At the end of last week’s Advisory I let slip a couple of paragraphs that expressed my frustration. States were taking action with no consistent plans for re-opening to protect as many people and businesses as possible.
Thankfully, over the past week, a lot has happened. Plans for re-opening have emerged from states, industries and even the federal government.
Of course, plans change. You have probably heard this oft-repeated quote from 19th century Prussian military leader Helmuth von Moltke:
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Still, while plans change, at least we can turn to them to give us some framework by which to operate. Here are some resources that I believe are worth taking a look at.
State plans for re-opening vary.
Wild West. Go for it. This is America. (You can stop reading here.)
Many organizations and in particular, professional industry groups, have provided guidelines for their customers and members. Their guidelines are mostly focused on hygiene and designing safer working environments.
Gyms, Salons, Retail, Restaurant and Rides. Detailed guidelines for different commercial settings from the American Industrial Health Association. It includes downloadable reports for At-Home Service Providers, Construction Industry, General Office, Gyms and Workout, and Nail and Hair Salons, Retail, Restaurant and Ride-share/Taxi. https://www.backtoworksafely.org/
Potential job: From Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health comes a 5-hour course giving participants the key skills for COVID-19 Contact Tracing. This course starts today (May 14) and is FREE. https://www.coursera.org/learn/covid-19-contact-tracing
Managing stress: The American Red Cross is offering a free online class: Psychological First Aid: Supporting Yourself and Others During COVID-19. I completed it earlier this week. Useful review, great pictures to support all the text. Start here: https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/online-safety-classes
Your family’s plan for re-opening.
As “suggestions” and “requirements” change over the next few weeks, you’ll want to discuss your own family’s “rules.” I’m sure they will include topics like going out, using face masks, social distancing, etc. You’ll probably be faced with questions like:
“Why are we doing this?”
“Why are we doing it when others aren’t?”
“What should we do when others don’t follow the rules?”
These are perilous and difficult times, and they require new and sometimes uncomfortable behavior. Learning new information, making decisions and taking action are important to being prepared.
As always, my very best wishes in this effort. I include myself in this effort, because we are all in it together!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
P.S. I’m sure you have found many useful resources, too. Don’t hesitate to share. This will be an ongoing effort.
The market for drones for emergency response teams continues to expand.
Updated 5-2020
We started reporting on drones about 5 years ago. At that time, drones were mostly high-tech toys. Two years ago we updated our reporting, and today it’s time for another update because . . .
Drones for emergency response teams are becoming more common.
Before you start looking at drones for use by your neighborhood emergency response team, however, it’s a good idea to listen to the advice I got from an excellent training film put on by the Pacific Northwest Economic Region Center for Regional Disaster Resilience. Here’s the link to the video: https://vimeo.com/296920234 One of the speakers said: “Before you decide on a project, become the local expert and understand how to collect and manage data. ” By the time you’ve done that, you’ll know what equipment you need and the rules you’ll need to follow.
The video mentioned above was by and for a governmental agency. You may not be part of a governmental agency; you may be a hobbyist. But you need to know all the rules! Here they are as of 2020 . .
Rules for hobbyists, commercial and non-governmental use of UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) . . .are changing!
You need a pilot certificate.
If you’re operating your drone as a hobbyist, that means hobbyist. You’re not operating as a service, or planning to be paid for your services, or to sell your photos, etc. In the past, you didn’t need a certificate but it looks as though you WILL need one soon if not already!
A drone weighing MORE than 55 lbs. falls into another category altogether. (That 55 lbs. includes any cargo that the drone is carrying.)
Pilot Your Drone Safely.
Even though rules change, the main thrust for hobbyists and commercial operators is always on safety. You can check in on a regular basis to monitor any changes, at http://knowbeforeyoufly.org/
Here’s a summary of the current rules:
Drones must remain in visual line of sight of the pilot or a sighter — no first-person-view cameras. (This means no flying by what the camera shows as opposed to what you actually see from where you are standing.) You can only fly one line-of-sight vehicle at a time. Maximum distance from pilot is 3 miles.
Maximum speed is 100 mph and maximum altitude is 400 feet.
Pilots must be at least 16 years old and hold the “remote pilot airman certificate,” mentioned above.
Operation is only allowed during daylight hours or twilight with appropriate lighting.
Pilots must avoid flying over cars, populated areas or over specific people not involved in the operation.
You must understand airspace zones and respect them. Manned aircraft always have the right of way.
You must be aware of no-fly zones. (The best drones have “no-fly” zones built into their software.)
The big issue, of course, is privacy. While there don’t seem to be clear cut rules regarding privacy, you’ve got to remember that there is a concept called Expectation of Privacy. This usually translates into giving people a warning if you’re going to be flying, not capturing “private” footage if you don’t need to, and deleting it if you’re asked to. If you’re part of a group, you would do well to have a privacy policy to protect your members. Here’s a reference that might be helpful: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/voluntary_best_practices_for_uas_privacy_transparency_and_accountability_0.pdf
Please note — again! – rules keep changing! Some changes have been promised and awaited but are now on hold as a result of the Coronavirus. Get the rules at the FAA.
Using Your Drone as an Emergency Response Tool
While not commercial, and yet not recreational, here are some uses your team might be considering. Before you actually decide to implement any, be sure your use is legal.
Use a drone to provide overhead lighting when searching an area at night
Inspect upper levels of buildings or structures (in industrial or high-rise residential areas)
Film damaged areas or obstructions following a disaster (as long as you don’t interfere with First Responders)
Identify “hot spots” after a fire (using infrared technology)
Map area covered by the CERT team to segment into manageable areas
Find a missing person
Search areas for survivors
Identify pathways for access or escape or to to safer positions
Drop markers to designate specific damages or routes to follow
Monitor teams during training exercises with filmed records for group critique
Transfer supplies, first aid items, batteries, replacement radios, etc.
Transport high value items over a distance, reducing the need for multiples of expensive equipment (e.g., gas sniffer)
You can probably come up with many more.
Challenges for Emergency Teams
1-Rules may limit your emergency response team’s use.
When you look at even this short list of uses, you will see that a number of these uses would be against current rules! Let’s look again . . .
Can’t fly at night.
Can’t let drone out of your sight.
Can’t fly higher than 400 feet.
Can’t fly over people.
From our standpoint as emergency responders, these restrictions limit the use of the technology. In a serious situation the safety of our neighbors in the community is more important that the actual altitude of the drone looking for them!
You may request a waiver of some of these restrictions if you can show you can conduct your operations safely. And we have confidence that some of these restrictions may be lifted or clarified, so we are not letting them stop our analysis.
2-Battery life may limit your team’s use.
Most drones have a flying time of only around 20-25 minutes. As technology improves, that will improve. To get a couple minutes more of flight can cost a couple hundred more dollars in purchase price. No matter which model you get, plan on getting at least 3 or 4 extra batteries right along with the machine so you can rapidly put the machine back in the air.
3-Set up in advance to be able to share your images and videos.
Clearly, the emergency planning and response ideas above would generate information you’d want to share with the rest of your team or with First Responders! There are several options available – the obvious one being sending footage to YouTube or Vimeo.
However, the FAA may label your video as “commercial use” if it appears with an ad on it, whether or not you wanted it! (Again, in an emergency, I’d probably not worry about that. But be aware . . .) Other sharing options include apps provided by Facebook, Dropbox and certain drone manufacturers.
Moreover, if you share any photos, issues of privacy raise their head. Understand how you will manage your data to maintain privacy. Review the resource above in the long list of bullet points.
If you goal is to share your work, find out more before purchasing.
OK, with all this in mind,
Which drone is best for our Neighborhood Response Team?
In our community, we already have some guys who race electric cars. And there are a couple who build and fly model airplanes. The skills they bring to the table will be valuable – but not all of them are on our emergency response team, of course.
So, as we shop for a drone, we have to add “ease of set-up” and “easy to fly” to our shopping list.
Here’s the whole shopping list so far:
Big enough to fly outside, in somewhat inclement weather (Cheap toys won’t work.)
Strong enough to carry something to a designated location
The best battery life we can get for the price
Proven performance (not bleeding edge technology)
Reasonable image and video quality, though not necessarily the highest
Easy to set up and start flying
Compatible with variety of hand-held mobile devices
We’ve done a lot of comparing of different machines to get to this point! I hope the data above will be helpful to you in your own search.
P.S. I found these important additions. Become an expert before you buy or fly!
“Report to the FAA within 10 days of any operation that results in at least serious injury, loss of consciousness, or property damage of at least $500.”
“Failure to register an unmanned aircraft that is required to be registered may result in regulatory and criminal penalties. The FAA may assess civil penalties up to $27,500. Criminal penalties include fines of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment for up to three years.”
But we’d done some good planning, and by the time I got to the community room, a handful of volunteers were already digging into the oh-so-carefully-packed box of supplies. Name tags went out onto one table along with colored pens; handouts went onto another. Two people were pinning photos from past events all across the back of the room. And refreshments had magically appeared on a table in the corner. (“Make people walk past the photo display to get to the cookies.”)
I saw immediately that our guest speakers had arrived before me, too!
But my back-up host had directed them to the electrical set-up, the microphone and projector were humming, and as neighbors started arriving, fire extinguishers in hand, everyone was standing about just casually chatting!
What a relief! All I had to do was grab that microphone, take a deep breath, and gather my thoughts for the introductions!Here I am, a few minutes later, double-teaming with our fire captain.
“Bring your extinguisher, wear your Team vest . . .”
What was behind this special community meeting on fire extinguishers?
Pretty simple. We’ve had two fires recently in our neighborhood. In one, the whole house was engaged before the fire department arrived. (No person injured, but two pets died.) In the other, smoke filled the kitchen but an observant neighbor noticed, grabbed a fire extinguisher, ran across the street and stopped the fire before any real damage was done.
The obvious lesson:
“If you can catch a fire right away, and you use the right equipment, you can put it out yourself.”
After the most recent fire, we took a poll of neighbors.
“Do you have a fire extinguisher?”
“Are you confident you could put out a fire in
your house with your extinguisher?”
“Have you ever even USED an extinguisher?”
Too many “no” answers!
So we contacted our local fire department for help.
Not only were they willing to come do a special community meeting on home fire extinguishers, but they offered a magnificent surprise – a chance for us to actually practice putting out a fire.
But not a real fire.
We had the chance to train using a laser-driven fire extinguisher simulator!
First, we went over the basics of fire extinguishers.
In fact, we had invited everyone to BYOE — BRING YOUR OWN EXTINGUISHER – and it made a big difference!
Many people had never even taken their extinguishers out of the box! Hardly any knew what sort of fire their extinguisher was good for. And I don’t think any had searched out the date of manufacture.
Imagine if you will a room full of people, many clutching red and white fire extinguishers in their laps, as our fire captain went over the basics using a power point presentation. There were MANY interruptions, much squinting to read the fine print, and MANY questions before it was over. (Remember, this meeting took place in a senior retirement community.)
Classifications tell you what kind of fire this extinguisher will put out – A, B, C, D and K. In our group, nearly all were A, B, C.
What’s actually INSIDE the extinguisher? Again, for our audience, probably dry chemical that comes out as a powder to smother the fire.
How long is the extinguisher good for? “Check the date.” (This became an embarrassment and pretty humorous as people found the dates and called them out. The oldest extinguisher in the room dated to . . . 1987!) The recommendation from our fire department – “Check ‘em often and replace after 5 years to be sure it will work when you need it.”
Where and how to store it? (Designated place, clearly visible. Turn it upside down and hit it with your hand to loosen the powder.)
Other comments – Only attempt to put out a fire you can control. Have an escape route. Call 911. and many more . . .
Then it was time for the SIMULATOR training!
Step back, you’re a little too close.
The head of our local CERT
training stepped up to demonstrate the equipment. The digital “flame” on the
screen was very bright, very realistic! The green dot from the laser was easily
visible.
Before she was completely finished, people were already lining up to try it! (What a relief. As meeting planner you just never know what kind of reaction you’ll get!)
PASS – not so easy to remember when you have an extinguisher in your hands and the clock is ticking.
Our fire captain had gone through the steps to extinguish a fire.
And our CERT trainer had gone
over them again, demonstrating two or three times just how the equipment works.
Still, when people came up to
try, sometimes they forgot! They dropped the pin. The extinguisher was quite
heavy and some couldn’t hold it and squeeze at the same time. A couple squeezed
before they aimed!
Everyone was terribly engaged. Some were anxious. All were watching VERY closely.
Can she do it?
Too heavy? Hold it between your knees.
More than half the people in the audience tried the simulator. And everyone succeeded in putting out their fire. (A few did need a couple of tries.)
More important, as our CERT trainer observed, every one walked away with new-found confidence.
As the community meeting on fire extinguishers broke up, several people told me they wanted to learn more about our city’s CERT training and others wanted to join our local neighborhood response team. (We have no requirement for CERT training.)
As we gathered up all the stray
handouts and took down the displays, we were very satisfied at the outcome.
Gotta love volunteers who stay to help tear down.
Could any meeting be more successful?!
Why yes, because that very evening I got several thank-you emails with many positive comments.
At 9 a.m. the following day our office manager wanted copies of anything that was left over “because people have already been coming in asking about it.” A bystander in the office volunteered, “I’m going to buy a new extinguisher for myself, and two for my daughter.”
Then the manager added, “I have never seen people come out of a meeting with so much excitement. They were talking and waving. They were laughing. They were energized!”
The Bullex Digital Fire Simulatoruses LEDs to create a “fire,” and the special fire extinguisher (same size and weight as regular one) “puts the fire out” using a laser beam.
I think you can agree, somewhere along the line this training will pay off. I hope you can add a similar meeting to YOUR group’s schedule!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
P.S. I’ll be adding this to my next collection of published Meeting Ideas! Let me know if you want to be on the pre-publication list!
Just a week ago I was sweeping up the last remnants of 2019 and getting set for 2020. Remember? I ended 2019 with some entertaining books and movies with disaster themes!
Well, that easy start was obliterated by recent 2020 REAL disasters in the news.
In just the last 7 days we’ve seen headlines like: Assassination — Missile strikes – Earthquakes — Raging Wildfires – Retaliation — Plane Crash – Deepfakes – Drone Swarms – Power Grid Cyber-attack — and of course, Harry and Meghan.
(I added that last item just to lighten things up a little.)
All the turmoil was enough to cut through any complacency I was feeling
and bring me sharply back to reality.
Above all, it prompted me to once again make sure that I have basic emergency supplies at the ready – in the house, in the car, and in the office. Supplies I can tap if I’m stuck at home, and supplies that are packed up (or could be quickly packed up) if I have to leave and head somewhere safer.
The following list of emergency supplies is the most basic I can come up with.
I hope and trust you are familiar with everything I write about here!
In any case, here it is for your review. I am adding a few details that might encourage you to refresh or add to your supplies.
If you do see something that’s missing from your list, don’t delay! If one of the disasters in the news comes to pass in YOUR neighborhood, you may NOT have the opportunity to get any of these essentials!
Water in an emergency.
Earthquake, cyber-attack, flood, accident – any of these could interrupt your supply of clean water. Be sure you revisit your long-term supply. And if you haven’t yet, get aLifeStraw personal water filter for everyone in the family. Cheap, pretty sturdy, and easy to use. Even a child understands how to use it. (Click on the link above to check pricing at Amazon, where we are Associates. This LifeStraw was on sale when I grabbed the image!)
Keeping warm.
As I’ve mentioned many times, it doesn’t take actual freezing temperatures to create an emergency; a few hours at 50 degrees may be enough. Do you have blankets in the house and in the car? What about emergency sleeping bags?
We all are familiar with Mylar space blankets, costing less than $5 each. I’ve talked about the advantages of buying them by the dozen, so everyone in the family (or the neighborhood group) has several in every backpack.
Lately I’ve noticed some better quality space blankets. Some are larger sizes. Others are gold/silver reflective. Still others, like this one, have Mylar on one side and a waterproof tarp on the other. (See the grommets? Meant to help turn it into a shelter.)
You can get this version in orange/silver and in green/silver (from other manufacturers). Again, click the link in the text above — not the image — to compare prices and styles at Amazon.
And in this Mylar category I have to include — again! — the Bivy Bag. Here’s the whole description of this WATERPROOF bag:
Wondering about that word “bivy?” (Also spelled “Bivvy.” I assumed it was from the French, bivouac – “a temporary camp without shelter.” Actually, after writing this I then had to look up the word. I found what I had expected. I also found “bivvy sac” – a waterproof bag meant to protect a sleeping bag. Eh, voila!)
Something nourishing to eat.
I am sure you have snacks, hard candies, and some pop-top cans of fruit in every survival kit. These will work for a day or two. But if the power is off and the emergency continues, particularly if there is damage to your environment, you’ll need more than snacks! The easiest things to buy and to count on to be there when you need them? MREs. Delicious? Maybe not. Nutritious and comforting? Yes. (In this case, both the image and the link will take you to Amazon so you can compare MRE packages — sizes, menus, etc.) (While we’re on vocabulary, MRE = Meals Ready to Eat.)
You know our attraction to emergency lanterns. (I have one of the Vont pull-upsright here on my desk as I am typing this.) Don’t overlook extra batteries for lamps, lanterns or flashlights. In addition, you may want to consider a solar-powered battery charger.
Likewise, you may want to take a look at this new gadget. (New to me, anyway.) It charges 11 sizes of batteries that fit in your lanterns, your flashlights, and your emergency radio. Click on the image and read all the details carefully to be sure this will work for the batteries you’re using. I have not personally used this charger, so I’d welcome any comments!
Emergency radio.
I notice that some of the emergency radios are on post-holiday sales, so don’t hesitate. What to look for? Sturdy. Powered by solar, battery and hand crank. AM/FM and probably NOAA. What you want to know is how the disasters in the news are developing. Everything else — flashlights, etc. — are extra.
This image shows an emergency radio from RunningSnail. The company makes a couple of versions — I like this one because it can store more power than the less expensive model.
Actually, consider getting several radios (perhaps with different features). You’ll want one for the house and one to keep in each car. (Our radio reviews are being updated right now for the New Year.
Emergency communications.
Your cell phone will be the first thing you turn to when you hear about disasters in the news. Be sure you have a car charger plug. And get a power bank and/or solar charger for the phone, too. Remember, TEXT messages may get through when a phone call won’t.
(Do you know the number of your emergency contact? In your phone does run out of battery, you won’t be able to look up a number. You need to know it by heart!)
Hygiene.
Stock up on toilet paper NOW! The shelves in the grocery store will be emptied within hours of a storm announcement! (You can always use extra paper supplies for bartering.) Same with baby wipes and antiseptic wipes. And be sure you have some sturdy plastic bags in the car, packed in a plastic container (with lid) big enough to serve as an emergency toilet. Messy but better than getting out of the car in the blowing sleet — or having an accident IN the car . . .!
First aid and medicines.
Only you know what you need. The trick is to actually have your pills and/or drops with you at all times. Not so easy, actually. You’ll need to find the right size plastic containers, label them, and hoard enough extra pills so you can pack up a couple of week’s supply. Really, do it.
Now I wear contact lenses, so one of my emergency challenges is to have extra lenses and a packable size bottle of lens fluid ready. (I have to search to get the 4 oz. sizes – necessary if you fly, too. Actually, even my 4 oz. bottle was confiscated at the airport last year, so I had to board without anything other than a tiny bottle of artificial tears. NOT good for a 15 hr. flight . . .!)
Cash.
The recent national study by FEMA reported that most people who have set aside money for emergencies have less than $500. If disasters are threatening in the news, and you have to leave home, that money isn’t going to take you far.
Talk to friends and family about being ready to take in someone when disaster hits the news. Maybe you could get a bulk deal on blow up mattresses! (I borrowed a mattress over Thanksgiving. These days nearly all mattresses have built in electric pumps – fantastic! – and most are at least 18 inches high so they are like a real bed, not like camping on the ground. I figure you know about what a blow up bed looks like. Here’s a link to a positively reviewed queen sized mattress that’s actually 22 inches high, so you can get an idea of prices!
How can you afford to stock up on emergency supplies?
Now, as I look back over this list I see that many of the items cost less than $25! A few are more expensive, of course. All these items are readily available. And many are on sale right now, when merchants want to clear the shelves for spring and summer items.
Push back against the negativity of disasters in the news by taking positive action.
Please, make up your own shopping list and get started checking things off as soon as you can. And share this list with friends, family and neighbors.
We all need to bolster our feeling of confidence in the face of so many disasters in the news. Knowing you’ve taken basic precautions will make a big difference in your outlook.
But don’t be foolish! As you shop, watch for these dangers.
In the aftermath of the holidays there are still lingering sales promotions. And, of course, some people prey on the fear and concern that comes with negative headlines, and they offer deals you “need to get before it’s too late.”
So while I encourage you to shop, I also urge caution. Here are three reminders about sales scams to avoid:
Don’t click links in emails that go directly to products. These products could be counterfeit. Get the name of the manufacturer and go to their website or to a trusted retailer where you have some recourse if the product isn’t what it was advertised.
Don’t open ads or click on product pop-ups on your computer or smartphone. Not only could you be being scammed as far as the product goes, you could be inviting malware onto your computer. Again, go to the source or to a trusted retailer.
“Free” or “introductory” offers are always suspect. Watch for “shipping and handling” costs (Often that’s where the seller is making his or her profit). And be particularly careful to read “the fine print” which might reveal you will be charged “the regular price” starting two weeks from now!
Whew, that should be enough for today! So I wish you well with your shopping — and getting started in this New Year!
Popular Mechanics “Swedish fire” built into one log
When you are lucky enough to enjoy a few days of vacation, or if you’re in the mood to CHANGE your mood, consider spending some time with some survival entertainment!
Read for escape and pleasure!
If you are a hard-core reader like I am, you’ll demand a certain level of quality in your survival books. Or magazines, as the case may be. I found the article from Popular Mechanics, shown above, to be a treat! (Have you heard of the Swedish fire? You break apart one block of wood, wrap it loosely with wire to keep it all held together and upright, build your fire on top of the center splits so the fire falls down into the cracks. Burns for several hours! Love it!)
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I managed to discover and read
something totally different – a survival novel that takes place in a nearly
ruined America of the not-so-distant future.
If you’re looking for some different survival themes, different levels of intensity and even survival excitement, please head over there and take a look. Several of the books are “How to” on survival; a couple are novels with plenty of accurate survival imagery, and a couple are written for young people – and young at heart like me! I’ll be adding more.
You’ll see some of our Emergency Plan Guide books at the site, too!
Of course, in addition to books there are . . .
Movies for thrills and excitement!
It’s the day after Christmas as I write this Advisory. Yesterday
we watched the obligatory re-run of Die
Hard. Not a classic wilderness survival movie – but certainly an epic
survival story! (Hans Gruber, so very smooth and sinisterly multi-lingual!)
Which brings me to some more of the “Best Survival Movies
Ever Made.” Here’s a short list. Which
of these have you seen? Would you watch
them again?
Most recent disaster film, which you’ve surely heard of if you haven’t seen it: San Andreas! Sure, it’s not the most scientifically accurate disaster movie. (Savvy preppers here in California find it pretty easy to pick out the faults – a pun!) But what special effects! And Dwayne Johnson!
The Martian – science fiction full of well — science mixed with humor! I read the book a few years ago, and I loved it. (Made me laugh out loud even though the hero was stranded on Mars and had to survive on practically nothing but his brains until he could be rescued! The thinking man’s survival skills on display . . .!) Of course any movie with Matt Damon deserves a Golden Globe nearly sight unseen.
Just the next year a traditional survival film actually won an Oscar – in fact, many, many other awards, for that matter. It is The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The scene: western frontier wilderness in the early 1800s. The challenge: winter weather, grizzly bear and other wildlife, plus some treacherous travel companions. Hollywood loved this film, and movie-goers turned it into a blockbuster.
Now, there have been survival movies for years, well before the three described above which you’ve probably at least seen ads for.
How about some survival movie classics?
Into the Wild came out in 2007, directed by Sean Penn. It’s an absorbing story of a young man who leaves his comfortable life to test his survival skills in Alaska. I saw this film myself several years ago – every spectacularly beautiful and excruciating minute of it. This is more drama than adventure. And it’s good!
Volcano, starring Tommy Lee Jones (another must-see actor) as an emergency manager. It came out in 1997 and is available on Netflix. Set in L.A., this one line describes it all – “Hot on entertainment!”
Twister was the second highest grossing film of 1996! It followed storm-chasers across Oklahoma. A Rotten Tomatoes review cites the film’s “visceral thrills” and again, special effects.
Learn some good stuff via documentaries and semi-documentaries.
In no particular order, here are some films that captured the interest of professional members of the Emergency Management group on LinkedIn. I’ll be checking these films off my own holiday viewing list. (One or the other might be appropriate for showing at a neighborhood meeting.)
Fire in Paradise, which aired on Frontline, covers the 2018 wildfire that basically destroyed the town of Paradise in California. It’s a 39 minute documentary with interviews of people who went through the ordeal. You’ll learn a lot about evacuations.
Dirty War is a docu-drama first broadcast in 2004 by the BBC and made available in the U.S. through HBO. The situation: A radioactive “dirty” bomb detonates outside a subway station in London. At that time, this was a thriller. Today, it’s become too real.
American Blackout is now top of my own list. Produced by National Geographic, the 90-minute docu-drama “reveals in gritty detail the impact of what happens when a cyber-attack on the U.S. takes down the power grid.” The power shut-downs earlier this year gave us a taste . . .
There’s plenty more survival entertainment where these came from!
These movies are available at Amazon and other streaming services. Most are available for purchase at Amazon, too, if that’s how you want to enjoy them. Click away here!
Of course, not all survival fiction may be award-worthy.
But today we’re talking about a vacation change of pace! If necessary, you can always pick out the totally unrealistic moments and describe to your family members what it REALLY would be like. (They may not appreciate the interruption, so maybe save those criticisms until afterwards!?)
At the very least, a book or movie can start a conversation at home to inspire new interest in emergency preparedness and response. Maybe you’ll get ideas for a family adventure tour, or some cool gifts.
Who knows what might happen?! We’re talking survival entertainment here! Hope you enjoy some of these!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide Team
P.S. Of course you have your own survival entertainment favorites! Let us know what they are!
Are you heading out in your car today — into the snow?
How will you fare if you get stuck in a winter storm? Will you survive?
Most people make it through, of course. Last year a 36 year old man was stuck in a winter snow storm for 5 days, along with his dog. They made it out alive even though all they had to eat were taco sauce packets.
Some people don’t make it out alive. You probably remember the 2007 story of the Kim family. After being stuck in an unfamiliar mountain road in Oregon, the father tried to walk out to get help. His wife and two young daughters stayed in the car, and were found alive after 9 days. The father was found dead, 16 miles from the car.
Experts generally advise, “Stay with the car.”
Obviously, what you have with you IN the car will make that decision a lot easier!
I know you’re busy, what with Christmas coming in just a few days. But take the time NOW to review this list of survival items for your car. In just a couple of minutes you can make some choices about what to have in your car that could mean the difference between easy and hard, even life and death if you get caught in a winter storm.
Check off the things you already have in your car’s Survival Kit and your Emergency Road Kit. DOUBLE CHECK the items you should add right now, so you’ll have them before the next storm arrives.
(in the lists below, the underlined words are links that lead to earlier articles here at Emergency Plan Guide, go to YouTube for useful videos, or go directly to Amazon so you can check features and prices. We’re Associates at Amazon so we may get a small commission if you buy through our link. Your price isn’t affected, of course.)
For the average driver, even this list of car parts and supplies is pretty extensive.
If you know how to use something, you can decide to include it. If you think you should include something, but don’t know how to put it to use, time for a few training videos on YouTube!
For even short delays in traffic, you may need:
Bottled water, snacks, warm blanket
First Aid kit
Toilet paper, paper towels, unscented wipes, zip-lock plastic baggies for trash
Tool kit (Put a collection from your garage into a zip-lock baggie so you can see what you have: screwdrivers, pliers, wrench, tire pressure gauge, snow scraper, duct tape, etc.)
Battery charger (Different levels of quality: here’s a top-flight one.)
Jumper cables (Get heavy duty cables so they’ll work for sure. The smaller the gauge, the heavier the cable.)
Kitty litter, sand, or rock salt to pour in front of your tires. Check out Magic Traction as a better alternative. You may be able to dig down far enough to slide your floor mats underneath both of the tires that are receiving power. (May mess up the mats, of course.)
Pack everything in a sturdy pack or maybe two. Put the heaviest things on the bottom. And tie the packs down so they don’t fly in an emergency stop and hit you or one of the kids.
Now, that’s a good start! I am sure you will come up with other personal items you couldn’t do without in a winter storm. Add them!
The idea is to have enough of the important items that your car-stuck-in-the-snow adventure remains an adventure, and doesn’t become a real emergency.
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
P.S. One other essential — an Auto Roadside Assistance plan! We’ve had AAA for years, and it has been a godsend. My latest research on plans suggests that plans associated with your auto insurance company may not be as good as plans from independent companies. Consider where you live, what’s likely to happen, what the crew will deliver to you, how far they will tow you without an extra charge. Above all, how many times can you USE the service? (per person, per household).
P.P.S. We welcome any good stuck-in-the-snow stories!
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who is seriously interested in emergency preparation and response that theAmateur Radio Network(made up of Ham Radio Operators) is a valued part of emergency radio operations everywhere.
You’ve read here in Emergency Plan Guide about how our Neighborhood Emergency Response Team members communicate with each other via walkie-talkies. But that’s limited to within the neighborhood. When it comes to knowing what’s going on in the “outside world” and letting the outside world know what’s going on here, we plan to use our Ham Radio Operators.
Our Neighborhood Ham Radio Operators
We have three licensed Amateur Radio Operators. Each has his own equipment and is capable of communicating directly with city officials. And our neighborhood group recently purchased a more powerful base station with longer reach. It gives us the ability to communicate directly with county and other civic operations that will be activated in a major disaster.
(Our team worked closely with the city police department to come up with specifications for our mobile radio station. We can move the station to wherever it will be most effective. It is designed for duo usage. In the first situation, our own ham operators use amateur ham radio bands to reach out. They have direct contact with the local Emergency Operations Center. If no ham operators are available, option two allows trained team members to monitor and transmit relevant info on the FCC two-meter commercial band.
The system cost about $1,600. It consists of a transceiver, power supply and back-up battery. Everything is mounted on a rolling cart, with separate folding antenna with tripod legs. If you are interested in the actual specs, let me know and I’ll be happy to forward them.)
Ham Radio Resources for Review
Before you invest in any emergency radio operations equipment for yourself or your group, we recommend you do some study. Below are some of the references on the subject. And, of course, you can try to talk with someone in the community who is already licensed. Better yet, become licensed yourself. That process will give you an idea of what equipment you really need.
Here are some of the books that we have in our library . . .
The ARRL Introduction to Emergency Communication Course
ARRL stands for American Radio Relay League, Inc.. ARRL was founded in 2014 and now has 150,000+ members in the USA. Many ARRL members have registered to be part of ARES, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service. It works with FEMA, the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and other response organizations. This book does a good job of distinguishing between all the various “alphabet organizations” associated with ham radio operation. In over 300 pages, what it does best is prepare you to get a license and take your place as a resource within the emergency communications network.
The ARRL Emergency Communication Handbook
This handbook takes info from the basic course and puts it in action in a number of scenarios. You’ll find out how ham operators perform in a widespread emergency, how best to set up your system and your people for a given event, etc. Some excellent charts.
The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual: All You Need to Become an Amateur Radio Operator
The subtitle of this book is, “Get on the air with confidence.” It contains all kinds of advice for the new user. For example, how to pick your first radio and antenna. How to set up your station for best results. Coping with weak signals, etc. Many diagrams, photos and screen shots are helpful.
Now You’re Talking: All You Need for Your First Amateur Radio License
Now You’re Talking! Will help you pass the Element 2 test. It provides detailed explanations for all questions plus explanation of FCC rules. You’d be surprised at how often you need to know these details!
Emergency Power For Radio Communications
Once you’ve assembled the basics, you’ll want to know how to keep everything up and running. This book has (sometimes exhaustive!) details on options for emergency lighting, emergency power (solar, generators, batteries), instrumentation, and more. It has case histories and DIY guidance, too.
These books look similar because they are published by ARRL, but I found little overlap or duplication. Use Amazon’s handy “Look Inside” function to check on the tables of contents for more detail. (Click on the images above and you’ll go directly to the book itself at Amazon.)
Joe Krueger Your Emergency Plan GuideTeam
P.S. Keen about listening in to what the police are doing? In “the old days” a police scanner provided a fascinating real-time window into law-enforcement activity. But that window may have been closed. Today, many if not most police communications are encrypted
Depending on where you live your ham radio or even a simple app downloaded to your smart phone may receive fire and emergency medical team transmissions, but perhaps not police. Have you used any of the police scanner phone apps? What’s been your experience?
P.P.S. Interested in learning more about walkie-talkies as the first level of emergency communications? Check out these related posts:
About a year ago, Joe and I came out with four books aimed at helping people and their communities get better prepared for emergencies. (Have you published a book? If so, you know it’s a proud moment!)
I trust you’ve seen these images before!
Now, people do buy our books. (Thank you!) But here’s what we hear from too many of them . . .
“We love reading all this good information about getting prepared. But we just can’t find time to make consistent progress!”
Hmm. Joe and I are nothing if not committed! So over this past summer we worked like crazy and as a result . . .
As of this week . . .
We have added four NEW books to the shelf that are meant to make it easier to get prepared! Check out THIS image!
(These are full-sized, 8 ½ x 11 volumes.)
Yes, to get the value, you’ll still have to read. But here’s the difference. These are WORKBOOKS!
Workbooks make it easier to get prepared.
The content of each workbook follows the flow of its companion book. The workbook actually often refers to its companion book for reminders, lists, background info, etc.
But in contrast to the books, most of the material in the workbook is presented in the form of simple questions with space for you to fill in YOUR answers! We encourage you to doodle, draw arrows and exclamation points! Here are some examples of questions taken from the Apartment Communities version.
Who will benefit most from the workbooks?
If you find it challenging to get started, or to keep making progress, or if your group is stuck – one of the book/workbook combos may be exactly what you need to break the log-jam!
Five reasons to work your way through the workbook questions and fill in answers.
Visible progress. You can see progress! (Along with using colored pens or highlighters, I recommend using a bookmark, or folding down the pages as you complete them!)
No stress. There are no right answers so you won’t be intimidated.
Decisions get made. As you answer questions step by step, you are actually making important decisions based on your circumstances, your family, your budget, etc.
Lasting impact. By writing your answers, you are engaging not only your brain but your muscles. (We believe strongly that physically writing things down helps memory and understanding in a way that typing on a computer simply can’t. Joe often works late into the night over a yellow pad.)
Compare and confirm. You can share written answers with others in your family or on your team – or compare answers if they are completing the workbook, too. They will be there as a physical record and as proof of your commitment to the process.
What’s the next step?
We invite you to consider a “package deal” (book + companion workbook) for your own household, for neighbors, your emergency response team, your church — any group of people who are looking for help to become better prepared.
You may want to get the small business book and workbook for your own company, for your employer, for the other businesses in your association.
As you can imagine, there’s more detail on the books at Amazon. Here are the links to each of the books and workbooks. (They haven’t been up at Amazon long enough to be reliably connected with their partners!)
If you have questions, drop me a line. If you purchase the books, please be kind enough to leave a review at Amazon. And,
If you are working with a community, let us know what challenges you are working on and we’ll try to address them here at Emergency Plan Guide – or create a special checklist or resource document just for you!
As I said above, Joe and I are nothing if not committed to the mission and to our emergency preparedness “tribe!”
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
P.S. We have one more book that is a sort of hybrid book/workbook. And it’s the most popular one of all! Here’s a link where you can see the entire collection!
After 20 years of training and writing about disaster preparedness, and with well over 500 articles now under my belt, I discover that some topics keep coming up again and again – in the news media, in questions people ask, and on the various internet sites and in specialty magazines that report on “survival trends.” Thanks to Google Analytics, we can also track which articles are most often viewed on our site, too. Here are our top survival resources!
Here are the 5 most popular topics on our site, with links that will take you immediately to more information.
Are you in the mainstream? Are these among YOUR favorite subjects? Check them out!
1. Emergency Radios and Radio Communications
If there is one topic that stands out, this is it. In fact, radios and radio communications are twice as popular as anything else we report on!
A radio for your personal survival kit.
Are you ready to buy an emergency radio for yourself or a family member? Check out our Updated Reviews of Emergency Radios with comments about solar, hand-crank, etc. We’ve added new info about some nifty, palm-sized radios that fit perfectly in a pack, glove box, etc. Most of the radios we discuss are found on Amazon, where prices are as good as they get, and buyer comments are very helpful in selecting the best fit for your needs.
Two-way radio communications for groups.
Interested in how to use walkie-talkie radios effectively for your group, whether it’s your family or a neighborhood response team? Then you need a way to not only listen, but also to speak.
We have used many different models, and review walkie-talkies here. EmergencyPlanGuide.org also has a number of Advisories on walkie-talkie use:
If you are serious about building a neighborhood group, each of the books in our Survival Series has a complete discussion and a diagram showing one way to use radio communications, how to assign channels for your different divisions and specialty teams, etc.
2. Emergency/Survival Kits
We know that some people simply don’t have time to actually build their own kit, so we start with a review of Popular Ready-Made Kits to be found on Amazon. The purpose of the review is not to recommend any one kit in particular, but to highlight different things to look for as you shop. (Again, please be aware that if you buy something from Amazon through one of our links, we may receive a commission from Amazon. The commission does not influence the price you pay.)
Because every person and family is unique, we recommend strongly that you build your own basic kit, and we have written a booklet to guide you through the various decisions that need to be made. Once you have the basic kit, add items that fit your climate, your skill and your interest level.
We have also discovered that most people continue to improve their kit by adding specialty items. Some of the most interesting additions:
Much of the “prepper” literature deals with developing skills that allow you to survive by living off the land. For urban or suburban dwellers, particularly people living in apartments or condos, these survival skills need to be adjusted to the realities of the city.
Some of the top survival resources for city dwellers:
We probably spend more of our time on water than on anything else (even though, as reported above, website visitors seem to prefer reading about radios!). How to store water for an emergency, where to find more water when the emergency hits, and how to protect yourself from contaminated water – these are ongoing challenges that need to be overcome if we are to survive.
A few of the most comprehensive articles focused on water:
And finally, one topic unique to EmergencyPlanGuide.org . . .
5. Counting on Neighbors for Survival
We know that the first people to be there to help in an emergency are the people already there – the neighbor at home next door, or the co-worker at the next desk or in the next room.
With that being the case, we think that the more we all know, the better chance we’ll all have to survive, at least until professional help arrives.
We also know that professional help – police and fire – will be overwhelmed in the aftermath of a widespread disaster, so it may be hours or even days before they do arrive. A strong neighborhood team, ready to take action, just seems to make great sense.
Our 20-year commitment to neighborhood emergency preparedness has been focused primarily on building a neighborhood response team. It has been a labor of love – and yes, a LOT of labor!
The website has many stories about what it’s taken to build the group. You can find many of these stories by heading to the list of categories in the sidebar and clicking on “CERT” or “Neighborhood.”
We have even compiled much of this information into two in-depth resources:
Survival Series (One for Apartment Dwellers, one for Mobile Home Communities, and one for Single Family Neighborhoods. Each has suggestions for building a neighborhood team on the foundation of CERT training)
I hope you’ll find this list of top survival resources helpful, and a reminder of areas in your own planning that may not be as secure as you’d like. Also, if you would like to see more on any aspect of emergency preparedness or disaster recovery, please just let me know!
Virginia and Joe Your Emergency Plan Guide Team
We mean it! Let us know in the comments what topics YOU like to read more about!
The power outages I wrote about last week never materialized. The weather has cooled down a few degrees, too, and that has taken the edge off the power discussion. Still, the whole episode took me back to capturing sunlight for emergency power – via a portable solar system.
A couple of years ago I bought a small
fold-open solar panel, advertised as a source of emergency power for my
cellphone. I put it together then, but it has sat on the shelf for a while now,
unused.
Time to get back to being ready!
Since then, there have been improvements on this basic set-up. Panels have become more efficient. Power controllers connect the panels to more types of devices. Handy fasteners have been added on all sides.
The purpose remains the same, however. And I still really like it! Set it up in the sunshine, strap it to your backpack on a hike – let it charge your phone “for free!”
Over this same period, I’ve also become more aware of just what solar can do, and what it can’t. If you haven’t really had the chance to learn about solar (yet),
Here are some very basic solar basics.
Solar panels capture photons of light and convert them to electric power.
The power coming from a solar panel is Direct Current (DC). If a gadget uses battery power, it can use the current from a solar panel. (If a gadget needs to be plugged into an electric socket, it is using Alternating Current (AC). Solar panels can’t directly power your AC appliances.)
When the sun stops shining on the panels, the electricity stops.
To summarize so far, if your emergency
takes place during the day, your solar panels may be useful. If it continues
into the night, the panels will be useless.
What do you do for power when the sun isn’t shining?
Since real emergencies are not conveniently scheduled, you may want to add a way to STORE some of the electricity that is created during the day. And that’s where solar batteries come in.
The manufacturer of my own mini solar-system also offers batteries to extend the usefulness of the system. I have a small battery pack that is charged with the solar panels. This small storage unit is called a “power bank.” (I have other power banks, too, made by other manufacturers. You can read more about power banks here.)
I charge the power bank using the panels,
then, at night, I can use the stored power to charge my phone and its
flashlight, etc.
If you’ve thought about how you would
manage after days without power, when your phone and your computer’s batteries
are dead, having the ability to recharge them using solar may sound
attractive! It certainly does to me.
Another short summary about this technology . . .
Solar panels are one thing. Solar-powered storage batteries are a separate item. Each has its own capacity, requires its own connectors depending on what equipment you want to run, and each has its own cost.
It takes a lot of solar power to drive big appliances.
If you are considering solar for emergency communications needs, you need to start with only the essentials, and then buy sufficient panel and battery capacity to meet your needs.
Here’s the current kit at Amazon – the panels plus the power bank, exactly as I have it. As you can imagine, there are other larger versions – take a close look to be sure the portable solar kit will charge the devices YOU have.
Click on the image to get current pricing. (Remember, I am an affiliate at Amazon and may get a commission if you buy through this link. Thanks for supporting my work and helping spread the word about preparedness!)
This technology makes a great Christmas present, by the way. It’s never too early to start making your list!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
Day 31 of Summer Vacation. The last day of this special effort to provide you with some shorter and lighter Advisories as a change of pace. Hope you have enjoyed them — and welcome to some of my new Summer Vacation readers!
By now we’ve all heard the concept of “muscle memory.” That
is, if you practice something enough, when called upon your body will remember
what to do even if your brain is sidetracked.
Professionals train
constantly. They develop all kinds of muscle memory, and every day we hear stories
how that training has paid off.
Volunteers, on the other hand, are a different story. When it comes to preparedness training for volunteers within the neighborhood, we have a challenge.
Here is
the training challenge as I see it.
Even in a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training session with the guidance of professional instructors we can TALK about what to do in an emergency medical situation. We can SHOW people how clear airways, check for breathing, and test circulation. We can PRACTICE once or twice with professional supervision.
Then we go home! And we are lucky to get a refresher course on those particular procedures within the next month or even 6 months!
In our local neighborhood group meetings we don’t have professionally-trained leaders. We depend on our own volunteer members to come up with good ways to prepare and to respond. When we’re lucky, we attract a guest speaker with special credentials.
Then we go home! And we may never hear from that speaker again!
A
current LinkedIn discussion group sees the challenge, too.
I participate in a LinkedIn group for emergency managers. There’s
a discussion taking place right now about providing enough on-going training
for people at different levels of expertise.
In particular, the discussion is focusing on the very
audience I mentioned above – the concerned
and committed volunteer who may be part of a local community but not part of a
formal program.
How can we give these people the chance to develop that
all-important “muscle memory?”
Here’s some of what I’ve learned about meeting the training challenge.
Online resources.
There are a number of online resources, courses and online videos. We have used
many of them in our group. The challenge is having to first find and then sort
through them all, site by site and video by video, to find one that fits your
group’s level of interest, its budget and is of a quality you’re comfortable
with. As we know, there is no easy way to “rate” the quality of ANYTHING
online!
Books. By now, you realize I’ve tried to capture some training ideas in the books I’ve written. The advantage of books is that they are inexpensive, available everywhere, and eminently portable. The disadvantage – reading about an idea in a book doesn’t train muscle memory! Some dedicated member of the group has to turn the idea into an actual training exercise. (That’s what I try to assist with in Emergency Preparedness Meeting Ideas.)
Training that can actually involve muscle memory is by far the most desirable. For volunteers, it’s still very tough to come by.
But when it comes to emergency preparedness, ANY training is better than none!
You can get started now with some of the resources mentioned above. One thing for sure: There will be no time for training once the disaster hits!
Day 24 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!
I’ve had to do a lot
of research for my Advisories and my books.
If you take a quick look at our Advisory archives you’ll see topics you may never have really thought about! I certainly hadn’t thought of them all when they came up . . .
Consider these issues, for example:
Best respirators
for after a forest fire
How to know if your home is vulnerable to landslides
How are drones
being used in disaster response?
Will this fire extinguisher work on this fire?
Insurance
for volcanoes
Are you within the range of a nuclear reactor emergency?
Front office
security – are you liable as owner?
When I first started, it’s probably safe to say I knew very
little about any of these. (Well, I DID know something about security in the
workplace.)
Now, however, after writing not once but in some cases
several times on these topics, I feel that I am pretty knowledgeable. Maybe
even better,
Now I know where to go to get reliable information!
Here are three of my favorite sources. I recommend them to
you.
NFPA. Anything to do with fire prevention, statistics, standards, careers, education for children – The National Fire Prevention Association has global reach and its site is an amazing treasure trove. I also subscribe to their newsletter. The illustration for this Advisory came from NFPA.
Agility Recovery protects businesses against interruption and disaster. I’ve followed the company’s growth over the past half dozen years, and taken advantage of their excellent webinars, case histories and other free resources they make available on their site.
Earthquakes. Because I live here in California, where there are typically over 200 noticeable (over 5.0) earthquakes a year, I have a permanent link on my desktop to the United States Geological Survey Earthquake map. I check it often and read all the fine print! (When we had the earthquakes over the 4th of July, the site was temporarily down because so many people were trying to find out just what had happened!)
I urge you to go to these sites if you’re looking for info on fires, business continuity or earthquakes. And if you are looking for information on other preparedness topics, please drop me a line. There’s a lot of misinformation or half-information out there and perhaps I can steer you around some of it to more reliable sources.
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
Day 23 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!
Hardly anyone ever disagrees with the concept of emergency
preparedness. When it comes up, the usual first comment goes like this:
“Yes, I know I should be doing more about being prepared. “
This comment is usually accompanied by a duck of the head
and a slightly sickly smile.
If the conversation continues, the next comment is,
inevitably:
“But I just don’t know where to start.”
I have been on the receiving end of this one/two sequence hundreds of times over the years. And I’ve tried many ways to get past it and get people moving on to the next step!
First, I try to engage people in a friendly dialog. But since I can’t talk to everyone, I started writing.
First, it was my blog posts (that I call Advisories). Then I felt more was necessary, so I started on a series of books. You see them in the image above!
Then, develop some tools to move the action forward.
Here are some of the tools I’ve developed. Some of them are featured on our EmergencyPlanGuide.org site. Others have more info at our companion website EmergencyPreparednessBooks.com, where we review books written by a variety of authors.
For individuals — A simple list of “The Top Emergency Kit Starter Items.” This is list suggests 10 good GIFTS that you could purchase for family members – or for yourself! – to get things started! Check it out!
For individuals and their neighbors — A friendly 120 page book to get people working together for mutual benefit. Actually, I’ve written three of them, based on the type of neighborhood people live in. You can find out about that neighborhood series here.
For employees and business owners – Obviously, when disaster hits a business, it hits the whole community. Every business ought to understand basic steps to take to stay alive long enough to get the whole organization back up and running. Joe and I are particularly proud of this book because we have worked with small businesses for years, and with very large businesses before that!
For leaders – When I started building our neighborhood group, there were absolutely no resources available. There still aren’t — so I decided to create one! This book has suggestions for meetings on preparedness to attract and engage members of a community group. The meeting ideas could be used by a church group, a neighborhood emergency response group, the PTA, whatever.
Make the tools widely available.
All these books are for sale at Amazon. You can actually find all of them — plus others I’ve written — listed on my Author Page.
Now that I have figured out how the system works, I have two more titles in the works, hopefully to be finished within the next couple of months. (Amazon tells me that building a SERIES is good for sales!)
If you or loved ones are asking, “How do I get started with preparing for emergencies?” you will certainly find some answers here! If you know other people who are asking the question, you can help them get answers and get moving, too.
I welcome your interest, your support — and your reviews on Amazon!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
Day 22 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!
I find myself muttering this question under my breath when I hear neighbors complaining about how long it’s taking for the power to come back on even after a scheduled, temporary blackout!
I ask the question of myself from time to time, mostly when I don’t want to try something physical I would have been perfectly willing to try a few years back. (I asked it about 5 times before I agreed to go skydiving with my daughter in 2018!)
Then, when I saw the quote below, it really struck home. It comes from a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Like many things scientific, you have to read it twice to get the full import.
“. . .when we run out of legitimate threats to face, we begin to call things that we judged to be harmless in the past as now a threat.”
So yes, the quote itself feels a bit complicated. I tried summing it up this way:
“Are you becoming a wimp?
If either of these quotes strikes a chord, you are going to really appreciate a recent post written by LaRae Quy: How to be resilient when times get tough.
It’s long, it’s inspiring – and it has some very specific recommendations. . . all designed to KEEP YOU — and perhaps your neighbors — FROM SEEING THREATS EVERYWHERE.
Enjoy! And let us know what you came away with!
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
Day 11 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!
Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about the importance of water this summer for keeping cool – particularly when you have no air conditioning. Then just last Saturday I was on the phone with my son in Germany, talking about keeping his young family safe during the heat wave that was going on in Europe!
At the same time my LinkedIn feed is full of pictures of flooding in the Midwest – often with the caption “No end in sight!”
What do you expect this summer? Too much or too little water? And does it really make a difference?
I think it does. According to the United Nations, “about 90% of all natural disasters are water-related!”
90%? Just think about it. Here are 5 miscellaneous facts that give us an idea of the role water is playing right here, right now in the U.S. I think we should all be familiar with details like these:
This year’s floods in Iowa are so bad that Governor Reynolds didn’t even have to do a damage assessment in order to apply for disaster relief.
The 2018 wildfires in California (“worst in history) were intensified by nearly 8 years of drought. This summer, utility company PG&E has already begun “Public Safety Power Shutoff’s (PSPS)” to protect from more electrical fires.
When Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina in last September, dozens of “hog lagoons” overflowed or were damaged – leaking pig poop onto surrounding acreage and into the groundwater. (Did you realize that over 40% of Americans rely on groundwater for drinking water?)
Florida has been in the news lately, not just because of political activity. Turns out that the sea level there is rising by 1 inch every 3 years. Water comes right up through the ground in coastal cities! And saltwater in getting into drinking water and compromising sewage plants.
Remember Hurricane Harvey, in Houston? So do the residents there! A study of over 13,000 people shows that mental health damage has had a bigger impact than physical damage. . . both for people whose homes were flooded and those whose homes were spared.
So what can we do about water this summer?
We can’t change the weather. But we can certainly be more aware of how precious clean water really is. We can do our best not to waste or pollute, and we can encourage those around us to do the same.
Virginia Your Emergency Plan Guide team
P.S. Here in California that drought had an impact on more than the forests. All sorts of restrictions were placed on washing cars, watering lawns, etc. Even today, waiters bring out silverware and menus but not necessarily water. You have to ask for it!
What’s going on in your neighborhood to save water?
Day 5 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!
