Learn more about the

Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub:

2021 report by EcoNorthwest, commissioned by

the City of Portland and Multnomah County

Get Connected

Is your home in the blast zone?

  • Blast Zone Map

    This map is provided by 350pdx to determine if your home or workplace is within the blast zone of a derailed zenith oil train. Click here to be directed to the map on www.350pdx.org.

  • Zenith Oil Trains

    Zenith Energy is a Houston-based oil company that operates out of a Portland terminal. Crude oil is shipped there by rail, transferred to vessels on the Willamette River, and shipped out through the Columbia River to ports along the West Coast. 

    If a Zenith train experienced a derailment, the highly pressurized oil cars are likely to explode, affecting the health and wellbeing of nearby communities and the environment.

    In what is now considered a backroom deal, in 2022, Portland’s city government met privately with Zenith to discuss how the company would transition from handling crude oil to renewable fuels at its rail site. The city had rejected a previous land use permit and state courts refused to overturn the decision. But the city worked behind closed doors with Zenith to coordinate a new permit, approved in October 2022. 

    Activists have been opposing Zenith for seven years and are currently working in opposition of this permit.

A Strategy to

Shelter in Place

Depending on air quality from smoke or chemicals, sometimes the best thing to do in an emergency is to actually stay in your home. This video explains the materials that you’d need to have on hand and the best way to seal off your home.

This video created by Portland Neighborhood Emergency Teams (NET). Neighborhood Emergency Teams are Portland residents trained by PBEM and Portland Fire & Rescue to provide emergency disaster assistance within their own neighborhoods.

NET also has a more humorous version of this video on the same subject.

Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge

Portland will face extreme infrastructure challenges in the event of an earthquake, and most of the current bridges in Portland are expected to fail. There is a movement to rebuild the Burnside Bridge as a main artery between the east and west sides of Portland.

As of September 2024, then Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a design for the new Burnside Bridge.