Wildfires are now a year-round threat

We used to consider “fire season” to be summer into fall, and then winter rains came along. These days, wildfire season seems to be year round!  So we should be taking steps for wildfire prevention year round, too.

Here are 5 Action Items for wildfire prevention. Let’s look at them right now, even while cold January rain is falling outside my window . . .

Wildfire prevention on your own property

I hope that you are pretty familiar with what to do for your own property. Action item #1: Confirm you’re following these basics of wildfire prevention.

1–Maintain defensible space. Maintain an area around the home cleared of brush, dead tree limbs, and flammable plants. In the areas close to your home, chose fire-resistant plants and keep all plants properly irrigated. The image below, showing different defensible zones, comes from the CalFire website: http://www.readyforwildfire.org/Defensible-Space/ .

State law in California requires properties in wildfire areas to maintain a 100 ft. defensible space. In 2015, The Los Angeles’ Brush Clearance Program set more specific – and more stringent — standards for clearance:

• 10 feet of roadways
• 10 feet of combustible fences
• 200 feet of structures

2–Use fire-resistant building materials. Use brick or stone for walls and garden borders. Build decks of noncombustible materials. Re-roofing? Choose fire-retardant shingles. Obviously, you might not be able to make dramatic changes immediately. But at least be aware of changes you should plan for.

3–Block embers. Most fires start from embers that catch on the house, not from a wall of fire! Install screens over vents and block access to eaves and under decks, etc.

This is only a partial list! 

I’m in California, where fire danger is particularly high. You may be in a less vulnerable location, or have different issues. So, Action item #2: Check with your own fire department for recommendations or programs for your neighborhood.

For another good overview resource, get this pamphlet from Farmers Insurance. https://www.farmers.com/content/dam/falcon/pdf/catastrophe-brochures/wildfire.pdf

And while we’re on insurance, be aware that your premium may reflect what you’ve done for fire prevention. Some companies may even offer a discount for defensible space and/or fire retardant building.

Action item #3: Talk with your insurance agent about your personal fire insurance coverage.

Wildfire prevention in your neighborhood

It’s one thing to take steps to protect your individual home.  After all, by law you are responsible for it.

But what if you live in a neighborhood of closely spaced homes, condos, or in a mobile home park? What about nearby community buildings? Local schools?  Parks? If they catch fire, you may be threatened, too.

Action item #4: Find out who is responsible for neighborhood properties. Do they know best practices for fire prevention, and are they following them?

You may need to contact a city or tribal agency, a property manager, or a neighborhood association. Once you have a contact, put on your leadership hat.

Are you on or can you attend a governing board that hires landscapers and/or gardeners? Make sure that your board and the landscapers are aware of basic fire prevention techniques for their site. Do they know what to plant, what to clear, what to trim – and do they do it? (Your fire department will surely be happy to send an expert to one of your board meetings.)

Your own HOA or emergency response team can help individual families understand the safest way to maintain private patios and gardens. Hold a meeting. Draft a notice to include with the rental invoice. Train a couple of your team members as “consultants” for people who have questions or don’t seem to get with the program.

Of course, even with well-maintained defensible space, a property can still burn. But if there’s a choice for fire fighters to protect a prepared space vs. an overgrown and unprepared space, which do you think they will choose?

Consider a community project for wildfire prevention

Since 2013, The National Fire Protection Association® (NFPA) and State Farm Insurance have been sponsoring Wildfire Community Preparedness Day.

This is a national campaign that encourages people to come together ON A SINGLE DAY to reduce wildfire risk. This year, Wildfire Community Preparedness Day is on May 4, 2019.

The idea is to get a group to work together on a project or event. Their efforts may be supported by $500 grants from State Farm.

Here’s what some groups have done in the past:

• 20 volunteers from the Red Cross, AmeriCorps and the tribe prepared a defensible space around the residences of 3 tribal elders in San Diego County.
• The local fire department and a youth organizations spent 3 days clearing out dead trees and underbrush from Colorado Mountain Zoo.
• An elementary school created a “Firewise garden” in front of their school.
• Boy scouts and local residents worked together on a clean-up day, cleaning roofs and gutters, removing vegetation and debris.
• Four towns in Colorado banded together to rent equipment to remove 66 truckloads of slash from home sites!

What about your emergency response group taking the lead on a project?

A community project might be a great way to motivate your group! At the same time you could help promote wildfire safety and strengthen relationships among residents, local fire department,  community leaders and elected officials.

To get one of the 150 awards being made by State Farm, you’ll have to submit a plan for your project by March 1.

Action item #5: get all the info about Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, including the application for the grant, at this website:  https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Campaigns/National-Wildfire-Community-Preparedness-Day

With the government shutdown still ongoing this week, the whole concept of reducing fire risks seems particularly important. Why? Because thousands of agency employees are not able to do the cleanup and training they would normally be involved in.

Time for us to step up ourselves. Even starting in the rain!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. This Advisory focuses on preparations you can make BEFORE a fire threatens. Evacuating and fighting fires are separate topics in themselves.

Start a new year, strengthen your team.

The first rescuers in a disaster are others who are right there. Your neighbors. Your co-workers. They know you. They know where you are likely to be, and whether they should search for you!

Improve your chances of survival by building a stronger team around you – in your neighborhood and at work.

If you’ve got the start of a team . . .

Last year (2018 was so long ago!) we focused on creating what we think are some helpful blueprints for building that team. To make them more useful, we customized by type of neighborhood you might find yourself in.

Each of the books in our Neighborhood Disaster Survival Series addresses a different type of neighborhood:

• An apartment or condominium neighborhood, where neighbors come and go, storage space may be limited, and since you don’t own the entire building, some preparedness options are limited. Improve your chances of survival by sharing and working together.
• A mobilehome community, where building standards vary so homes may be more vulnerable to certain natural disasters and top infrastructure threats include broken gas and water lines.
• A suburban neighborhood where options may be more varied but homes are so far apart you may not even know your neighbors or where families may have a “My home is my fortress.” attitude.
• A small business whose owner is typically torn between meeting current profitability necessities and providing for what feel like only potential business or employee losses.

Steady wins the race.

You can’t build a team quickly. The guides go into great detail about building teams. They focus on identifying leaders to start the process, and suggest that the leaders get Community Emergency Response Team training so they share some of the same skills and approach emergencies in a systematic way.

Once this core group is ready to go, its members can begin to pull in other neighbors. The guides have plenty of ideas for ways to attract neighbors and get them involved. Your team will find it easy to arrive at emergency preparedness recommendations for the whole neighborhood. They may even come up with a written plan. All this will improve your chances of survival.

Many, many neighborhoods around the country have followed a similar road to improving their resilience.

But what if you don’t have a team?

What are you doing or planning, at home or at work, to improve your chances of survival?

• If you have trained CERT graduates in your neighborhood, maybe they have stepped up to take on a leadership role. Or maybe you could encourage them to do so?
• If you have a property manager or business owner who is tuned in to emergency preparedness, has that person taken some steps for more resilience? Maybe you could suggest and support those efforts? (Lots of ideas here at Emergency Plan Guide!)
• What if nothing is happening in your neighborhood, and you feel like a voice in the wilderness?

Here in our community our team has shrunk. So we’ve decided that it’s time for a renewed neighborhood effort. We’re starting – again – from scratch!

Set the tone.

Remember this cartoon from the Advisory a couple of weeks ago? We’re using it to set the tone for our 2019 team-building effort. Friendly, not threatening or guilt-inducing.

Simple first step.

This week, we’re following up with the next step, providing neighbors with a simple form that they can fill out and share. The form is a simplified List of Emergency Contacts aimed at bringing neighbors together who may never really have met.

Here are instructions we’re sending along with the form:

Fill it out this form WITH YOUR INFORMATION.  Maybe your emergency contact is your daughter. Mention that. And under “Special notes” you could add your pet.

Make a few copies of this information about you, and make a few blank copies too. (You don’t need a form; a simple piece of paper will do.)

Then, step next door and introduce yourself and share this information. Ask neighbors to share their info in return. Exchanging info doesn’t mean you’re promising to be best friends. What you are doing, though, is making our neighborhood a friendlier place, and making it safer and more secure, too.  

A good way to start the year, don’t you agree?

Neighborhoods change, and neighbors change. Here in our own household we’ve noticed one thing that happened in 2018   – we’re getting older!

But no matter the exact circumstances, having good neighbors, and being a good neighbor, will improve your chances of surviving a disaster. We are all in this together!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. How well do you know your neighbors? Have you exchanged important contact info? Let us know how you went about it! We need all the suggestions we can get, because this seems to be one of the biggest challenges to starting a neighborhood group!

The number of threats can be overwhelming.

In just the past 2 weeks we have been bombarded with stories of threats that turned into disasters and near disasters.  I’m sure you’ll remember these:

October 10, 2018 –Michael makes landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in the Florida panhandle. 50 people dead, billions in losses.

October 15, 2018 – 60,000 without power as PG&E shuts down lines over more wildfire fears.

October 24, 2018– Police intercepted suspected pipe bombs sent to high-profile Democrats, in what New York officials described as an act of terrorism.

October 29, 2018 – Eleven people were killed and six others were injured on Saturday when a gunman opened fire in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

October 29, 2018 –Boeing jetliner crashes after take-off in Indonesia, all 189 aboard presumed lost.

This is just a short list. There were more. And throughout the country people suffered from local tragedies that didn’t make the national news.

How can we do a realistic job of preparing for so many threats?

Consider a systematic approach.

1-Start with a written list of threats.

In writing our Neighborhood Disaster Survival Series we found ourselves assembling multiple lists of potential threats. Ultimately we put together one list for homes and a different and considerably longer list for businesses.

You can build your own list. Get your team together in front of a BIG white board or easel (plenty of pages of paper) and brainstorm all the threats that you could possibly face. We have done this a number of times in our group, and we usually come up with 20-40 threats. (This is a great exercise to get people engaged. )

2-Narrow it down to threats that are realistic for you and your community.

Go back over your massive list (!) and start paring it down by removing threats that may be POSSIBLE but really aren’t PROBABLE.

Usually it’s simply a matter of replacing emotional response with common sense and some history.

For example, here’s a short list of threats with some thoughts that can get you started on the paring down process.

• Every day challenges like power outages – the most frequent disaster in the U.S. (and increasing in frequency). In our local neighborhood we have to include water main breaks and gas line breaks and/or shut-offs, because of the age and quality of our infrastructure.
• Potential localized dangers to your neighborhood, like transportation accidents – particularly high risk in industrial areas. If you live or work near an airport or beside train tracks, near chemical plants or certain industrial processing installations, threats of accident might be high; otherwise, you could probably take these threats off your list.
• Natural disasters like floods or storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, and wildfires – likely tied to your geographic location. These are always first on everybody’s list, and their likelihood is pretty easy to evaluate.
• Mass shootings and workplace violence – nearly always the result of personal motives and/or mental illness issues. Very difficult to anticipate or prepare for, but you could be blamed for negligence if you ignore the possibility.
• Attacks with weapons of mass destruction – suddenly appearing on our list after decades of being absent. We’re talking here about the threat of nuclear explosion or biological or chemical attacks. If you live and work in a major metropolitan area, particularly a government center, your risk would be higher.
• Cyber attacks – almost 3.25 billion data records were compromised in the U.S. during the first half of 2018; new vulnerabilities are being exploited as data moves to the cloud. As you read this, attacks ranging from simple virus infections to ransom claims are happening to individuals and businesses around the world.
• Lawsuits – becoming more frequent but one of the easiest threats to protect against.
• Terrorism – Whether international or domestic, terrorism results in dramatic news coverage. It is still relatively rare in the U.S., but the number of incidents has been rising.

3-Begin preparing for these selected threats.

Pick the most likely threats and start with those. What can you do to find out about the threat in advance? Can you mitigate (lessen) the impact by making changes NOW? What processes, tools and people might you need to recover once the threat has materialized? What’s the plan for assembling these resources, training, etc.?

Warning: Don’t let your emotional reaction prejudice your efforts.

During the “threat analysis” exercise you may find that people’s individual biases and emotional reactions are likely to emerge. Their experiences may make it tough for them to think dispassionately about a given threat.

Moreover, research has shown that most people seem to find man-made disasters more frightening and rate them as more severe than natural disasters. Terrorism tops the list for emotional reaction, even though it is very low on the probability list.

Try not to let these biases get in the way of making good decisions as to which disasters you actually prepare for!

Reminder: Plan to repeat.

Analyzing threats is something you’ll want to do more than once, because circumstances change. Build a repeat look at threats into your plan!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. We were hit this week by another of those “local” disasters. It had to do with a Windows 10 update. Our entire network just threw up its hands and quit.  So while I would normally have offered you our list of over 80 threats to business, I just haven’t been able to make it happen!  If you can’t wait, please just buy a copy of Emergency Preparedness for Small Business and you’ll find that list in the Appendix, along with a multi-page Risk Analysis Worksheet that can help you set priorities!  I’ll report in later about how we recover!

Do you have an answer when people ask, “Why are you involved in Emergency Preparedness?”

If you’re like me, you’ve been asked that question many times, in a variety of ways.

Common questions – do they sound familiar?

• What’s so great about emergency response?
• How do you even know where to start?
• What if your family really isn’t interested?

Frequent put-downs – tough to come up with an answer!

And then there are some people who don’t even pose a question, but come up with a comment designed to shut the whole conversation down.

• I don’t believe in scaring people.
• Nobody has that kind of money.
• Nothing bad is going to happen here.

The best answer? Facts!

The trick I’ve found is to have at hand a few facts to counter the emotions in these comments! And since Joe and I are planning to be at a big emergency preparedness community fair this weekend, I decided I needed a few updated facts.

I am sharing them below as the Emergency Preparedness Fact Sheet, with this month’s date. Obviously the fact sheet can get out of date mighty quickly!

I hope you will find these facts useful in casual conversations. You can use them to answer a question like one of those above. You can use them to start a substantive discussion at work or with a group you belong to. (Your neighbors may not agree with everything!) Share them with the press.  Customize, add, subtract.  But use the fact sheet contents when you can, and let us know how it works!

Emergency Preparedness Fact Sheet – October, 2018

Why I stay involved . . .

• More disasters: Weather-related disasters are increasing, quadrupling since 1970 to almost 400 per year. Hurricane Harvey was called the 3rd 500-year flood in 3 years. Hurricane Michael is strongest to hit Panhandle of Florida in recorded history. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/08/29/weather-related-disasters-are-increasing; https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/28/16211392/100-500-year-flood-meaning; https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/us/hurricane-michael-wxc/index.html
• Higher costs: The cost of disasters continues to go up. With three devastating hurricanes, extreme wildfires, hail, flooding, tornadoes and drought, the U.S. tallied a record high bill last year (2017) for weather-related disasters: $306 billion. . CBS News, Jan. 8, 2018
• Fewer deaths: The number of deaths caused by natural disasters is falling:
  • Cities invest in safety measures, advanced warning systems, better buildings.
  • Response organizations deliver food, water, sanitation, and medicine more quickly.
  • People have access to social media, GPS, television, radio to warn them to get out of the way or get prepared for impending disaster.
• Delayed response: However, in a widespread emergency, governments and aid organizations cannot always help communities immediately.  A new emphasis has arisen to promote “community resilience.” https://www.fema.gov/community-resilience-indicators
• Public apathy: Study after study says that Americans recognize the threat of natural disasters, but fewer than half of them have done anything to prepare. Statistics for small business preparedness are similar. https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2018/07/17/americans-disaster-preparedness-2018
• Limited citizen engagement: Since 1993 CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training has educated volunteers in basic disaster response skills such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations. Nationwide, in over 2,700 communities, more than 600,000 people have gone through the FEMA program. That’s 600,000 in a population of 325 million = 1 CERT grad for every 500+ neighbors! https://www.ready.gov/community-emergency-response-team
• Community organizations: Some local governments also create and support neighborhood preparedness groups, often based on CERT and operating under the office or department of Emergency Management. Examples are LA’s Ready Your LA Neighborhood (RYLAN) and Hawaii’s Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program (HHARP).
• Filling the gap: In most cities, when CERT graduates finish their training, they continue to train with other CERTs but go back into their neighborhoods without tools to help involve their neighbors. Emergency Plan Guide resources are meant to fill that gap:
  1. EmergencyPlanGuide.org regularly publishes articles and reports on various aspects of preparedness. The authors assume subscribers to the regular weekly Advisories have an interest in building more resilient neighborhoods, so most Advisories are designed for group leaders to share in a formal group (church, homeowners’ association, business, school) or informally.
  2. The Neighborhood Disaster Survival Series adds a new tool for building more resilient communities. Each book provides a thorough, step-by-step program, again based on CERT principles, to help community leaders and their neighbors understand vulnerabilities of their particular type of community and work together in a more organized fashion to prepare for and respond to emergencies. The goal of each book is to help a group develop a PLAN for PREPAREDNESS that will have some staying power; the small business book is also designed to keep a business out of legal trouble.

What “facts” or emotions keep YOU involved? Are you able to get other people engaged by describing your own feelings or concerns? What “arguments” have worked best for you in getting others to take action?

Let us know in the comments!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

The following is a . . .

Special Report from North Carolina

It’s from one of our readers in North Carolina. Sparky Wilson was a guest author a Emergency Plan Guide a couple of years ago, so when Florence hit I knew he was in the affected area. I wrote and was gratified (and pretty amazed!) to get back this detailed assessment of what he and his fellow CERT members have been going through.

I’ve attached some of his photos from the area, too.

You will see that the report suggests a number of ideas for building your team. I’’ll be developing some of them in future Advisories.

In the meanwhile, read on . . .!

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Virginia, here’s some hurricane news from the Sandhills of central North Carolina!   My wife and I live in Carolina Trace, a gated community of 3,000+ people living in 1,750+ homes, situated on 2,500 acres of heavily forested rolling hills with a 330-acre lake in the middle of the community.  It is both beautiful and a challenge when disasters hit – like hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, chemical spills, heavy rains, and snow and ice storms.

Hurricane Florence is the second hurricane our CERT has been involved with.  Two years ago, we were activated for Hurricane Matthew – high winds, heavy rain, over 500 downed trees and some damaged homes.  We learned a lot from the Matthew experience and identified areas where we could improve performance.

I would like to share some of the lessons we have learned.

I am convinced CERT should . . .

Create Emergency Operations Plans for their neighborhood(s) and coordinate them with key players.  The key players include, but are not limited to: the emergency services office, fire department, ambulance service, local shelter, HOA/POA(s), power, water and sewage connection points, and the agency charged with evacuating residents.

Coordinate frequently with the organization directing your team.  Our team reports to the Director of Emergency Services.  Learn who else will be out there responding and what can they do for you and vice versa.  There are many organizations in your community that will be operating during a disaster response – EMS, fire departments, Red Cross, law enforcement, neighborhood security forces, transportation agencies, Baptist Men’s Group, and the list goes on.  You’re going to see them all when the disaster strikes – get to know them now.

Good radio communication is extremely important and never seems to go the way you want.  Carolina Trace CERT issues a MURS radio (short-distance Multi-Use Radio Service, limited to 2 watts power) to every team member.  It’s our go-to radio for intra-team operations because they are relatively inexpensive, we can add more powerful antennas for increased range and there is no licensing requirement.  We encourage our CERT volunteers to become Amateur “Ham” radio operators.  Ham radios are great when it comes to reaching out to others in an emergency.

(Note though that Amateur Radio Operation requires licensed operators so plan ahead.  We are fortunate in that we have a narrow-band digital radio that allows us to communicate directly with the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and our fire department wherever they are in the County.)

Know your team’s strengths and weaknesses.  We have learned a lot about our strengths and weaknesses during exercises and especially during Hurricane Matthew.  We have worked hard since Matthew to improve our capabilities in those areas where we found weaknesses while maintaining proficiency where we were already to standard.   Our field exercises have garnered recognition from our first responders and has led to more training with and from them, thus creating good communications and a better understanding of roles and capabilities for us and them.

We were prepared when the cone of uncertainty indicated we were at risk. Florence brought us tropical storm force winds and fifteen to twenty inches of rain (depending on where you lived in the County).  Some homes were damaged, many trees were toppled and several roads are still impassable due to flooding.  We offered support to the county shelter and checked on neighbors when it was safe to venture out.  We also provided damage assessments to the fire department and the county Emergency Operations Center.

Next steps in our CERT response in Hurricane Florence

Carolina Trace clearly “dodged the bullet” when Florence dipped South and skirted us.  That said, our preparations through hands-on monthly training sessions and radio checks, field exercises and partnerships with the professionals have led our team members to feel confident in knowing how and what to do when disaster strikes.  They understand that If things don’t go well in training they are not likely to go well when it’s for real.  Our next step is to conduct a Hot Wash (AAR – After Action Report) to identify areas where we can do better and focus future training on those areas.

Virginia adds: You can see that Carolina Trace has a pretty well organized neighborhood CERT team, with a history of training, connections with local officials, current equipment, etc. Not every community has this level of neighborhood commitment and support, but it is something we can all aim for. A team of trained volunteers in our neighborhoods could make all the difference in how we get through any emergency.

Thanks to Sparky for this timely and valuable information. Please share it — and share YOUR story, too. This is how we know what’s really going on.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. If you liked this Advisory, sign up below to get one every week.  Disasters aren’t going to stop coming.

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 9, 2018.

Yes, it’s fun to pull together survival kits for yourself and family members. For some of us, getting more and better survival gear turns out to be a sort of addiction! (A healthy addiction, we believe.) And creating family plans is satisfying, even though they require constant updating.

But once your immediate household is organized, what then?

When the emergency hits, are your neighbors going to be knocking on your door, looking for help?

They may. And you may not want or be able to help them.

The only way to solve this problem is to encourage neighbors and co-workers to be as prepared as you are!

We have devoted a lot of our time over the past 15 years to helping our neighbors get prepared, trained and organized.  If you’ve been reading our Advisories, you know about some of what we’ve done.

Now we’re adding one more piece to the puzzle.

Building a Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Team — getting more attention.

About 3 years ago, we started a whole new section on building a neighborhood group. Here’s how we started that section:

1. Step One was to pull together all our original material on team-building that we’ve created for Emergency Plan Guide readers. That list starts at the bottom of this post.
2. Step Two was to reach out to other organizations around the U.S. for their best ideas. In fact, many of our blog posts already link to others’ stories and skills, and we’ve added more and more.
3. Step Three was to solicit specific input for Emergency Plan Guide readers. We continue to do this, and you can help by referring us to people or sources you know, or by suggesting a topic you’d like to know more about. We’ll track down and share the best info we can find!

Let’s start with resources for those people who have already made the commitment to starting or building a neighborhood group.

We assume that as the leader, you will have found a way to get formal CERT training for yourself.  Not all members of your team may get training, but you need the framework and vocabulary of CERT so that your group can work effectively together and with local first responder teams.

So to start with Step One for building a neighborhood emergency preparedness team . . .

. . .here is a list of some original material from the Emergency Plan Guide collection. Most of this is ready for download as is, with the first couple of handbooks available for purchase.  We hope you’ll find what you need for YOUR group!

Comprehensive training manuals

• The Neighborhood Disaster Survival Series — our 4 books aimed at building groups in different kinds of neighborhoods. Each book is over 100 pages filled with specific steps and suggestions based on 15 years of growing our own group.  The books are at Amazon, in ebook (downloadable) or paperback.
• Meeting Ideas — A collection of meeting ideas, with a list of what you’ll need, how best to schedule the activities, what to watch out for, etc. $10 at Amazon. Get more details by clicking the link.

Stand-alone subjects for training or discussion

• UPDATED! How to Recruit Volunteers — We just updated this list. Download your copy now!
• How to Hold a Great Meeting — Event-planning basics that you’re probably familiar with, but that can help others on your team get up to speed. Since we started our own group, we’ve been able to provide a great overhead projection and sound system for our guest speakers.  That helps, as long as you have some skilled audio-visual people on hand!
• Finding Leaders — Every member of your team needs to be able to step up to lead. After all, when the emergency hits, you can’t be sure who will be on hand.
• Active Shooter Event — Worth a discussion, particularly given recent developments here and abroad.
• For more, just click on NEIGHBORHOOD in the category listing in the sidebar to the right.

Possible group investments

• Walkie-Talkies for Group Communications — We use our hand-held radios (walkie-talkies) every month and for many non-emergency events.
• Community Cache of Supplies — Read about our group’s decision in this regard.
• Financing Serious Emergency Equipment — These are items that take some real cash and consideration.

More to come! (Be sure to sign up to get our Advisories so you don’t miss anything!)

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. Step Two for Building a Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Team is to reach out to other organizations. Just last week you saw the results of some of our outreach when we wrote about the Lamorinda California CERT team’s upcoming meeting. Please share what YOUR group is doing!

At any given moment, take a look to your left. Then to your right. If disaster hits right now, one of those people is going to be your “first responder!”

Given what you see, what are your chances???

“We are all in this together.”

Here at Emergency Plan Guide you’ll see our wholistic approach again and again: “We are all it this together.” That’s why we extend our concern beyond individuals to the groups they find themselves in.

In our new book, Emergency Preparedness for Small Business , we point out the many groups connected to a business. Here’s an abbreviated look at some of them, and how they fit into the “wholistic” approach.

Every business community plays a role in YOUR business’s ability to survive a disaster, . . . and needs to be included in your “wholistic” emergency preparedness plan.

Your relationship with each of these groups can impact your brand and your reputation. Your community relationships impact your employees’ skill levels and quality of life. And your communities play a role in your ability to respond to emergencies.

If you’re a business owner or an employee, are you including these communities in your wholistic planning? 

What follows are excerpts from Chapter 3 in the book. (More communities are identified there.)

-The physical location

If you are in a business or industrial location your primary official contacts are likely the city government and local fire department. They will be concerned about providing immediate response to the threat of toxic chemicals, fire, flood, etc.

Other nearby businesses will have the same concerns – and will compete for the same official resources.

If your business is located near (or in) a residential area, nearby residents may have additional concerns about safety and security, including the company being prone to looting or other potential lawless activity.

-Employees and their family members

Communications with staff and family members are absolutely critical.

You probably already have an Emergency Contact form for employees. Does it have contact info for ALL family members plus an out-of-area contact? Do you know about special skills employees may bring to the emergency response table?

-First Responders, hospitals and other health care resources

How close are you to fire and rescue installations, hospitals, emergency care facilities? Under normal conditions, how long does it take them to respond to an alarm in your neighborhood?

Within your organization, what medically trained people are available, and what first aid and medical supplies do you have on hand for them to use?

-Utilities

Have you met with representatives of your different utility companies? What is their ability to respond to disruptions? Who in your organization should be trained on utility protocols?

-Telecommunications Companies

What level and type of services do you receive for voice, data, internet, video and restoration services in an emergency?

-Local, State and National Governments

What kind of resources can be mobilized at the local city level to deal with a crisis? The county or state level? How/when could you receive assistance from a National Guard deployment? FEMA?

-Stakeholders

Keeping the various stakeholders (board of directors, financial advisors, etc.) apprised of business conditions is an important management commitment. All stakeholder groups will have questions and will likely demand updates as to the company’s status in an emergency.

-Suppliers and business partners

What contingency plans do your suppliers have in case they run into problems?

-Customers

How will you support customers – local, long-distance, international – if the business is interrupted? How will customers be contacted in an emergency?

-Social Media

We have seen repeatedly how “news” of emergencies spreads dramatically via smartphones. Keeping the company’s messaging consistent to prevent rumors and speculation is a primary requirement in an emergency. Do you have protocols set up?

OK. These aren’t all the “communities” associated with a business. One of the reasons they all need to be considered?

Neighboring business communities may have conflicting interests in a disaster.

Bear in mind that the interests of these different groups can vary greatly.

Most will likely be sympathetic to your emergency situation and even helpful in the recovery process. Others may jump at the opportunity to take advantage of your problems. Still others might feel you were negligent in not taking reasonable or sufficient precautions to protect them from your problem – not to mention protecting your own employees, visitors, etc.

As always, thinking your situation through before an emergency hits will help you anticipate everything that could go wrong – and help you start setting priorities for building the processes and the relationships within the community that will make your response easier and more effective.

You might want to take another, closer look at Emergency Preparedness for Small Business. You can see the entire Table of Contents at Amazon.  

Virginia and Joe
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. We’re not lawyers but we have had enough business experience to be able to warn our readers of some of the legal dangers of not having a business emergency plan. We include those warnings in Chapter 8 in the Book.

Now available:

Emergency Preparedness for Small Business

The book that closes the gap in disaster survival between a business and its family communities.

The series expands: Emergency Preparedness for Small Business

No longer do small businesses have to put their business, their lives and their employees’ lives — and livelihood — at high risk in a catastrophic event. Emergency Preparedness for Small Business makes writing a simple Business Continuity Plan manageable and even easy. And we know that having that up-to-date, workable Plan improves the odds of business survival by an order of magnitude.

The foundation already exists.

This fourth book in the Neighborhood Disaster Survival Guide series has one unique purpose — to get business owners and leaders of their workforce community to adopt the widely acclaimed FEMA Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) process as an already-existing foundation for their Plan. CERT is provided free by over 2,500 cities and counties across the U.S. as well as on the FEMA website.

Authors Nicols and Krueger are themselves CERT graduates, and in the book have combined their years of working with business with their years of developing and leading a neighborhood emergency response team.

The first three books in the series were devoted to fulfilling the promise of CERT, giving individual members a way to leverage their training by reaching out and connecting neighbors and even whole neighborhoods.

This book extends CERT basics to the business community.

There’s no longer any excuse.

Joe Krueger says, “Whether you’re at home or at work, there’s no excuse for simply rolling the dice in an emergency. In fact, at work that attitude could be grounds for a lawsuit!”

Now businesses as well as neighborhoods have a simple roadmap for preparing for the natural disasters that threaten, as well as the even-more-frequent man-made ones. Each book presents options and real-life examples, offers step-by-step guidelines and adds references to dozens of other resources. There’s an occasional legal warning, too.

The message to all:

Disasters have surged 400% over the past 20 years – and they are bigger, often overwhelming official First Responders. It’s up to citizens to know what to expect and how to react, because they become the real “first responders!”

All 4 books are available as ebook or paperback at Amazon. Here are direct links:

1. Emergency Preparedness for Apartment Communities
2. Emergency Preparedness for Mobilehome Communities
3. Emergency Preparedness for Homeowner Communities
4. Emergency Preparedness for Small Business

When the disaster hits, it’s too late for preparing or for training.  Take the first step now.

New hurricane season started June 1.

Recent headlines announce the start of a new hurricane season, with between 10 and 16 named hurricanes to look forward to. There’s apparently a new threat, too – “superstorms” that fall outside the regular categories!

So, have you moved recently? Or are you planning some travel?

Or maybe right now you are sitting in an area that could be threatened by the winds, storm surge or flooding from a hurricane? (Hurricanes don’t just hit coastal areas. They can create flooding for hundreds of miles inland.)

At Emergency Plan Guide we’ve written about hurricanes before, of course. (Remember the “Hurricane Headscratcher” that we put out last year?) But even if you think you’re an “expert,” it can’t hurt to refresh your understanding of some smart things to do to prepare.

Here are two excellent references, new to this Advisory:

1. For families: . https://www.ready.gov/hurricanes  Note particularly the comments about signing up for local alerts and getting familiar with local evacuation zones and routes.
2. For business: http://www.agilityrecovery.com/assets/hurprep.pdf This 4-page checklist was written in 2013 so the statistics may not be up to date, but the recommendations are worth considering, particularly those that have to do with shutting your business down before the storm hits.

And to get back to Harvey, where there are still lessons to be learned . . .

Hurricane season reminds me of Harvey, so I went back to see what has happened in Texas since the storm hit there last year. (August-September, 2017)

The following list is about Texas, but it could apply to most every community affected or threatened by a natural disaster. (In fact, there are some striking similarities between what people in Houston experienced and what is going on right now in Hawaii.)

As you read, think about the threats your community could face and how it might fare . .

1- Insurance. Most homes in Harvey’s path didn’t have flood insurance. Since the storm, applications for flood insurance have increased, as you might expect. What you might not have expected is that the vast majority of new policies (quoted as 70% by one agent) are for homes outside the mapped flood hazard area. People are recognizing that planning around the concept of the “100 year flood” isn’t adequate.

2- Name. Harvey was so destructive (51 inches of rain in certain parts of Texas) that its name has been retired from the list of potential names for future storms.

3- Help from the Government. Texas has requested and received millions in aid for rebuilding. At the same time, the state requested “flexibility” in deciding how the funds should be used. This has alarmed advocates for housing and for disadvantaged communities because the list of projects submitted along with the requests was heavily weighted toward large-scale infrastructure.

4- Homeless. The problems haven’t ended for people displaced by the storm. Of course, some homeowners have started rebuilding. But other people whose homes were damaged have been notified they need to elevate the homes before they can move back in. Naturally, many can’t afford what can be considered major renovation. And the FEMA vouchers that were allowing homeowners to stay in hotels have now run out.

5- More homeless. People who were renting when the flood hit have suffered even more. If they had no insurance, they may have lost most of their personal property. Those who hadn’t found new apartments and had been staying in hotels found their vouchers ended even sooner than homeowners.

6- Still more homeless. I don’t even want to mention the FEMA trailers sitting empty months after the storm . . .

More results you may never have even considered.

7- Jails. Flooded courthouses slowed the wheels of justice, causing jails to become overcrowded. According to one jail insider, “The situation is so dire that the county lock-up may soon have to begin turning away arrestees.” (I was unable to find out if that actually happened.)

8- Animals. The water that inundated the area also caused displacement of animals. Alligators from the wild and also from parks floated free and appeared in flooded neighborhoods. Fire ants, driven from their underground homes, clustered into “floating islands” to protect their queens until waters receded and they were able to build new nests in new locations.

9- Disease. Medical professionals continue to monitor the impacts of the air pollution, contaminated water and mold caused by the flooding, mostly from the superfund sites in the region. Researchers predict long-term health and emotional health problems.

Yes, 2017’s hurricane season was “the most costly and disruptive on record” in the U.S. So maybe this year won’t be so bad?!

You can hope.

In the meanwhile, this one storm alone reminds us how Americans have become so dependent on modern conveniences – power, hospitals and medical services, transportation, communications – that when these get interrupted or destroyed, the results can be disastrous.

Time to take another look at how well YOU are prepared for an emergency.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. Many of our Advisories are meant to be shared. This is one. In particular, share the links to the two sets of checklists for families and for business. Just one good idea could save both money and anguish — not to mention lives.

If you’ve been following our Advisories for a while, you know that we base a lot of our preparedness activities on CERT principles.

In good company!

We took the CERT training in 2001 — more than 15 years ago! We continue to support the local team. The image shows me at a CERT Appreciation  Breakfast last weekend. I’m there with the Police Explorer honor guard.  (Had to get up close to those outstanding young people!)

What is CERT?

CERT, of course, stands for Community Emergency Response Team. It’s a training program that fits under the umbrella of Citizen Corps. The Corps is a Federal Program started after 9/11 to help citizens get involved in protecting their neighborhoods.

(I looked it up: Citizen Corps manages six programs — CERT, Fire Corps, National Neighborhood Watch, Medical Reserve Corps, Volunteers in Police Service and the Corporation for National and Community Service. All these fall under the umbrella of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.)

According to the CERT website, its purpose is to “educate people about disaster preparedness and train them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and disaster medical operations.” To see the whole detailed description, plus a few photos, head to the official site: https://www.ready.gov/community-emergency-response-team

The great thing about CERT

The training is standardized across the country.It is usually offered FREE OF CHARGE by coordinators from your city’s administration, local fire department and/or local police department.

Training session – note “Buddies”

If you want to understand what would happen to your community in an emergency, I urge you to get this training! 

• It’s fun, sometimes challenging, always well done. (Trainers are certified.)
• You’ll make new friends of people you never would come into contact with otherwise.
• You’ll review some first aid basics you learned way back when. Plus you will get a lot of new info like how to use radio technology and be ready for an active shooter. Follow-up programs let you practice using equipment like flares and fire extinguishers.
• Your understanding of the role of First Responders will change.
• And you’ll come out with some basic emergency preparedness gear: backpack or duffel bag, gloves, flashlight, face mask, etc.

Earthquake outreach to the community

And after the training, CERT members can be activated to serve.

We’ve promoted our city’s program, and participated every year in one or the other of the ongoing trainings they put on. Along the way we’ve been called up by the police department to help at events like these:

• Volunteers were requested at 11:30 pm to help with searches for lost citizens. (Both times, the lost person was older and suffered from some sort of dementia. Both times, the lost person was found, but only after he had spent the night outdoors, who knows where . . .)
• We provided support to various city-sponsored community events, like fairs and races – staffing booths, directing traffic, etc.
• CERT members did a door-to-door distribution of flyers to promote an anti-crime initiative. We also helped residents prepare for a possible weather event.

Every time we show up, we see some of our classmates!

Joe waiting for his assignment at a recent drill (before it started raining)

In this past year of significant disasters, other CERT members around the country have performed a variety of services. Some staffed HAM radio stations, others worked in emergency shelters. CERT members acted as wildfire spotters. Others supported community programs like installing smoke alarms, and helping manage pets during evacuations.

Where CERT is weak

All CERT trained individuals come out a lot more confident and a lot more knowledgeable.  They are ready to provide support to First Responders in emergencies.

Problem #1: After the training people go right back into a neighborhood where most of the others are still unaware and unprepared!

That training could be spread to more people in the neighborhood – but in most cases it is simply squandered.

Now that our city has nearly 2,000 graduates, they are trying to build a stronger community network of CERT grads. But they have run into a major problem that has plagued the effort for years.

Problem #2: The city, due to “privacy concerns,” is unable to share names and addresses of the people who have received the training!

This puts the burden of organizing a local neighborhood group on a single person or family.

What our neighborhood has done with CERT

We have been able to overcome this in our own local neighborhood, as you know. For years we promoted the class, month after month. Eventually we built up a core group of around 30 CERT graduates who were then able to attract even more neighbors – with or without formal CERT training — to join in our local neighborhood emergency response group.

How we built that neighborhood team is, of course, the story I’ve told in my Disaster Survival Series, just published. Our group’s success was based on CERT, our Homeowner Association’s support, and a lot of determined and committed people. I’ve documented all the steps we’ve taken in building the group.

Looking to promote more resilience in your OWN neighborhood?

There are probably a half-dozen or even more good training programs that would benefit your neighbors and could be molded into a neighborhood or group training program.

CERT has worked for us because it is free, nationally certified and recognized by property owners and the media. It is non-profit and is supported by our local First Responder community.

I recommend you find out more about CERT availability from your city’s Office of Emergency Management (maybe called the Department of Emergency Management, or Emergency Management Office). It’s possible only a couple of classes will be held each year, but in some communities there will be more. Find out! (If you can’t get training in your town, you can get some of the basics online. )

This is one tax-payer supported program that really pays off.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

We have taken the CERT ball and run with it because, unlike some of the alarmist survivalist factions, we don’t want to be totally on our own in a disaster! We want friendly and prepared neighbors all around!