Enlivening Portland's Waterfront: Relocating Fire Station #1 to the Willamette River

摘要

Following a study that only one of the existing Portland Fire & Rescue [PF&R] stations could function after a massive earthquake, voters approved $61.1 million to improve City emergency facilities. In a seismic subduction zone event, massive liquefaction of alluvial sands could trigger a failure of the 1920's seawall along the Willamette River's west bank and acreage across Waterfront Park, Naito Parkway and well into the existing PF&R Fire Station 1 and Administrative Offices [FS1/A] site on Block 34. This seawall was ironically built to protect downtown from annual floods, but was back-filled with the sandy loams and silts washing downstream from the volcanic Cascade Mountains.