About Us

The Riverdale Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) is a small group of volunteers who have been trained by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) or the Lake Oswego Fire Department (LOFD) to help in the event of an emergency.

NETs deploy to help with emergency response or to educate others about how to prepare for and/or mitigate potential emergencies. Some past examples of NET activities include outreach through the schools to build awareness of personal emergency preparation, radio communication exercises in the neighborhood and with PBEM, or the LOFD, deployment to Covid test and vaccine sites to assist public health, deployment to wildfire evacuation sites during the 2020 fires, staffing warming and cooling shelters during heat and cold events, assisting Portland Fire and Rescue with flagging at downed power lines, and many more activities. 

An important part of the NET focus is helping individuals and neighborhoods become more resilient to emergencies. The Riverdale neighborhood is heavily treed, hilly, and located between two large natural areas, Riverview Natural Area and Tryon Creek State Park. Since there are limited access/retreat options from many of the homes, residents need to think about what natural hazards could potentially happen in their neighborhood, and how best to prepare themselves.

The majority of the Riverdale neighborhood is located in unincorporated Multnomah County, but a significant portion is located in unincorporated Clackamas County, as well as directly in Lake Oswego and Portland proper (including the high school). Law enforcement response benefits from mutual aid agreements between these various entities, providing additional support when these agencies have the capacity to respond. The majority of the neighborhood contracts with LOFD for fire response. In the event of a major emergency, like an earthquake, capacity in all the emergency response entities will be stretched, and response decisions will likely be predicated on sending aid to the highest density locations in need. Riverdale is not a high-density neighborhood, and we need to understand that and prepare ourselves as best we can.

The Riverdale School District has many students who attend from out of district, which may be an issue for reuniting with families in a major emergency. The high school is located in another district, Collins View. Riverdale NETs have been building a strong relationship with neighboring NET teams in Collins View and Marshall Park.


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If this all sounds complicated, it's not. The important point is everybody is better off when we get to know each other as a community, take some basic personal preparedness steps, have some general understanding of our neighborhood and potential hazards, and have a family plan.

More info on the NET program: