Video: Quarantined Portlanders Cheer Health Care Workers From Their Balconies

The mayor asked: “Step outside on your balcony, front porch, or open a window and cheer for our heroes.”

Red Cross Center, Northeast Portland. (Rocky Burnside)
By Aaron Mesh

At dusk, some Portland neighborhoods are filled with the sound of applause, clanging pans and barking dogs, as people step onto their porches to thank health care workers.

The noise comes at the request of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who called for a minute of cheering each night at 7 pm for nurses, doctors, firefighters and grocery clerks who are risking COVID-19 to perform necessary jobs.

Wheeler based his idea on similar cheers in Italy and India. "It's incredibly moving," he wrote last week. "Step outside on your balcony, front porch, or open a window and cheer for our heroes. Use your pots and pans if you'd like."

Different neighborhoods have responded with varying enthusiasm. Most of the videos the mayor's office have retweeted appear to show the Pearl District, where apartment and condo residents have taken to the idea. In Foster-Powell, people have reported mortar explosions. In some inner eastside neighborhoods, nothing seems to happen at all.

All of this is prologue to a request: Send us video of your neighborhood cheer. Videos can be sent to: web@wweek.com.

Meanwhile, here's what the Pearl sounded like Sunday evening. The dogs really seem into it.

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