Category: Neighborhood groups

Worried about someone lurking in the shadows?

We’re known as the “Survival People” on our block, so it’s not uncommon for people to stop and ask for our opinions about anything connected to survival, which seems to include security.

Last week we got asked TWICE:

“What outdoor lighting do you recommend for security?”

We’ve written about this topic before, but the questions pushed us to do more research and ask our own questions, so before we give any answer, here’s more of what we’ve learned.

Question 1. Do bad guys prefer to operate in the dark?

According to all the stories we’ve read, and we’ve read a lot of them, the simple answer is, “No.”

In fact, there are many reports of cities or neighborhoods in both the U.S. and other countries where street lighting was turned off – to save money, usually – and street crime went DOWN.  Why?  Apparently bad guys don’t like tripping over things in the dark any more than you do.

And when they use a flashlight, it’s immediately noticeable.

Question 2. So does outdoor lighting actually encourage bad guys?

That depends. Lights that are on all the time give bad guys the ability to see what they are doing and get it done more easily.

However, if someone is watching the premises, and sees suspicious activity and acts quickly to stop it, then the lighting is useful. The key is to have that alert human presence.

At your house or business, who is keeping watch at night? Are they watching all night?

Question 3. What about motion activated lights?

Now we are getting somewhere.  A light on all the time is predictable and becomes unremarkable. When a light goes on suddenly, it is startling – and noticeable. Anyone within sight of the light is going to look to see what set it off.

So from a security standpoint, motion activated lights are the obvious choice.

Here’s what we have at home.

Now at our house, we actually DO have a light that burns all night. It’s on the porch and is designed to light the steps for us and for visitors. It’s a hardwired fixture with energy-efficient LED bulb, and we have checked to be sure our neighbors aren’t bothered by it. The bulb has lasted for years.

We have hardwired motion sensor lights where we park the car. They make it easy for us to get to and from the backdoor and into and out of the car.

Finally, behind the house, we have solar powered motion-activated lights. When they come on at night, we are awakened instantly and are able to look out to see what may have set them off. (Usually we can’t tell! Perhaps it’s a bird flying by. Occasionally we suspect an animal like a possum or raccoon. We haven’t seen any people crossing the backyard, yet.)

One of these lights actually has an audible alarm that can be turned on or off, too.

If you’re shopping for lights, here are some recommendations and suggestions about what to look for.

Recommendations for Solar Powered Lights

We started years ago with simple battery-operated lights. While they were easy to install, they seemed always to be dim and dying. So, we quickly turned to hard-wired lights. They work great but you need a ladder, patience and some handy-man smarts to install them.

When solar powered lights came on the scene, we were thrilled.  Particularly since we live in Southern California!

Solar lights are either one self-contained unit (solar panel + storage battery + light itself) or have separate components: solar panel (that must be mounted where it gets sun) connected via a thin wire to the actual battery + lighting fixture.

Whether you select the self-contained unit or the component unit depends on where you’re installing the light and where the sun is.

Over the years we have tried small, inexpensive solar-powered lights and moderately priced ones and have concluded that you pretty much get what you pay for. You can get great deals at Amazon, where, as you know, we are affiliates.

Here are two lights that we really like. Click on the images to get all details.

This Litom Bright 60 LED Solar Powered Security Light seems to be top of the line in its price range (around $40). We have found it to be as bright as we need, and some of the reviewers at Amazon say that it is brighter than any others they have tried! This light is also waterproof, essential for an outdoor fixture.

The best part is how adjustable the light is. You can set it for dim or strong, set it for always-on or motion-activated, and you can adjust the “activation” area as well as the “lighting” area. Really, it ought to work for whatever you need!

Read the reviews at Amazon, and they will give you more ideas about installing and using the light. (If you want a white finish, take a look at the Sunforce 82080 80-LED Solar Motion Light model. It costs within a dollar of the Litom model.)

The second recommendation is for a light made by the same company. The Litom 20 Big LED Solar Sensor Powered Wall Light is smaller, more compact, and even brighter! (And less expensive — around $25.) Many of the Amazon reviewers say that they got several in order to cover different areas of their property. Last time I looked, you could purchase packs of 4 for a discounted price.

As I wrote this, Litom was offering some special deals on Amazon. (Scroll down on the page below the photos.) And different sellers were charging quite different prices!  So take the time to shop!

To get details and current prices, click on the images.

To summarize.

Lighting alone will not deter a determined bad guy. But good lighting can make it safer for you and visitors, and motion-activated lighting can cause an unwanted visitor to change plans.

Let us know your experiences with lighting!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

We have full reviews of several popular emergency items. See all our product reviews and recommendations here.

Top Ten Items For Your Emergency Plan

If you think you are already prepared, use this list as a quick check. If you suspect you’re missing a few things, use the list to fill in the gaps.

Food the Means to Prepare It and Eat It . . .

Water, Food and Medicines – Enough for the entire household including pets, to last for a minimum of 3 days . . . up to one or two weeks if possible. Best to stock up on the canned soups, staples and packaged foods you normally eat, and then rotate to keep supplies fresh. (We have enough sardines and packages of instant latte coffee to survive for a month!) Don’t overlook a 14-day supply of important medications (think customized first aid kit) for you, your children and your pet.

Prescriptions, Medical Devices, etc. – In a serious event, electricity, running water and plumbing facilities may not be available for hours or days. Without power, ATMs, computer systems and electronic cash registers will be inoperative, making the renewal of prescriptions challenging if not impossible. Likewise, life-sustaining devices such as oxygen machines that require power may have to be run on “inverters” (alternative power devices that convert the direct current of a car battery to alternating current). Inverters or small solar panels can also power small appliances, laptop computers, etc. and serve as a recharging source for smart phones, iPods and other electronics. In all these, wattage requirements will determine if the system works for you. Test everything in advance! Note: Power generators are both expensive and unwieldy and are not practical in most residential settings.

Camping Stove, Hand-Held Can Opener & Eating Utensils – Disposable plates & eating utensils may prove satisfactory but keep in mind that if the emergency continues, leaving you without power, water or garbage disposal or pickup, you will need to think outside of the box to survive. We recommend a propane-powered camping stove even if you have an outside barbecue.

Communications Are Your Link to Friends, Family and the Reality of the World Around You.

Emergency Radios that Receive NOAA and Local Government Broadcasts – With TV and internet out, the only sure way you will know what’s happening is via emergency radio transmissions. Have at least one full service radio for the home (two or more for larger, multi-story homes or community residences) and one smaller hand-held model for each family vehicle.

Walkie-Talkies – These hand-held multi-channel, battery-powered communicators will work regardless of a power outage. They are the best way for your CERT Teams to communicate with volunteers and for you to keep in touch with your neighbors following an emergency. We have extra units strategically placed throughout our house and a pair in each car.

Emergency Contact Numbers – When local telephone circuits are down or overloaded, you may be able to use out of state relatives or contacts as a way to relay messages to family members, employees or associates. But this works only if all parties are in on the scheme before a disaster strikes.

You Will Need Light and Heat When There is No Power.

Flashlights and Battery-Powered Lighting – With the widespread availability of LED (light emitting diode) devices, we use far fewer batteries than we used to with incandescent bulbs. Flashlights are cheap; have more than one. Keeping a small 250+ Lumen flashlight in a handy location in each room in the house ensures you can safely navigate in the dark. But you will also want a couple larger, more powerful (500+ Lumens) flashlights and possibly even a headlamp or two that leaves both hands free. And you’ll appreciate some LED table lamps or lanterns for general lighting needs.

Winner in past tests

More on Batteries From Our Experience – We need batteries for everything from radios to flashlights to smart phones and other devices, typically AAA, AA, C & D sizes. Most batteries manufactured under the Duracell and Energizer brands are guaranteed to have a 10-year shelf life. In our experience, this is misleading. Ten years may be possible under ideal conditions . . . whatever those are.

With few exceptions, we have found the batteries to lose some of their power midway through this period, and many start to corrode. The basic “copper top” Duracell batteries seem to deteriorate more rapidly than the standard Energizers – 3 to 1 in our experience – but the new (and more expensive) “red-top” Duracell batteries seem to perform better. We only have a few months experience with them.

The bottom line: Whatever brand batteries you use, don’t leave radios or electronic devices sitting for long periods of non-use with batteries installed. Take the batteries out and look at them carefully before reinstalling. If you have devices with corroded terminals, they can sometimes be rejuvenated by using a cotton swab to apply a water & baking soda paste (which will absorb the corrosion) and removing the resulting dry crust with a wooden toothpick or a single prong of a broken plastic fork. This works about half the time, seemingly depending on how bad the buildup or corrosion was.

Clothing You Can Count On to Keep You Warm – Even in moderate climates nights get cold. Your emergency kit needs to contain at the very least a warm coat and sturdy shoes. It’s easy to add a space blanket and rain slicker. (A large plastic garbage bag is better than nothing.) Blankets in the car will be welcome when you’re stuck trying to get home.

Take Care of Personal Needs. 

Hygiene and Sanitation Items – From brushing your teeth to disposing of trash, garbage and body waste, a world without electricity or running water presents several significant challenges. The bigger the household (including pets), the greater the problem. In addition to trash bags, toilet tissue, cleaning and disinfectant supplies, you’ll want heavy-duty “compactor bags” to insert in toilets for collecting solid human waste. If you’re part of a community that includes elderly or frail residents, you may be faced with managing deceased humans. As distasteful as all this may be, pre-event planning will yield big dividends in comfort.

Who Will Be Turning To You?

Most Important Preparation of All is Your Neighborhood &/or Workplace – Take a moment and think about what a major calamity will mean to your immediate environment. If you are the only one who is prepared, your circumstances will be little better than your neighbors or co-workers. In the Tsunami that caused widespread devastation in Japan, it was neighbors helping each other that saved lives and made community survival possible.

While hard-core, serial “survivalists” devote considerable (often inordinate) resources to building “bug out bags” and even acquiring arsenals of weapons to protect themselves, the reality for most of us is not likely to be something out of Mad Max. Major roadways and potential escape routes will probably be congested, unnavigable or even impassable. Where would you go and how would you carry what you need to survive? For most of us, “survival in place” is the most realistic option. What can you do to help your co-workers and neighbors focus their energies on emergency preparation . . . for their sake and yours as well?

Virginia 
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Virginia Nicols, CERT graduate living in Southern California, has helped lead her local neighborhood emergency team for over a decade. Her website, http://EmergencyPlanGuide.org, reflects much of what that award-winning volunteer group has struggled with and accomplished over the years. This month, El Niño tops the preparedness agenda.

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Does Your City or Local Police Department Have a Mass Alert System?

Last month we talked about the “Lone Wolf” terrorist and the random nature of such attacks. While there is little, if anything, that authorities can do to predict or prevent these attacks, some cities are instituting a Mass Alert Notification System . . . a message distribution system to get the word out immediately when something does happen.

Basic Level

Actually, most cities have a basic telephone notification system; the most popular one is called Reverse 911®. When an emergency happens or threatens, authorities can automatically send out a recorded phone message to all or some of the phone numbers found in the database within that geographic area. If the line is busy, the phone will redial several times in an attempt to leave its message. The important limitation to Reverse 911 is that it only goes to landlines.

If you do not have a landline, or are not home or at a work number when the call goes out,
you will miss the message.

Enhanced System

How will they reach you?

Our city has enrolled in an enhanced mass messaging system, called “iAlert.” This is an opt-in program; you go online and sign up for the service and the message comes to you three ways, depending on which options you sign up for.

First, it comes by recorded telephone call to the primary or work telephone number you provide. (This can be a landline, a VOIP line, or a cell phone number.)

You will also receive an email to the email address you give, and finally, the message comes as an SMS text message to your smart  or mobile phone. The only cost is the SMS charge is for the standard data cost imposed by your cell phone carrier when you receive a text message.

IAlert messages can also be sent to hearing-impaired receiving devices.

Useful, Targeted Messages

On more than one occasion we have received notifications of missing persons, suspected active shooter situations and alerts to fires in progress. Our CERT team has also received activation alerts.

If your local authorities provide this service, you can likely sign up for it on the city’s website. If not, you may want to inquire at your local Police Department of their interest in providing the service in the future.

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

What about First Responders?

Gated communities are more popular than ever. People seem to agree that the gates are a symbol of security and exclusivity.

That’s all well and good until there’s an emergency and suddenly the gates become not a symbol but an actual barrier to entry for residents and First Responders.

Run a quick search online and you will find, like I did, some outrageous stories of people inside their gates, waiting and waiting for help while police or the fire department waits outside — powerless to get in.  In fact, you’ll find stories of people who died, waiting.

The problem of emergency access to your gated property may never have been discussed because no emergency has ever arisen. But if you live in a gated community,  have gated parking at your workplace, or know someone who does, part of your emergency preparation is to . . .

Get the answers to these 5 questions.

1. Mechanism. How do First Responders open your gates? Is there some sort of lockbox requiring a physical key? An electronic card reader? A punch-in-the-code pad? A remote that requires batteries? A system that responds to light or sound (siren) frequencies?
2. Updates. If you have a key-pad, who reports updates or changes in the code to the authorities? In two of the stories I read, the management company for the community had changed. The new company changed the code. Nobody reported the changes to the local dispatch.
3. Keys. If you have a lock-box system with a unique key, who manages the keys to your community? Does each gated community in your area have a different key, requiring First Responders to have a huge key ring? What assurance do you have that the key has not been compromised or illegally duplicated?
4. Knox Box. A common lock-box system is called the Knox Box. (Open the box to get to a switch that opens the gate or to a key to open a gate, a home, etc.) All boxes in a local area operate off the same key. If you have a Knox Box, how do First Responders keep track of their master key? Is it floating around somewhere in the cab of the fire engine?
5. Power outage. And the most important question of all: What happens to your gates when the power goes out? Do your gates have a fail-safe override mechanism that allows a gate that isn’t working properly to be manually pushed open so that vehicles or people are neither locked in nor locked out?

Some years ago I lived in an apartment building in Northern California that had parking under the building. I drove in through a gate that raised up when I pressed my “clicker.” When the power went off, the gate remained down. It was way too heavy to lift by hand. If I had the key to the “pedestrian gate,” I could park outside the building and get in through a locked gate near the pool. Otherwise, I was stuck standing outside on the street.

Now I live in a gated community in Southern California. (Don’t worry, I’ve lived in other states too!) Several years ago we upgraded our unmanned gates to the Click2Enter system.  Residents get a battery-powered clicker; First Responders open the gates with a click of their mobile or portable radio transceiver (which has to be programmed with specific frequencies).  First Responders enter with no noise and no fuss. (That’s our gate in the photo. You can see the blue and white Click2Enter box attached at the left side of the center column.)

When the power goes out temporarily, our gates can continue to operate on back-up battery power. (We can count on several power outages a year.) In an extended outage, the gates will open and then remain open.  (This has caused our Emergency Response Group’s security committee to make special plans to keep strangers from entering. That’s another post for a later day.) .

Since we’ve had no problems, we had no idea of what to expect until we began to dig into the issue.  I suggest you dig into the details of your own gates before something happens in your community or at your workplace. The fact that there seem to be few if any building standards for gate operation means you may come up with a surprise!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

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Do you know what to do in each of these situations?

Last Wednesday was the regular meeting for our local Neighborhood Emergency Response Team volunteers. Lately members have asked for “more training” on a variety of threats – threats we don’t normally spend much time on here in Southern California.

So we decided to devote this meeting to some dangers that most people in the room had heard of but probably never faced.

In fact, before the program, we took a poll of the people in the room. Not one person had ever encountered killer bees. No one had landed in a canal or river in their car, although two of them had temporarily lost control of a car in flooding water on city streets. And only three people had ever actually used a fire extinguisher to put out a fire.

Keeping CERT Training Interesting With a “Movie Night”

The meeting went well! We had searched carefully on YouTube for short (4-5 minute) videos. Before showing each one, we prompted people to watch for a particular scene or to note the answer to a pertinent question.

Here are three of the videos we used for the program, along with the questions for each.

• Fire extinguisher training:  https://youtu.be/ktrv34zW7-A

“Where is the nearest fire extinguisher to the room we are in right now?” “ Where’s the next nearest one?” “ Do you know if they have been recently checked?”  (We were in a large meeting room that had an extinguisher on the back wall. Only one person had already noted its location! No one knew where any other extinguisher was located.)

This particular video is aimed at employees in a work setting but applies just as well to residents of a home.

• How to survive an attack by killer bees: https://youtu.be/UeV3wtA4UAY

“Where are killer bees in the U.S.?” “Are there any where we live?” (I was prepared for this question and had downloaded an interactive graph that shows how bees have spread in the U.S. since 1990. Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Killerbees_ani.gif )

• How to escape a sinking car:  https://youtu.be/fymjbkGSta8

“Are we located in an area likely to flood?” (Consider the Red River’s recent flooding in Louisiana!) “What about electric car windows?” “How do you break a window?” (One of our volunteers had a spring-loaded window breaker on his key chain, just like the one demonstrated in the video. You can see one here and get it in time for your own upcoming meeting: resqme The Original Keychain Car Escape Tool, Made in USA (Black) (Use it as a door prize — always popular! Or get several and share the fun.)

CERT As Entertainment?

One of the LinkedIn groups that I follow has been debating the necessity of sticking to CERT training as laid out by FEMA. Obviously, a meeting such as the one described here is not covered in the official training materials.

However, in my experience, there’s a difference between training for dedicated CERT graduates and awareness training for ordinary citizens.

Of course, those of us who are CERT graduates attend the follow-up trainings put on by our city. (Next week it’s a Light Search and Rescue refresher.)

But as a Neighborhood Emergency Response leader I am committed to my entire community. So we do what we can to attract all people and engage them in emergency preparedness activities.

Our Movie Night was one of those efforts.

Would something like this work for YOUR group? Try it, and let me know!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. If you haven’t yet heard, I pulled together over two dozen different meeting planning ideas for use by community leaders. You can get more info and order a copy at https://emergencyplanguide.org/CERT-meeting-ideas/

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) mandates that cities have an emergency evacuation plan for a 10-mile zone around a nuclear power plant – the ERZ or Emergency Planning Zone.  The rationale is that a radiation plume could impact people within this zone, so the plan is to remove people from the area as quickly as possible.

Outside the 10 mile zone, the NRC identifies a second zone that stretches out to 50 miles. Within this 50-mile zone, people won’t necessarily be directly affected, but food and water may become contaminated, so the plan needs to consider these dangers.

Example of multiple and overlapping EPZs

The graphic shows examples of multiple and even overlapping EPZs in North Carolina.

Recent news reports suggest that the EPZ rules from the NRC may be woefully inadequate. 

Here are questions you (and your neighborhood CERT group) should get the answers to. 

If you live within 10 miles of a nuclear plant, ask  . . .

“What’s my city’s plan for me?” 

Get a hold of your City’s Office of Emergency Services and pose questions like these:

• What are the evacuation routes out of the zone?
• Are they the same in summer and winter, when they may be impacted by snow, high water, etc.? Day and night? Weekday and weekend?
• What year was the plan drawn up? What changes have occurred in population and in transportation options since the plan was drawn?

A 2012 study commissioned by PSEG (Public Services Energy Group) estimated that only half the population in the surveyed area (Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey) could escape the 10-mile zone within 90 minutes – and the plan was based on population figures that have already been exceeded!

“What do I need to know for my family?”

Keep asking more questions. The NRC requires that cities provide residents every year with “radiological emergency planning materials.”  According to FEMA, you may get this information in your utility bills, via a pamphlet, or even in the phone book.  (Who reads the phone book anymore?!)

You should get answers to . . .

• How will I know there’s an emergency?
• What does radiation do, how does it act?
• What should I bring with me if we have to evacuate?
• What do I need in order to shelter in place?
• I’m disabled. How do I get special assistance? (Typically, you’ll be asked to have a written request on file.)

If you live within 50 miles of a plant, ask . . .

“Does my city have any plans for me?”

 Maryland-based Disaster Accountability Project surveyed parts of 11 states within 50 miles of five operating nuclear plants, again in the northeast. 

Ben Smilowitz, Executive Director of the DAP group, reported that cities are not planning beyond the 10-mile limit.  Per Smilowitz, “Most people that live 20, 30, or 40 miles away from plants do not realize that their communities are only adhering to bare minimum standards for radiological emergency preparedness.”

Moreover, in this part of the country, millions of residents live within multiple overlapping emergency zones of up to seven reactors!

Find out more about nuclear reactor emergency response.

In Fukishima, the U.S. government extended the recommended EPZ to 50 miles. With this disaster still in mind, here are more resources for you and your CERT group:

• Recent Emergency Plan Guide Advisory, with suggested radiation supplies:  What threat do you face from a nuclear reactor emergency?
• NRC website: How to Prepare for a Radiological Emergency  http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness/prepare-for-radiological-emerg.html
• News article on Disaster Accountability Project: NRC Defends Current Nuclear Plant Evacuation Rules http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2015/04/17/nuclear-evacuation-study/25942751/

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

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Yay for us!

Our public relations coup.

Over the past two weeks, our neighborhood Emergency Response Team has been recognized three times for – well, for being active and being prepared!

Front Page Article!

First, the local police department attended our homeowners’ association meeting and presented us with the “First Annual Community Preparedness Award!” Picture of 30+ team members in their vests appeared on the PD’s Facebook page.

Then, a week later, the local newspaper came out with a front page photo and article, “They’re Ready to Respond.” The sidebar included a comprehensive list of “how to prepare.”

The same photo and slightly different article appeared in the regional issue of the paper four days later.

So, in our local community, we are now famous. And besides the positive public relations, we’ve helped spread the message about preparedness. Feels good, and our group is energized!

After all, everybody wants to be appreciated.

Of course, we don’t always have the chance to get our local press out for photos. Still, there are a lot of easy and inexpensive ways to keep up morale. Here are some we’ve used in the past and will be using again. Can you add a few of these to your own list?

Some ideas for ongoing recognition

1. Include thanks at every meeting. I have a line on my written meeting agenda to fill in with the name of at least one person who helped behind the scenes to put that meeting together: refreshments, name tags, audio-visual, whatever.
2. Feature a member in a newsletter article or in a meeting invitation. A Smartphone makes it so easy to get a picture of one of your members. Then, add a short paragraph whenever you’re publishing something. Just call it, “Get to know your Emergency Response Team neighbor” and add a few details. People love seeing their picture!
3. Give all members official nametags. Invest a few dollars in clip-on badges so regular group members will have that bit of added “status.” (Visitors get plain stick-on paper name tags.)
4. Hand-written thank-you cards. Taking the time to thank someone in “the old-fashioned way” still really works. You can write a note for a specific action that a member took, or offer thanks for steadfast support of the group.
5. Ask for opinions and help. People like to be valued! It may seem easier just to do it yourself, particularly if you are extremely busy, but involving a sub-group or team may actually take some of the burden off you – and give your team members a dose of personal satisfaction.
6. Present a small gift to one of your members who has shown particular initiative. The gift should reflect your emergency mission – something like a whistle, or a small flashlight, or even a package of “emergency rations” might be appropriate.
7. Create a “traveling award” to be presented to the sub-group that excels at a particular task. For example, it could be the Division that signs up the most new members, or that has the best participation in the monthly radio drill. The next month, the award is passed along to new recipients – or kept, if deserved!

Oh, and back to that newspaper article. The reporter knew nothing about emergency preparedness, but thanks to careful reporting and good writing, her article was really well received.

Have you considered pitching the story of your group to a local reporter? The result may surprise you!

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. I’d like to double the list of “ways to recognize team members.” What can you add?

At Christmas, some of my neighbors bake cookies and deliver them to the local fire station. They are duly thanked. But last month, our fire department showed their appreciation in a whole different way.

They used our streets and houses for training!

Getting familiar with our community

Non-standard hydrant

First Responders always have to get used to our community. It has narrow streets and smaller-than-regulation fire hydrants, not to mention an impossible house numbering system.

So last month, when they had a recruit who needed training, they gave us a call.

Could our neighborhood CERT group host a training exercise?

Well, of course we could!

With only two days’ notice, we pulled together a team, sent out a flyer to everyone warning them to stay out of the way, and when the engines pulled in on a Friday morning, we were ready.

• Our CERT member posted at the gate saw them enter and notified the entire team via hand-held radio.
• Block by block, turn by turn, we tracked them and reported in.
• When they arrived at the “subject house,” our team members set up a traffic management system, meant to keep residents’ cars – and residents on foot — from getting tangled up in the hoses.

Traffic hazard

Things went well! The recruit passed his test (locating the hydrant, attaching the hoses, pulling hoses around the corner and across the street, etc.). Our traffic management proceeded without incident, and radio communications worked perfectly. (One of our members acted as Net Control, accompanying the Incident Commander in a golf cart.)

At the end of an 90 minutes, the fire department had rolled everything up and were gone.

Then, later that same day, they called to ask if they could come back the following week and do it again!

Benefits of working together

Working with our local fire station crew this way has so many benefits.

First, they learn more about the neighborhood and will obviously be able to respond more quickly and confidently to the next emergency.

Second, they got to see our CERT team in action – and they voiced their admiration for the way we were organized and for the help we gave them.

Finally, we got to know those crew members personally, and they got to know us. Nothing can substitute for this personal connection.

Plans for future training exercises

Now that we have had this experience, we will be inviting other stations to take advantage of our “training facility” when they can.

It’s a way to position our CERT group positively in the eyes of the First Responder community, and it gives us a way to reinforce our preparedness message to our neighbors, too. Not to mention the all-important radio practice!

Have you ever hosted a training in YOUR community?  Who initiated contact? How did it go? Let us readers know!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

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A Fantastic Resource for your Neighborhood CERT Group

I try to keep feeding you with real-life stories about our neighborhood CERT group – what we do to attract volunteers, what works, what doesn’t. This is another chapter in the on-going saga.

And this one is a real success story.

Visit from the Fire Department

Last fall, at the first meeting after the summer break, our Homeowners Association invited the local fire station to send over some firefighters to talk about what to expect in the case of an earthquake. A big quake had hit Sonoma, in Northern California, just two months earlier, so everyone remembered the fires and the devastation, and was eager to talk about it anyway.

Slide Show

Since I was in charge of the agenda as President of the HOA (!), I took advantage of the situation.

First, I prepared a slide show for the fire department.

• I used current news photos interspersed with a few other choice examples of failed foundations, street collapses and trashed home interiors.
• I included special slides customized for our type of housing, our age group, etc.
• I customized the slide show with THEIR logo and contact info.

The plan worked perfectly.

Result: Over 100 residents of our community showed up for the meeting.

While they came to see the firefighters, not to hear about emergency preparedness from our CERT group, they got our message!

Training session for the Fire Department

Then last week, the Captain of that local station called us, and asked if they could hold a training session for new recruits here in our community!

I’ll be writing more about how the training session went. The point of this Advisory — if you reach out to your local fire station, you are likely to get an enthusiastic response.

Make it easy for them

Response from your local fire department is likely to be even more enthusiastic if you –

• Take the time to create an engaging and useful presentation for them – and give them the chance to edit and practice it. (As it turned out, the Captain we had been working with wasn’t able to make the meeting, so he passed the slide show on to a colleague and HE became our speaker. Smooth.)
• Put them on the meeting agenda right up front, so they don’t have to wait through any business.
• Provide a question and answer period. By and large, firefighters are eager to educate the public, and this is a great opportunity for them. Our crew brought handouts for everyone.

Naturally, planning with firefighter teams is tricky, because wherever they are, their radios are blipping and buzzing, and they could be called away at any moment.

And the main challenge, as always, is pulling together a large enough crowd to justify the crew taking time away from the station.

In our case, we have a community that is used to assembling for a monthly HOA meeting. You may need to combine forces with a local school or local church to find the right facility and attract enough people. But if you can, I think you’ll find both the crowd and the firefighters to be appreciative of your efforts.

And ultimately, lives may be saved. That’s really the point of it all!

Action Item: Set up a presentation from your local fire department for your group. Let us know how it goes!

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Are you trying to build, or maintain, a local CERT group? Let me know in an email, and I’ll be sure you get all my tips for organizing.

 [This article is aimed at people living in a neighborhood with a clubhouse or community center. If you’re building a CERT group in such an environment, you can use these questions for valuable training.]

“In an emergency, we come to the clubhouse, right?”

“No, No, No!”

Think about it. In a real emergency, why would you head for the office, or the clubhouse, or any central meeting place in your community?

Consider these emergency conditions in a clubhouse.

1. Will the clubhouse be standing?

Unless your clubhouse is brand new, and built to modern safety standards, it is just as likely to collapse as any other building, and probably more likely to collapse than a smaller and more compact building.

2. Will the clubhouse be open?

If an emergency hits in the middle of the night, every door in the clubhouse will be locked and management will be away. Are you going to break in?

3. Will there be electricity or phone service?

Does your office or clubhouse have an emergency generator? Where is someone who knows how to turn it on? If no generator, then there will be no lights (after emergency lights have gone off). No automatic doors, no elevators, no air conditioning, no heat. No emergency communications. Not safe!

4. Will there be food?

A few centers may have kitchen facilities and some food supplies. In an emergency, however, the kitchen cupboards and refrigerators may be locked. There may be no way to heat water or to cook. Perhaps most disturbing – who will decide who gets to be first in line?

5. Will there be bathroom facilities?

If water pipes are broken, the image of a crowd of people lining up to use one or two toilets that don’t work is . . . well, repugnant. And what if people bring their pets with them?

6. Where will you get your medications?
7. Finally, who will take charge of the group?

And will volunteers be willing to stay at the center hour after hour to help out?

Your home is the best place to be.

Unless it’s been designated as an official “evacuation center,” your central community area is most likely worse for survival than your own home.

That’s why our neighborhood CERT group stresses shelter in place.

If you take a look at the same questions from above, and fill in “in your own home,” here are some of the answers you’ll get.

1. Will the house be standing?

Your apartment, single-family residence or mobile home is as likely to withstand an emergency as any other structure, depending on its age, the kind of disaster (earthquake, tornado, flood, etc.). And since it is your home, you have the opportunity to make it as safe as possible by fastening furniture to the walls, putting locks on cupboards, storing food and water, assembling tools, etc.

2. Will your home be open?

If an emergency hits in the middle of the night, you’ll be there. And even if you have to get home, you’ll have keys or know how to get safely inside.

3. Will there be electricity? How about emergency communications?

You may or may not have a personal home generator. But you certainly should have emergency lighting in your home, probably in the form of multiple flashlights and LED lanterns. At home, you can add or subtract clothing, add or take away blankets in order to adjust to weather conditions. And you should have access to emergency radios and first aid materials.

4. Will there be food?

If you’ve done any preparing, you’ll have water and food, including some food that doesn’t need any cooking. You’ll have your medications – and food and medications for your pets, as well.

5. Will there be bathroom facilities?

If water pipes are broken, you won’t be able to use your own toilet. Again, if you’ve done some preparing, you may be able to flush using outside sources of water (e.g. swimming pool water). Or you can put plastic bags into the toilet, secure them when they’re full and then put them somewhere outside. Not pleasant – but workable.

Are you thinking there’s a better place than home to be in an emergency?

Are there other people more qualified to help you than you are to help yourself?

Think again!
Virginia and Joe
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S.  Who do you know who lives in a complex with a clubhouse or community center?  Forward this to them right now!  Thanks.

P.P.S.  If you’re working to build a neighborhood CERT group, drop us a line.  We have some experiences and some training materials that we’d be glad to share.