Our fragile Infrastructure

There is an excellent editorial by Matt Gurney at the NationalPost.com about the fragility of our infrastructure and how the best laid plans of governments and men go oft awry when reality proves more complex than anyone had planned for. Gureny argues that our infrastructure is more complex than anyone can possibly understand or imagine; that failures are inevitable; that restoration can be difficult; that recovery can take days, weeks or even months. We should all be prepared with supplies to care for our own needs, without power or water, for several days.

Here are some of the highlights from the editorial ...

Sometimes, huge and complicated systems (or even systems of systems) are brought down by fantastically tiny glitches that happen to strike at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. [...] And so it was during the Northeast blackout of 2003, which cut electrical power for 55 million people in the United States and Ontario. That was eventually traced back to a combination of a computer glitch
and unusually hot weather causing power lines in Ohio to droop and make contact with tree branches that hadn’t been properly pruned. That was all it took to shut Toronto and New York City down.

[...] defending against this sort of thing is extraordinarily difficult. The systems that sustain our economy and civilization are too complex to be easily managed, or even understood by the trained professionals who run them. Returning to the 2003 blackout, the investigation into it revealed that even as the situation spiralled out of
control, utilities operators in Ohio had no appreciation that their electrical grid had become unstable and little understanding of how, as transmission wires overloaded and generators automatically shut down, the problem would ripple throughout their electrical system.

[...] Emergency preparedness is a good thing for governments to focus on. But [...] there’s ample evidence that governments are simply incapable of adequately tackling the complexities of disasters confined to even a single building. If something big ever happens — and sooner or later, something always does — we should all expect to be on our own for days, or longer. The systems we’ve built to support ourselves are just too complicated to repair any faster than that.

End of Year Money Checklist

"Money often costs too much."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The year is almost over and year-end is a great time to give yourself a financial checkup. The website TheDigeratiLife recommends 16 Money Moves For Your Year End Financial Checklist.

1. Check your Credit Report - you can request a FREE report once a year from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The website http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ makes this easy to do. Watch out for sites that claim to offer a free credit check but also sign you up for a fee-based service.

2. Review your expenses for the year - are you over budget? Do you have a budget? Do you know how much you spent?

3. Evaluate your financial plan - do you have a plan for paying off the mortgage and other debts, for building up an emergency savings account? Did you meet the goals of your plan?

4. Get all medical/dental check-ups done before year-end. With most insurance plans, the insurance deductibles reset at the start of the new year, so you'll pay in full for any doctors visits in 2012 until you reach the deductible again.

5. Spend your FSA - if you have a Flexible Spending Plan for medical expenses then you must spend it or lose it. Some plans have a grace period of up to 2 1/2 months. Know your FSA deadline for spending.

6. Review your insurance claims for the year - is everything OK?

7. Add something to an IRA

8. Contribute to 529 plan for your kid's college

9. Give money to your kids - some gifts to kids can be tax deductible up to federal limits. Check out the rules for this.

10. Prepay tax deductible expenses - I'm not a fan of this one. By paying early you're taking from next year's deduction to help this year.

11. Review your investments like stocks, bonds and mutual funds

12. Sell investments for tax purposes. If you sell a losing investment in this tax-year it can help offset the taxes for investments that made money. Think carefully about this. Unless the investment is junk that you want to get rid off, personally I'd hold on to it and hope that it recovers instead of locking in the loss. Or hold on to it and sell in a tax year where I have huge gains elsewhere.

13. Defer buying mutual funds till next year. Mutual fund companies are required by law to pass on any fund capital gains to their investors. If you buy in December you'll get a tax bill for the gains made in 2011 that you missed out on by buying late in the year.

14. Make your annual charitable donations

15. If your 70 1/2 or older be sure to take money out of our IRA to meet minimum distribution requirements

16. Prepare for a year-end bonus. If you're lucky to get a bonus, how will you spend it wisely?

Bottom Line

Read the Digerati article in full because some of the suggestions above are very tricky and can backfire if done wrong or without the help of a financial planner.
http://www.thedigeratilife.com/blog/year-end-financial-moves-money-reminders-annual-checklist/

One thing I would do differently is check my credit history at three different times of the year from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Why get three reports at the same time when you could get one report in Jan, one in May and one in September instead?

Do you know where your family is?

Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones of them.

- Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome (121-180 AD)

Here's some preparedness advice from FEMA at Ready.gov

Your family may not be together when a disaster strikes so it is important to plan in advance: how you will get to a safe place; how you will contact one another; how you will get back together; and what you will do in different situations. Read more about Family Communication during an emergency.

Ready.gov has made it simple for you to make a family emergency plan. Download the Family Emergency Plan and fill out the sections before printing it or emailing it to your family and friends.

You should also inquire about emergency plans at places where your family spends time: work, daycare and school, faith organizations, sports events and commuting. If no plans exist, consider volunteering to help create one. Talk to community leaders, your colleagues, neighbors and members of faith or civic organizations about how you can work together in the event of an emergency. You will be better prepared to safely reunite your family and loved ones during an emergency if you think ahead and communicate with others in advance.

Bottom Line

Identify a contact such as a friend or relative who lives out-of-state for household members to notify after an emergency. Local phone lines can become overloaded so it may be easier to make a long-distance phone call than to call across town. An out-of-town contact may be in a better position to communicate among separated family members.

Be sure every member of your family knows the phone number and has a cell phone, coins or a prepaid phone card to call the emergency contact.

If you have a cell phone, program that person(s) as "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) in your phone. If you are in an accident, emergency personnel will often check your ICE listings in order to get a hold of someone you know. Make sure to tell your family and friends that you’ve listed them as emergency contacts.

Teach family members how to use text messaging. Text messages can often get around network disruptions when a phone call might not be able to get through.

Subscribe to alert services. Many communities now have systems that will send instant text alerts or e-mails to let you know about bad weather, road closings, local emergencies, etc.

Old Favorites

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.
~John Ed Pearce

Today I'll point you back to older blog posts that provide more details for Hurricane preparation.

Steps to take before a Hurricane arrives

includes
1. Food Safety
2. Food & Water
3. Lights
4. Stay Informed
5. Evacuation Preparation
6. Health
7. Important Papers
8. Peace of Mind
9. Prepare your Home

See also creating a Family Communication Plan

Bottom Line

Don't just read. Make the plan, build the kits.

Odds of Dying

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

- Benjamin Franklin, 1789

When we prioritize emergency planning there are two factors at odds with each other. One is the risk of death. The other is the disruption to our daily life, well being, belongings, etc. Too often we focus on the second because a burning house or massive flood is much flashier, more "news worthy" than one person dying.

Here are two excellent graphs on everyone's odds of dying with circles or squares drawn to scale.
 

http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Picture%20Library/News/web_graphics/Injury_Facts_37.pdf

http://simplecomplexity.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/odds-dying8.jpg

Look at the size of Heart Disease, Cancer & Stroke before we reach the first "accident" type death, Motor Vehicle Accident. For emergency preparedness I have blogged about Floods, Earthquakes, and Lightning but notice how unlikely these are to kill someone.

Over the next few weeks I'll try to work in stories about the top Killers:

• What to do for Heart Attack and Strokes?
• Cancer Awareness - self examinations, protection from the sun and Tanning booths
• Motor Vehicle Safety (seat belts, driving while texting or cell phone, driving while sleepy, hydropaning, inspecting your tires for wear, worn brakes, etc)
• What to do when Poisoned (not much to say actually except call the poison hotline, different poisons require different responses)
• Trips & Falls Hazards

Bottom Line

Keep in mind that preparedness has two roles. One is avoidance & prevention. The other is mitigation to lessen the impact or promote a more rapid recovery.

With Prevention we try to keep accidents from happening - removing fire and tripping hazards from the home, better diet & exercise, pruning that big tree limb next to the house, keeping your car's tires and brakes in good repair, etc.

With Mitigation we take action now to lessen the impact of a future disaster. This can include buying insurance, boarding the windows before a storm, backing up important computer files and legal paperwork, fire drills, having a family contact plan.

Both can be applied to death. We want to prevent accidents and avoid lifestyles that lead to early death with some of the actions described above. For death mitigation you need a Will and also Estate Planning. Have you purchased a grave site? Does your family have access to or even know about the banks and brokerages where your money is stored? Do you have life insurance?

30 Things I Wish I’d Done Before I Turned 30

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'” - poet Robert Browning

There's a charming blog post on www.thefrisky.com/ called 30 Things I Wish I’d Done Before I Turned 30.

There are traditional items ...

1. Gotten Pregnant

2. Traveled Europe
9. Hitched Myself

Some intellectual goals ...
5. Earned a Ph.D.
26. Read Moby Dick. Or War and Peace. Or Anna Karenina

Skills never learned...

11. Learned a Foreign Language

29. Learned How to Cook

Lost opportunities ...
19. Spent More Time with People Who Died
20. Attended More Weddings 25. Competed in the Olympics

Fun Things Never attempted...
7. Acted in a Movie
12. Dyed My Hair Some Insane Color
13. Gotten More Tattoos
24. Learned How to Surf

Health: Body and Soul...
10. Taken Better Care
14. Volunteered More
17. Ran a Marathon
18. Been More Spiritual
21. Gotten a Boob Job
23. Mastered Yoga

And Psychological Goals...
22. Figured Out Who I Was
27. Got Over Turning 30
28. Conquered My Fear of Heights
30. Stopped Making Lists

Bottom Line

What would your list include of things you didn't do when younger? Some thing are never too late to start like
16. Started My Own Small Business

I'll close with some lyrics from a favorite song - Both Sides Now

So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
...
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Family Communication Plan

-I've exceeded my unlimited texting.

When preparing for emergencies, you might think of flashlights, radio, water, food and first aid but few people think about planning for how to communicate. Suppose your child is at school when an evacuation notice is issued. The local phone lines will be overwhelmed. How will you find out where your child is at and how can they communicate to you?

Fortunately new technologies provide many options for social networking like texting, Facebook, and email. For the old fashioned, try calling a relative that is long distance. These are separate phone circuits and often work then local calls can not connect. Make sure everyone knows which relative to call.

To help you create a plan and share it, here are two sites...

1. Create a family contact plan online at http://ready.adcouncil.org/beprepared/fep/fep.do
This site prompts you for descriptions and contact information for all family members, plus work, and school, and police, etc and then location and phone for emergency family gathering sites. The information is NOT saved online. Instead you will print out wallet sized cards with this information for family members to carry.

2. The web site http://ready.adcouncil.org/beprepared/quickshare.html  prompts you for emergency contact information and then displays this back so you can copy and paste the information to friends (and your Bishop and EPS) via email. The following information is collected...

Emergency Plan information for <person X>
My Emergency Contact <a local person>
My Out-of-Town Contact <a distant person>
My Neighborhood Meeting Place <place>

Bottom Line

I hope you find this helpful. There are few things worse than not knowing the status of a loved one during/after an emergency.

Emergency Response Politics

"It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children . . . they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw . . . people who are dying in front of you."
- CNN producer Kim Segal, describing the New Orleans Convention Center the day after Hurricane Katrina

[Note: the Convention Center was NOT an official shelter like the Superdome. Thousands of people just showed up and expected to be taken care of in a city that was official abandoned. The media handled this very poorly- looking for blame instead of helping evacuate the people to real shelters or notifying officials. TV anchor, Ted Koppel, would accuse FEMA of negligence for NOT learning about the crisis at the convention center from TV news reports.]

A reader of the SurvivalBlog.com objects to Firefighter Charles disaster scenario that I quoted in yesterday's post.

"Firefighter Charles's statement about FEMA's response times shows a lack of understanding of how the process works. In the event of another Hurricane Katrina type natural disaster, the following things have to happen, in the following order:

1. Disaster strikes
2. Local officials setup an incident command
3. Local Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) are activated. The local emergency operations plan (EOP) is put into action.
4. Mutual aid agreements are activated. If the disaster goes beyond this, then...
5. State EOCs are activated. State EOPs are put into action.
6. The state activates it's mutual aid agreements.
7. If the situation is not contained, the Governor declares a State Emergency. He can then.....
8. Appeal to the President to declare the event a federal disaster - whether it is a Stafford Act event or not.
9. FEMA is then activated and ordered to head the rescue/relief efforts. The FBI is the lead investigative agency for any criminal acts, while the BATFE is the lead law enforcement agency for anything law enforcement related such as security, etc."

Now there are some good points here but I think the responder protests too much. The process above makes Firefighter Charles's point even stronger. Before super-slow FEMA can respond, one has to wait for local bureaucracy and then state bureaucracy to run its course. This rarely happens quickly and you can still expect 72-hrs or more to pass before resources like food and mass shelter are available.

In the case of Katrina the emergency response process was stalled by politics. The mayor of New Orleans ordered everyone to abandon his city with just 19 hours notice. The New Orleans official evacuation plan was not activated; school buses sat unused that could have helped evacuate residents. Those who could not leave were ordered to go to shelter of "last resort" without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. The Louisiana Superdome was designed to handle 800 as a shelter but 30,000 arrived.

Immediately after the hurricane had passed on Aug 30, 2005, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA's boss, tried to take over the federal, state, and local operations, citing the National Response Plan. This was refused by Governor Blanco of Louisiana who indicated that her National Guard could manage. President Bush, a former governor of Texas, would not overrule a governor acting within her constitutional rights of state leadership.

Still it is wrong to say the Federal Government did nothing. Naval ships were moved to the Gulf before the hurricane hit and Coast Guard helicopters rescued 35,000 individuals from flood waters. Approximately 58,000 National Guard personnel were activated to deal with the storm's aftermath, with troops coming from all 50 states. The Department of Defense also activated volunteer members of the Civil Air Patrol.

700,000 people applied to FEMA for temporary housing. Tens of thousands of trailers were used but in some parishes the local council refused the trailers (not wanting to create a permanent squatters camp perhaps?). Also FEMA would only deploy trailers to regions with working utilities. (Think of the sewage problems that would result otherwise). For those without trailers, FEMA paid for hotel rooms. Five years after the disaster, there are still 260 families in hotels being paid by FEMA.

A Congressional investigation after Katrina found that FEMA and the Red Cross "did not have a logistics capacity sophisticated enough to fully support the massive number of Gulf coast victims." It placed responsibility for the disaster on all three levels of government.

Bottom Line

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) always puts the onus for response on local governments. However local responders NEVER have the resources for a major emergency. In Westchester county with a population of almost 1 million, the local Red Cross and CERT teams have cots for only 30,000 people. If there were mass evacuation from an accident at Indian Point Nuclear power plant, we'd have to rely on neighboring counties and neighboring states for shelter. That requires lots of high-level politics and lots of time.

The worst part of this is that many townships in Westchester, NY refuse to stockpile supplies and designate shelters. Once a town has a shelter plan, they are responsible to maintain it. For towns without a shelter plan, the responsibility goes upon Westchester county.

http://perpetualpreparedness.blogspot.com/2008/09/waiting-for-cavalry.html
http://perpetualpreparedness.blogspot.com/2008/08/hurrican-ready.html

Right tool for the Right Job

“We shall neither fail nor falter; we shall not weaken or tire...give us the tools and we will finish the job.” - Winston Churchill

The Survivalist Blog has an interesting article that covers emergency preparedness two ways:

• Generic recommendations
• Specific equipment for Specific disasters

The generic preparation includes the usual suspects: water, food, and clothes plus planning, training and compassion.

Equipment preparation for specific disasters include:

• Biological attack/epidemic
• Chemical accident/attack
• Civil disorder/riot
• Financial collapse
• Nuclear war
• Radiological accident
• Transportation accident

Bottom Line
As the Survivalist points out, some of these disasters may be more common than you think. Is there a radioactive facility of some kind close to you? Do you live less than 20 miles from a chemical plant, railroad tracks, commercial freeway, an agricultural storage facility, or a manufacturing plant that uses poisonous chemicals?
One way to find out the nearby chemical risks it to ask your local fire department to let you read their “Hazardous Material Management Plan.” It lists all the hazardous materials being used by industries within the district.

How Well do you Know Your Home?

Be it ever so humble there's no place like home.

For lovers of lists, CodenameInsight has published 75 Things to Know About Your. Highlights include:

• year your home was built
• square footage of your home
• size of lot
• property boundaries (we've had disputes with both neighbors on the exact lines and who for example is responsible for a fallen tree)
• where is the deed?
• location of shut offs for water, gas, and electricity and who to contact
• copy of insurance policy

Bottom Line

Your home probably the most expensive thing you will ever own. Read the list and become better acquainted with your primary asset.

Lessons from the Minnesota Bridge Collapse

“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” - David Russell (Scottish classical Guitarist)

The Minnesota Monthly has an excellently written article, 110 Minutes, on the rescue attempt following the bridge collapse on August 1, 2007. I highly recommend reading all four web pages.

Like all disasters there were heroes who saved lives, mistakes that occurred, and confusion on the scene. But this story has a mostly happy ending - only 13 lives were lost when a bridge full of commuting cars crashed into the river. All survivors were rescued within 110 minutes.

The citizens of Minneapolis are fortunate that the Fire Chief, Rocco Forte, "dragged" the mayor and 80 disaster leaders to a four-day FEMA exercise prior to the collapse. “We did quite poorly,” said Forte.

From the workshop disaster planners learned the value of developing relationships with adjacent counties, cities and agencies and discovered they needed to invest in emergency management response. Forte was put in charge of a new Department of Emergency Preparedness and obtained grant money from Homeland Security. The city spent more than $25 million updating its telecommunications system, nearly $20 million on new 800 MHz radios and about $8 million on special operations teams.

During the bridge collapse crisis 100 people filled the recently created Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

Problems and tasks were listed on whiteboards on the walls of the room; there were so many that someone took a picture of the boards every two hours before it was wiped and reused. The public-works department was tapped for lights and generators, port-a-potties, and a crane on a barge. The Police Athletic League bus was commandeered to ship officers to the site. Someone from the finance department started tallying the costs almost immediately, tracking every cent the feds might reimburse.

Bottom Line

Disaster rescue is complicated. The article shows that one man, like Rick Kraft, can do a lot on the scene, but when people are trapped inside crushed cars, heavy equipment is needed. Dispatchers need to ensure the right equipment and officials (fire/police/EMT) are sent to the correct scene in the proper numbers. Police on the site need to keep the roadways free for emergency vehicles and keep a gawking public away. When rescue lasts hours or days then logistics is needed for meals, supplies, sleeping cots, porta-potties, and so on.

Follow the example of Fire Chief Forte and drag your local leaders to disaster training classes.

Waiting to Be Rescued

Most people mistakenly expect that the government will quickly rescue them during an emergency. But a new study of Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart Way in Disaster Preparedness/Response: Policy Implication, states that,

"the temptation will always be for [bureaucratic] government agencies to want to be overly involved so that they can continue to justify their current budgets. Although agencies wish to avoid errors of commission, they want to remain involved to justify their existence. Thus, [government] agencies often move in after the fact in the most conservative ways possible." – (economist Steven Horwitz, Ph.D).

Slow moving, regulated, and bureaucratic agencies are the exact opposite of what people want and need during a crisis. The FEMA joint field office to coordinate the federal, state and local response was finally established 12 days after Katrina hit. In contrast, “Within 48 hours of Katrina’s landfall only 56 [out of 176 affected] Wal-Mart facilities were still closed.” With no power, Wal-Marts were accepting hand written IOUs for payment or giving away supplies for free.

Lack of government coordination was endemic for the first two weeks following Katrina. Wal-Mart tried to cooperate with the government in delivering supplies (Wal-Mart has one of the world’s best logistics and supply system). BUT the Wal-Mart’s Emergency Director, Jason Jackson, says he couldn’t identify who was in charge. “There was a lot of adversarialism among the governments. Louisiana wasn’t playing nice with New Orleans, who wasn’t playing nice with the feds. FEMA was in there saying one thing and the state was saying another thing and the county parishes were saying something else.”

Who should Wal-Mart work with asks Jackson, “Is it the city? Is it the state? Is it the DOD? We found ourselves trying to make inroads into a lot of different organizations.”

In some cases local government, in the form of police, had failed completely. Immediately after Katrina, Wal-Mart managers found stores being looted while police looked on unconcerned or sometimes joining the looting.

Bottom Line

The Horwitz study on Wal-Mart vs Government concludes, "Within the political process, … government agencies are more often concerned with pleasing other political actors and finding ways to expand their budgets and power. This often makes them less sensitive to the direct needs of the people who rely on them to get specific tasks accomplished."

See also To Rescue Our Economy Obama Should Follow Wal-Mart’s Example

This same theme of bureaucratic empire building was echoed recently in a story about Government budget bubbles bursting,

“As history has shown repeatedly, budget surpluses pile up in good times, allowing politicians to spend freely. They create new social programs and expand existing ones. They pad public payrolls, build more government edifices and otherwise squander the people's hard-earned money. But they dismiss talk of returning the surpluses to taxpayers because it's contrary to their philosophy of, to borrow a phrase, spreading the wealth around.

Since this government growth is incremental, its ruinous cumulative effect isn't fully apparent until the economy goes south and government revenues plummet. But in bad times, politicians vigorously defend their empire as more necessary than ever and argue further expansion is imperative if they are to help the people hurt by recession. This inevitably leads to tax increases that, to borrow a phrase, fan the flames of recession. But after the economy rebounds and surpluses return, the tax increases remain because politicians need the revenues to scratch their insatiable spending itch.”

So what is the answer? Two things – accountability and decentralization.

1. People must hold politicians accountable for good government – not handouts but wise investments of the people’s money in infrastructure and emergency services.
2. Disaster response works best from the bottom up. You should prepare your family as best you can. Then rely on and work with a neighborhood CERT team. The team will coordinate with the Town or City. The City will get help from the State. The State will receive assistance from the Feds. As you move up the chain of command, response time will get slower and slower and less and less reliable.
3. Very few things work better from the top-down. FEMA is great for training and setting standards BEFORE disasters occur. It should establish universal communication frequencies. FEMA has selected the Incident Command System (ICS) as the national standard for emergency management.
4. BUT during the emergency, the central coordinators need to let the ground troops respond and make choices as local situations dictate. Before Katrina hit, Wal-Mart told its managers, “A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and, above all, do the right thing.”
5. Ideally the highest level in charge would coordinate resources and supplies but this failed miserably during Katrina. The Horwitz Wal-Mart study has recommendations for decentralized supply management.

The Survival Encyclopedia

Arthur: "All my life I've had this strange feeling that there's something big and sinister going on in the world."
Slartibartfast: "No, that's perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe gets that."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

On the web site Mt Athos, there is an article called the The Survival Encyclopedia. In it the author suggests that everyone create their own survival guide tailored to their needs. You should store it on paper in a ring binder. If you keep it on a CD you will need electrical power to read it. Do NOT rely on the Internet and the web to be available during an emergency.
Here is the list of recommended topics:
Food Storage:

• Canning
• Freezing
• Drying
• Pickling
• Brining
• Smoking
• Long Term Storage
• Buckets
• Nutritional Information
• Food Storage Recipes

Foraging:

• Hunting
• Fishing
• Trapping & Snaring
• Wild Foods

Water

• Chlorine Bleach Purification
• Using Pool Shock
• Primitive Filtering Methods
• Boiling
• Slow Sand Filter
• Rain Water Harvesting
• Storage

Shelter:

• Wilds Camp
• Retreat
• Expedient Shelters

Energy:

• Building A Battery Bank for 12/24/48 Volt power
• Home Made Wind Generator
• Battery Maintenance Information
• Small Scale Photovoltaic System

Health:

• Where There Is No Doctor
• Where There Is No Dentist
• Ships Captains Medical Guide and reader
• Sanitation

Heating, Cooling & Light:

• Building A Rocket Stove
• Emergency Refrigeration
• Kerosene Lamp Info (burn rates, etc…)
• Natural Air Conditioning
• Wood Burning Basics
• LED Lighting

Disaster Preparedness: (List natural disasters common to your area)

• Wild Fire
• Flooding
• Snowstorms
• Windstorms
• Financial Preparations and Documents
• First Aid
• Pandemic Planning
• NBC Planning

Survival Skills:

• Fire Building
• Deadfalls and Snares
• Direction Finding
• Knot Tying
• Hide Tanning

Gear:

• Firearms Care and Repair
• Reloading Information
• Axe Sharpening
• Knife Sharpening
• Tool Sharpening

Homesteading:

• Goats and Sheep
• Pigs
• Rabbits
• Chickens, Ducks and Geese

Gardening:

• French/Bio-Intensive
• Gardening
• Square Foot Gardening
• Companion Planting
• Organic Pesticides
• Cold Frames
• Greenhouses
• Container Planting
• Seed Saving
• Aquaculture
• Vermiculture
• Permaculture
• Composting

Building Materials and Methods:

• Cordwood
• Log
• Cob
• Sod
• Straw Bale
• Traditional
• Post and Timber
• Earthship
• Home Forge
• Home Foundry
• Homemade Charcoal
• Fuel Storage & Preservation
• Bio-Diesel Production
• Alcohol Distillation

Bottom Line

I consider myself an urban survivalist and am not prepared to build and live in a little house on the prairie. If you can learn to build a sod house, raise chickens, etc - more power to you. But realistically, for most of us these are lost skills.

Learn what is useful to you. What can you cook without power in the home? (Wood, charcoal, camp stoves with fuel). How will you keep warm? (coats, blankets, fire, Hyperthermia). How will you protect your house? Where will you find clean water? (Storing Water, Water Filtration )

The 100 Items that Disappear First in a Panic

"I am afraid of the worst, but I am not sure what that is"
- Abraham Rotstein

Today I recommend reviewing the list 100 Items to Disappear First in a Panic from the blog Arkansas Soaper. If you had money to burn you could just go out and buy every item on this list of 100 but that's not preparing wisely. Part of emergency planning is deciding what YOU need and can use. While this list is a great help and might remind you of things you overlooked it may also items that won't be of any use in your household. I wouldn't buy item #100: chickens & goats or item #98: Cigarettes.

Bottom Line

Lists are great tools for planning but are not a substitute for planning.

Learning Survival Skills

I am the very model of a modern Major-General
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical ...
- From the Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan

To continue a theme from yesterday, part of emergency planning is skills assessment. When the worst occurs, how will YOU be able to help? The following is quoted from Survival FAQ which was cited yesterday as a great resource for planning:

"The kinds of skills and materials you need can be very widespread. Depending on the threat you're planning for, you might want the ability to recreate civilization as we know it. This is almost certainly impossible for one person, or even one family ... to be competent at them all. This is why survival groups or small communities are almost always preferable ...

You'll find that certain things are needed for many different threats. First aid skills and materials are always useful, you may find that they show up for every category. ... You might decide that you need to be proficient in emergency first aid, food preservation (drying, smoking, canning, pickling) , animal husbandry, engine mechanic, construction (design and building), fire fighting, sailing, fishing, computer programming, ham radios, weaving cloth, sewing, tanning leathers, bee keeping, accounting, trading, cabinetmaking, farming, dentistry, childbirth, small military unit tactics, advanced emergency medical treatment, improvised explosives, hunting, trapping, welding, metal working, power production and generation, telephone systems, and almost anything else you can think of.

Where to get trained:
... your local community probably offers a wide variety of courses that will help you in your quest. Check with your local community college, high school adult program, community center, or other educational programs. Just don't expect to see a category called "Survivalist Training". Your local fire department probably offers training in CPR and first aid, and if you can join, they'll offer you more and better training. The local law enforcement agency may offer training as well as your county's civil defense / emergency preparedness office.

Where to get experience:
The best way to learn some skills is to do it. ... you can offer your services as a volunteer to any one of a number of organizations. For example, if you're not sure how to cook for large groups of people, volunteer at a food bank, meals-on-wheels, or church group, and learn! If you want to learn how to build houses (and fix them, and how to use tools), organizations like Habitat for Humanity are available, just looking for helpers. You'll learn some skills, but more importantly, meet people who can show you more tips and tricks. Organizations like the American Red Cross usually need disaster workers, first aid instructors, etc., and they'll train you.

It may not be practical to study your specific area of interest, but can learn something that's closely related. If you don't have a field to farm, how about a back yard you can start growing a few vegetables in? If you're an apartment dweller, and don't have a yard at all, you can grow some vegetables, or even just flowers, in window boxes. You probably can't provide all your food needs from a window box (unless it's a huge window), but you can start finding out what it's like, what works, and what doesn't.

Bottom Line

My wife and I follow the advice given above. We have been trained by the Red Cross and by our county disaster program (WEVR) for free as volunteer disaster workers. We've attended low cost classes at a local community college and with community outreach programs.

The knowledge is out there. Go get it.

What Could Happen?

"The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents" - H.P. Lovecraft

An important question to ask in emergency preparedness is, "exactly what event(s) am I preparing for?" Different events require different responses. During a tornado you'll seek shelter in an underground room that is protected from winds and flying debris. The same spot might work for a hurricane too but you have to consider the possibility flooding. Could a water surge drown you in your basement? On the other hand a basement is a very bad place to be during a chemical spill or terrorist attack with a heavier than air gas. A heavy gas creeps along the ground and would fill your basement and your lungs.

It is important to think about and make plans for the scenarios most likely to occur in your neighbor. To help you in this planning, here are two websites that list potential events:

• FEMA www.fema.gov/areyouready/getting_informed.shtm
• Survival FAQ www.geocities.com/tominelpaso/assess_faq.txt

I recall one podcast where an emergency instructor said he felt very safe in a suburb of Chicago. There was very little chance of earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, etc. So he was surprised one day when ordered to evacuate his house by the police. It turns out that an abandoned railroad car in the neighborhood had caught fire. No one knew what was inside so the fumes were assumed to be dangerous.

Bottom Line

Once you've made a list of possible local emergencies, make plans. Where would you go? What supplies would you need? What skills will you need? What don't you know that you should learn?

If it helps, plan one event at a time; don't get overwhelmed with information overload. I heard a story about a new leader of a church who wanted to be prepared for everything. Together with his counselors/advisers he made a list of things that could go wrong - someone has a heart attack, breaks a leg, the toilets overflow, etc. Then during weekly church committee meetings, he and his staff would discuss one item from the list for at most five minutes deciding how they would react and respond. Now if any of these events did occur, the church leader had a plan.

All your eggs in one basket

My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too. - Peter De Vries

This not a product endorsement but I did want to point out a product with an amazing name: American Red Cross FR150 Microlink Solar-Powered, Self-Powered AM/FM/Weatherband Portable Radio with Flashlight and Cell Phone Charger which sells for $30 on amazon.com.

During an emergency technology can be a blessing and a curse. I love gadgets that do multiple things - less for me to pack. But if the gadget above breaks, then I don't have a radio, flash light or cell phone charger. The wisest course is to plan on backups.

Bottom Line
When packing go-kits for a family, each individual's kit should be self-sufficient. If you pack just one radio for the family in Johnny's kit and that kit is lost or left behind, you're out of luck.

Here are two opposing points to consider when packing multiple kits:

1. Pack different products for the same equipment in each kit. This way if you find that one radio is really cheap and won't work, another kit will have a radio of a different manufacturer that might work better.

2. Pack the same or compatible equipment in each kit. It may be cheaper to buy in bulk, you can share batteries, and you won't have to learn how to use many different products.

Here's how I would resolve these opposing points of view...

1. Buy the same equipment for each individual kit. But be sure to test it and try it out before you need it.

2. Pack one extra kit - the family kit. This contains more expensive items that you can not afford to put in each individual kit. This is kit contains items that are not necessary but make life more pleasant like a butane stove, collapsible water buckets, a fancy combo-radio, extra fishing gear, etc.

Remember Your Pets!

“Never work [as an actor] with children or animals.” - W.C. Fields

Pets are often overlooked during disasters and emergencies, as seen during the recent California wildfires, which displaced 15,000 pets according to PRNewswire. "Pets cannot survive on their own," said Brent Hinton, PetFirst chief executive officer and former head of the Kentucky Humane Society.

PetFirst suggests the following steps to increase the chance of pet survival:

• Identify a pet friendly shelter in advance
  Many disaster shelters, including Red Cross, will not accept pets due to health and safety regulations. Find pet friendly hotels and motels or friends that will accept your pets.
• Pack a pet-survival kit
  Include pet food, bottled water, meds, vet records, toys, a leash or pet carrier and a current pet photo in case the pet becomes separated.
• Bring pets indoors
  Never leave pets outside or tied up during disasters.
• Separate dogs and cats
  Pets can act irrationally during an emergency

If there is no alternative to leaving pets behind, PetFirst recommends the following:

• Confine pets inside
  Provide dry food (moist, canned food may spoil) and drinking water
• Post a Note Outside
  Post a note (waterproofed?) stating what pets have been left inside and where. Include your name and a contact number like a cell phone and your vet's phone

Bottom Line

Should you become separated from your pets it is important that they have ID tags with your phone number on it. Dogs (and some times cats) need to have rabies vaccination tags. Locating your lost pets will also be easier if you have photos of them in your evacuation kit to put online and on posters.

For more information the Pets & Animals in Distress Web site is a great resource center that offers pet preparedness with a hurricane checklist for pet owners and pet friendly hotels.

MORE HELPFUL LINKS
The HUMANE SOCIETY: www.hsus.org/hsus_field/hsus_disaster_center/
FEMA - Animals and Emergencies - http://www.fema.gov/individual/animals.shtm
PET-FRIENDLY Hotels & Motels - http://www.petswelcome.com/

A History of Emergency Planning

"I am struck by the thought that we have not come very far since my early days in this business. As a county emergency manager 20 years ago, we struggled with public education, effective warning systems, training and preparing the school systems, hospitals' the list goes on. It all sounds very familiar, doesn't it" - Avagene Moore, president of the Emergency Information Infrastructure Project (EIIP)

For today's lesson I recommend reading "Challenges, Collaboration, and Continuity" on http://www.desastres.org/. The article looks at the past 20 years of Emergency Management and Planning, where the profession is at today, and challenges for the future.

Here are some of the predictions

• Don't expect attitudes toward disaster to change. "People still make the same mistakes. People still ignore risks and say 'it won't happen to me.'"
• One of the most important things is the education of our populations, everything from websites like Ready.gov and the availability (and popularity) of weather radios to the rise of Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs)
• Funding will likely always be a contentious issue
• Challenges include the continuing quest toward interoperable communications, identity theft, data privacy and hackers.

Bottom Line
One expert states, "I've always considered the average citizen as the weakest link in the chain of preparedness. Recent events demonstrate that our work is paying off and that our "customers" are taking a more active role in their own preparedness."
Another anticipates that "Individuals and families will create personal emergency management plans that focus on fire evacuation and life safety. This will be because of a general recognition that most of us will be on our own for the first 72 hours after a disaster."

September Is National Preparedness Month

"There's a tendency - and it's human nature - to think that a large-scale disaster is not going to happen where you live. Accepting the inevitability of an emergency, and then taking responsibility for your own recovery are the necessary first steps toward protecting your family, your assets, and your community." - Small Business Association Acting Administrator Sandy K. Baruah

September is National Preparedness Month; sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is designed to enhance the public's awareness of the necessity of having an emergency plan in place to respond to a natural or man-made disaster. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is one of the many government and private sector coalition partners participating in this fifth annual National Preparedness Month.

SBA offers the following tips:

• Develop a solid emergency response plan
  Decide beforehand evacuation routes from the home or business, establish meeting places and make sure everyone understands the plan.
• Make sure you have adequate insurance coverage
  Have at least enough insurance to rebuild your home or business. Flooding is usually not covered and requires additional Flood insurance.
• Copy important records
  Back up vital records and information saved on computer hard drives, and store that information at a distant offsite location. Copies of important documents and CDs should be stored in fire-proof safe deposit boxes.
• Create a "Disaster Survival Kit"
  The kit should include a flashlight, a portable radio, extra batteries, a first-aid kit, non-perishable packaged and canned food, bottled water, a basic tool kit, plastic bags, cash, and a digital camera to take pictures of the property damage after the storm.

The SBA makes low-interest loans to homeowners, renters and non-farm businesses of all sizes. Homeowners may borrow up to $200,000 to repair or replace damaged real estate. Individuals may borrow up to $40,000 to cover losses to personal property.

Bottom Line

More preparedness tips for businesses, homeowners and renters are available on the SBA's Web site at http://www.sba.gov/services/disasterassistance/disasterpreparedness/index.html. The Institute for Business and Home Safety (http://www.ibhs.org/ ) also has information on protecting your home or business. To learn more about developing an emergency plan, visit the DHS's Ready Campaign Web site at http://www.ready.gov/ or call 1-800-BE-READY to receive free materials.