Laura Hall is the Portland metro region’s disaster messaging coordinator. She works for the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization (RDPO), which serves the five-county Portland metro Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) area in Oregon and Washington. She has coordinated the region’s joint information system during COVID-19, wildfire, and extreme heat.
Hall advocates at the local and state level for trauma-informed community-led disaster messaging that increases language and disability access to life-saving information. She seeks to support increased use of these best practices by public information officers, emergency alert and warning practitioners, community leaders, and others involved in disaster messaging.
Laura is also dedicated to school earthquake preparedness and is co-chair of Parents4Preparedness. She has a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Kansas and a Master of Arts in applied linguistics from Portland State University.