureau of Reclamation said in response to questions from the AP that it is revising its policies and will start sharing more information about dam-failure inundation zones in 2025, though it said the process could take more than eight years to complete for all its dams.

Meanwhile, FEMA is accepting public comment through Sept. 9 on potential revisions to its Community Rating System, which awards discounts on flood insurance in communities that take steps to reduce risks. During a FEMA public hearing Wednesday, the floodplain administrator for Phoenix — the nation’s fifth largest city — raised concerns that the conflicting federal policies regarding dam flood zones were unfair to communities trying to get better insurance discounts for their residents.

“I believe this is a punishment to us,” Phoenix floodplain administrator Nazar Nabaty told FEMA officials.

One community’s frustrations

Another community that has been affected by the information-sharing gap is Sacramento, California, which ranks among the most at-risk regions in the U.S. for catastrophic flooding. California’s capital sits at the confluence of two rivers and about 25 miles downstream from Folsom Dam, a large Bureau of Reclamation structure with a capacity that could cover the equivalent of the entire state of Rhode Island with a foot of water.

During a review about five years ago, Sacramento County achieved one of the best-ever scores in FEMA’s rating system. But the county did not qualify for the top flood-insurance discount because the Bureau of Reclamation’s restrictions regarding Folsom Dam made it impossible to meet FEMA’s criteria for mapping and public outreach about a potential dam break, said George Booth, the county’s former floodplain manager.

“We got wrapped around the axle,” said Booth, now executive director of the , a professional organization that focuses on flood-risk reduction in California, Hawaii and Nevada.

The city of Sacramento, which receives a separate flood insurance rating, has faced similar struggles meeting FEMA’s standards for flood insurance discounts because of limited information about Bureau of Reclamation dams, said Rosa Millino, the city’s Community Rating System coordinator.

For an individual homeowner, the missed discounts could make about $100 difference in annual flood insurance premiums. When spread citywide, the extra cost could reach several million dollars. When costs are higher, fewer people tend to buy insurance. But there’s more at stake than just insurance premiums.

“People need to be informed of the potential dangers of living in an area that’s protected by a dam,” Millino said.

Flood risks and costs

As the climate changes, heavy rains from intense storms have put communities at increased risk of flooding and placed the nation’s aging dams in greater jeopardy of failing. That’s been evident as recent floodwaters damaged or breached dams in Georgia, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, forcing evacuations and costly repairs.

Floods have caused about $108 billion of damage in the U.S. since 2000, according to FEMA. Standard home and commercial property insurance does not cover flood damage.

But FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program is available in 22,692 communities that have adopted and enforced floodplain management regulations. As of the end of July, it provided $1.3 trillion of flood insurance coverage to about 4.7 million policyholders — down about 1 million policies since the program’s peak participation in 2009.

Premium discounts ranging from 5 percent to 45 percent are available in jurisdictions that participate in FEMA’s Community Rating System, a voluntary program begun in 1990 that grades flood mitigation and safety measures on a 1-to-10 scale. A Class 1 rating earns the largest discount.

Most communities don’t seek the extra savings. Just 1,500 local governments take part in the Community Rating System, though they account for three-quarters of policies issued under the National Flood Insurance Program. Just two communities — Roseville, California, and Tulsa, Oklahoma — have achieved the top discount for their residents.

Roseville, which also is near Folsom Dam, used FEMA grant money to create its own inundation maps showing the affects of a potential dam failure. But the city still encountered difficulties trying to share that information with residents. While presenting the inundation data at a public meeting over a decade ago, consultant Rob Flaner said a Bureau of Reclamation official interrupted and told him to stop.

“It was ironic that one federal agency funded it,” Flaner said. “It was like, `Ummm, maybe you guys need to talk to each other.'”

Roseville has since satisfied both federal agencies by creating inundation maps that show the overlapping flood potential of multiple dams without identifying the specific dam failure that could affect each home, business or important site, Flaner said. But Roseville is the exception, not the norm.

“There’s a lot of jurisdictions that can’t meet the requirements because they can’t get the maps, or a federal agency is saying, `No, do not do outreach downstream of our dam,'” said Flaner, who has worked with nearly 300 local governments over three decades, first as a Community Rating System specialist on behalf of FEMA and then as a hired consultant.

Security concerns

FEMA says it is important for communities to have access to dam-failure inundation maps in order to warn residents in harm’s way, That’s because dam failures can spread floodwaters beyond normal high-risk areas and affect multiple communities downstream.

But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, some federal agencies cited national security grounds while refusing to release certain information about dams. They said dams could become targets if terrorists knew the potential to cause devastating flooding.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues to categorize dam inundation maps as critical infrastructure information that “could be useful to a person planning an attack” and requires those receiving such information to sign non-disclosure agreements, said FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller. But FERC can’t prevent a dam owner from independently sharing the information.

The Bureau of Reclamation also has required non-disclosure agreements when sharing dam inundation maps and emergency action plans with local officials. Under its upcoming policy change, the bureau will allow communities to publicly share information about dam inundation zones, including potential flood-wave travel times, flood depths and durations, said Sandy Day, the bureau’s chief of public affairs.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which also had shielded certain information about its dams, began posting dam inundation maps online in late 2021 after determining that releasing the information “is more beneficial to the public than any risk of misuse,” Corps spokesperson Gene Pawlik said.

A complex system

Three years ago, FEMA sought public input about ways to revamp the Community Rating System to better incentivize communities to reduce flood risks. Several commenters highlighted difficulties in getting credit for dam initiatives, including the reluctance of federal agencies to share information regarding inundation zones from dam failures.

Nothing immediate came from the 2021 review. Though FEMA is again seeking public input on potential changes to the Community Rating System, it doesn’t plan to make any changes until 2026.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has suggested a substantial overhaul may be necessary. In a report last year, the GAO found that the premium discounts offered under FEMA’s rating system are not actuarially justified. Mapping projects, flood warning procedures and public information campaigns may have some value, the report said, but don’t reduce the flood risk of currently insured properties.

Some local officials contend FEMA’s Community Rating System is too costly and complex, especially for governments with small budgets and staffs. The rating system has about 100 items for which communities can earn points, often requiring extensive documentation. The dam safety section is among the most challenging — just four communities got any points for their local efforts during the most recent evaluation, according to FEMA data.

During its last review, Fort Collins, Colorado, earned more than 5,000 points in the Community Rating System — the most of any community, according to FEMA data. Yet the city failed to get a Class 1 ranking, because it didn’t meet criteria about potential dam failures or promoting flood insurance. The area has about 20 high-hazard dams that could result in loss of life if they failed.

“We do know where the dams are,” said Ken Sampley, the city’s water engineering director. “But we don’t have as detailed information and direct coordination with a lot of the dam owners as may be required.”

Thurston County, Washington, which is home to the state capital of Olympia, spends almost $200,000 a year to maintain its Class 2 rating in the flood insurance program, resulting in collective premium savings of slightly less than that for residents, said Mark Biever, who coordinated the county’s efforts from 2019-2023. But the county decided it wasn’t worth it to try for a Class 1 rating, in part because staff didn’t have the resources to compile all the information about dams, he said.

The rating process is frustrating and incredibly time-consuming, Biever said. Though it’s resulted in a 40 percent discount for about 600 flood-insurance policyholders, “nobody’s every called and said, `Hey thanks for all that extra effort,'” Biever added.

None of Thurston County’s cities and towns participate in the Community Rating System, meaning the county’s flood-insurance discount is only available in unincorporated areas.

In Bucoda, a rural Thurston County town nestled along the twisting Skookumchuck River, the high cost of flood insurance means homeowners often skip it unless required to buy it by a mortgage holder, said James Fowler, the town’s fire chief and planning commission chair. Yet the town is just 10 miles downstream from a dam.

“If that dam that’s on that reservoir was to fail, it would be catastrophic flooding,” Fowler said. “In a couple hours, there would be 20 feet of water in the town.”

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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — An extension granted by the state gives survivors of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Southern Oregon an extra six months of FEMA housing.

FEMA guidelines call for housing assistance only up to 18 months after a declared disaster, giving the survivors of the 2020 fires until mid-March to find new homes.

But FEMA spokesperson Paul Corah said finding permanent housing for people is slow going in an area with low housing inventory, KTVL-TV reported.

Typically extensions are given in three-month increments, but the severity of the damage in the Rogue Valley prompted the six months. Of 190 units supplied to fire survivor families, 154 are still in use in Jackson County.

Housing programs in Marion, Lane, Lincoln and Linn Counties were given similar extensions.
Residents have been able to stay in the FEMA units while paying only utilities, but those who stay beyond April 1 will start paying a sliding-scale rent.

“FEMA’s working with the survivors about what that scale is. The minimum is $50,” Corah said.
Corah said FEMA also has a sales program, allowing residents to purchase the units.

The Oregon wildfire season in 2020 destroyed more than 4,000 homes, killed nine people and tore through 1.1 million acres. Almost all the damage occurred over a dramatic 72-hour period. It was a wake-up call for the Pacific Northwest as climate change brings destructive blazes to wet places and urban landscapes.

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PORTLAND – Federal officials are starting to build a temporary housing site for residents in Linn and Marion counties who lost everything in the 2020 wildfires.

The Mill City site will hold up to 16 temporary housing units, KOIN-TV reported. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is setting up utilities and making sure they are accessible before the mobile homes arrive.

A FEMA media relations specialist, La-Tanga Hopes, said the homes are expected to arrive in Mill City in three to four weeks, depending on weather.

In Oregon, 250 families have received approval to receive FEMA Direct Temporary Housing. That number has decreased over time, according to the agency, as many households have secured other temporary or permanent housing on their own.

In order to qualify for the Direct Temporary Housing program, a wildfire victim must file a claim, which is then assessed, Hopes said. A person is eligible for temporary housing if FEMA confirms he or she owned a home that suffered damages totaling $17,000 or more, or if FEMA confirms he or she rented a home that suffered major damages or was destroyed. Wildfire victims must also prove they do not have rental assistance available to them.

Qualified residents who opt to use the temporary housing can remain in the units for up to 18 months, until March 2022.

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The Bandon School District is working on a series of seismic retrofits to its facilities, and has issued a for the seismic retrofit of Bandon High School‘s gymnasium and cafeteria. The construction manager-general contractor method will be used for the $1.125 million project.

A pre-proposal meeting for the project has been scheduled for Sept. 24 at the high school, at 550 Ninth St. S.W., in Bandon. All interested contractors are advised to attend in order to familiarize themselves with job site conditions.

Bid proposals will be due by Oct. 8.

The full RFP documentation may be picked up in person on Sept. 18 at ZCS Engineering offices, at 524 Main St., Suite 2, in Oregon City.

The high school was built in 1975. in a sizable earthquake is greater than 10 percent, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Portions of the school other than the gym and cafeteria were retrofitted in 2016, according to the Coos Bay World, and the district’s Ocean Crest Elementary School last year.

Currently, another retrofit is under way at Harbor Lights Middle School in Bandon. Deficiencies in the gymnasium, fifth-grade classrooms, sixth-grade classrooms, choir room, art room and band room all are being addressed. Rafters are being shored, new double-pane windows are being installed and other work is being performed.

All of the prior seismic retrofit projects were built by Scott Partney Construction of North Bend.

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At an Urban Land Institute resilience panel last month, architect Ben Kaiser told attendees that, at long last, a school had stepped up to serve as a test case for his patented seismic safety system, .

“The idea that a desk will protect you is ludicrous,” he said, knocking the American Red Cross-advised practice of dropping to the ground during an earthquake and seeking cover from falling material. “We’re adamant with CoreFirst: we protect the person.”

Kaiser, designer-builder-developer behind Portland’s , knows how to innovate – he’s pushed through tough projects where others have failed, like the all-timber Radiator Building and the topped-out, mass-timber Carbon12 condo tower (95 feet). A Midwest native, he grew up accustomed to tornado sirens and storm shelters. He’s passionate about his idea for an affordable partial seismic upgrade involving early detection and structurally-reinforced shelters inside schools. And now, after five years, Beaverton’s small, private (GIS) has put down $400,000 to install the first one.

“Beaverton always wants to be innovative,” Beaverton Mayor Denny Doyle said.

But it’s not universal excitement. A number of people are unconvinced of the promise of CoreFirst. They include state and federal seismic officials, Portland-area public school districts and partners at some of the city’s top engineering firms. They say the system is a waste of money that distracts from real solutions. At worst, they say Kaiser is endangering the lives of children with his untested theories about earthquakes.

“I see no engineering advantage,” said Jay Raskin, vice chairman of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC). “This thing has not been vetted by the engineering community. He has an idea and he’s very persuasive about it, but he’s kind of off on his own with this. He has no support.”

Kool-Aid and opera

Doyle, for one, is on-board with CoreFirst. He wants GIS to be a seismic showcase for other Oregon schools. That the system is minimally-invasive, saves money and features seismic detection technology potentially beneficial to the greater community are all pluses for him. He said the system seemed “too practical, too affordable” to pass up.

With thousands of lives at stake and aging facilities throughout , public schools are on the front lines of discussions about resiliency. CoreFirst was created to upend what Kaiser considers out-of-date notions of school preparedness. He’s especially critical of the American Red Cross’ recommendation to “drop, cover and hold on” during an earthquake, because, he says, it’s only natural for people in mortal danger to seek safer ground.

There’s little dispute in engineering that a great need exists for seismic upgrades. Nearly 1,000 Oregon public school buildings have a seismic risk rated “high” or “very high” by the state geologist’s office. Plus, Portland is known to have an outsize number of buildings with hazardous, unreinforced masonry (URM), including around 300 multifamily structures and many public buildings.

Code now mandates full upgrades for certain at-risk structures. Owners can elect to bolster their properties, but due to the eye-popping price, most do so only when absolutely necessary. But CoreFirst, with an advertised cost of 25 percent of a full seismic upgrade, is meant to put resilience within reach for cash-strapped school districts and other owners.

A full seismic retrofit is often so invasive that owners must evict tenants or pay to relocate them, but CoreFirst seismic enclosures are designed to be quickly flown in from above. Also potentially attractive to schools: a build time of three months, or, one summer break.

According to Kaiser, the system consists of three elements working in concert:

1. In-ground early-detection sensors that warn schools of incoming quakes. (One of these systems is . Kaiser says it’s able to text seismic warnings to tenants.)
2. Kaiser’s deployed at strategic locations around a school. It’s to these “sanctuaries” that teachers are to muster their classes in the seconds after an earthquake’s initial rumblings.
3. Shored-up exits to prevent material from falling on fleeing people. (This is widely regarded by structural engineers as a good idea.)

Another CoreFirst believer is GIS Head of School Blake Peters. Following publication of Kathryn Schulz’s 2015 watershed article in The New Yorker about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest, Peters was inundated by worried parents. And he listened.

“Doing nothing wasn’t an answer,” he said.

Knowing a full upgrade was financially out of reach for the small school (200 students), Peters looked online for alternatives. He contacted Kaiser based on online materials.

“I’d already drank his Kool-Aid before he even tried to sell me anything,” Peters said, laughing.

Private schools pay for capital projects through reserves, bank financing and, of course, private donations. In this case, the fundraising campaign got a big assist from Kaiser himself, Peters said.

In late October, the school held an opera-themed fundraiser for a CoreFirst seismic upgrade in the Brewery Blocks. The event was a “huge success,” according to a , and reportedly exceeded its goal.

A week later, in , Doyle can be seen accepting Kaiser’s stamped design drawings at City Hall dressed for Halloween as Kylo Ren from “Star Wars.”

“We’re excited to be leading the way on innovative approaches to keeping children safe!” reads the post.

A static response

Raskin, a resiliency-focused architect from Cannon Beach, said it’s unfortunate the first CoreFirst school will be located in Beaverton – the Beaverton School District (BSD) has perhaps the strongest seismic resiliency program in the state. Its building specifications go beyond state mandates, and new buildings are expected to serve as community gathering places following a major emergency.

“It should be the plan for all schools in Oregon,” Raskin said.

CoreFirst, he said, should not.

Critics say, for one thing, that Kaiser’s comparisons of earthquakes to tornadoes miss the mark. Earthquakes are the sudden release of pent-up pressure along a geologic fault. And while detection technology has improved, they say there’s no reliable way to detect seismic emergencies fast enough to matter.

Kaiser started promoting his idea around the time Portland Public Schools (PPS) planned its previous bond program. With help from KPFF, he developed a conceptual plan to use his enclosures to strengthen schools in North Portland. But when his team applied for a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), it elicited a stark rebuke from FEMA’s head of Building Sciences, and PPS backed away.

That official, Edward Laatsch, sent a expressing “very significant concerns” with CoreFirst. For one, Laatsch said he knew of no technology capable of detecting earthquakes and issuing warnings the way Kaiser describes. Further, Laatsch said Portland is threatened by a number of geologic faults smaller than the well-known Cascadia Subduction Zone, and Kaiser’s system doesn’t seem to account for them.

“The CoreFirst system … is significantly flawed and it is very doubtful that this system would meet the technical feasibility criteria for FEMA mitigation grant funding,” Laatsch wrote.

Seismic experts, including Laatsch, worry that once a CoreFirst system is installed, districts might sit back, believing their problem fixed. Experts wonder why, in the case of GIS, a seismic system is needed so urgently in a two-story, wood-framed building (the nearly 50-year-old structure was built as an administrative space for Phil Knight’s Nike-precursor Blue Ribbon Sports).

Structural engineer Jeffrey Soulages, an Intel employee, echoed a common critique: “What this approach does is provide a false sense of security.”

Kaiser insists his plan works. Beyond that, he said, a small step is better than nothing.

“A static response will get a static outcome,” he says.

Support system

Kaiser thinks the discussion over CoreFirst has gotten “political.” He’s frustrated with FEMA, which he says is “not cutting-edge at all,” citing its botched handling of Hurricane Katrina.

Additionally, FEMA has been unresponsive to Kaiser’s outreach. He said he’s called Laatsch more than 10 times “to no avail.”

“I think he took about 15 minutes and then he wrote that response,” he said of Laatsch’s letter, which PPS and BSD officials told the 91��Ƶ was a reason they’ve avoided Kaiser’s system.

“I have begged FEMA to have a real discourse about this,” he said. “It really confuses me.”

One man whose opposition he’s especially “confused” by is Blake Patsy, head of KPFF, the largest structural engineering firm in Portland. Kaiser describes a productive rap session near CoreFirst’s inception, when the two met for coffee and Patsy helped Kaiser “create” CoreFirst.

Patsy tells it different. He said he was initially interested when Kaiser came to him for support, but only if CoreFirst concepts were included as part of a larger, phased seismic upgrade plan. KPFF did assist on a conceptual plan for PPS, he says, but declined further involvement when it became clear Kaiser was interested only in “selling his product.”

“He’s basically a salesman,” Patsy said. “He wants to sell his product, and that doesn’t align with our engineering philosophy of doing what’s right for the project and the client.”

Patsy said Kaiser brought to their meeting a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for him to sign, indicating to him that Kaiser was after his endorsement, not his input.

“You don’t bring an NDA if it’s not your idea,” Patsy said.

But the “line in the sand” for Patsy was when he read Kaiser quoted in a 2013 91��Ƶ article calling KPFF a partner in CoreFirst. After that, he told Kaiser, “we’re done.”

“If you have to read about what’s going on with your partner in the paper, that’s not a partner,” Patsy said.

KPFF is not alone in asking Kaiser to cease using its name in connection with CoreFirst. His prospective steel supplier for the GIS project, Pleasanton, California-based , has done the same.

“We told him flat-out, we stand behind our product 100-percent, but we don’t get into the end application,” said Jeremy Gilstrap, Simpson Strong-Tie’s vice president of engineering. “We are not in a position to support what he’s doing.”

Amit Kumar, senior structural engineer with the city of Portland, has heard Kaiser’s pitch several times, once when Kaiser approached the city about joining him. Kumar said he feels compelled to warn parents that while CoreFirst might improve a school building, it is not a seismic upgrade.

“We have told him that he cannot use the city of Portland to sell his product in any of his propaganda,” Kumar said.

Kaiser still touts the endorsements of local structural engineering firm Nishkian Dean, as well as Art Johnson, the retired founder of KPFF and, incidentally, Patsy’s father-in-law.

Johnson and Nishkian Dean Vice President Edwin T. Dean in 2013 defended two aspects of CoreFirst in a , writing that there is merit in the notion of incremental seismic strengthening, and that examples of predictive seismic monitoring do exist.

“CoreFirst is a new approach to looking at a big challenge that we have long faced,” they wrote.

Creeped out

The latest on the GIS CoreFirst upgrade is that it’s still up in the air. On Wednesday, days before work was to start, Peters learned the cost had doubled to around $800,000. He said he was told by Kaiser it was the result of rising labor and material costs and price creep transferred through their chosen contractor, R&H Construction.

“Nobody knows with this new technology, so the cost keeps creeping,” Peters said.

R&H directed all questions to Kaiser.

A building permit with the city of Beaverton is still valid, and Peters said work will get done when the funding is in place, if not this summer, then next.

“Everyone is probably going to have to dig into their pockets a little deeper,” he said. “We will do this project.”

Frustrated with the pushback his idea has received, Kaiser admits he set out thinking, optimistically, that CoreFirst would “just get adopted.”

“The logic seemed so straightforward to me,” he said. “Perhaps that was illogical on my part.”

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