Venezuela and Natural Disasters

If you wait for the government to help, you will be waiting a long time. You are on your own: Natural Disasters.

Remind me... What were the conditions in the Superdome in New Orleans, after Katrina?

So there has been a couple of earthquakes. Venezuela is not prepared. Do you think your state, or FEMA would be?

Now, this is Venezuela which has very little on trained emergency services and up to the standard and equipment of the U.S.1 But even if they had that kind of preparation, they cannot just materialize anywhere instantly and wave a magic wand to remove tons of broken concrete slabs to get people out.

Do your preps include tools? I have a couple of crowbars, I keep thinking I should be a Halligan bar, what the firemen use, but the quality examples are expensive. And I don't live in Earthquake country.

Click thru for details.

 

Get Home in an Emergency

From The Survival Mom: Get Home, No Matter What: A Woman's Guide to Getting Home in Any Emergency

Wanting to get home isn’t enough. When that moment comes, what gets you there is a plan you’ve already thought through and a bag that’s already packed.

Click thru for the plan.

Meshtastic - Or How to Communicate if the Cell Network Goes Down

This technology has appealed to the prepper in me. How to maintain communications with non-HAM friends and family in the event that communications go down.

The Meshtastic network is fairly straight forward, but it has been tough to explain to people because something happens when you talk about tech. Most people shut their brains off.

But if all they have to do is install an app on their phone, you might be able to get them to at least be a little prepared. You need to be able to charge your phone and a separate radio, but most preppers have ways to do that.

This is the Comms Channel video What Is Meshtastic? Off Grid Communication Explained in 3 minutes (Beginner Friendly)

The Prepared Citizen Movement

This sounds a bit like standard prepping with a side order of 3-gun shooting matches. Prepared citizen movement growing among Americans | NewsNation

Does it seem like there is more chaos in the world, or is it just that more people are paying attention?

The “prepared citizen” movement is a growing trend in which people take proactive steps to become self-reliant and ready for various emergencies or crises. It includes hardcore military training, self-defense and tools such as first aid and emergency communication.

Or maybe "Prepared Citizen" is the new PC term for prepper.

“They were trying to learn how to shoot literally days before the Russians invaded,” said [Eric] Roscher, a U.S. Air Force veteran and owner of Barrel and Hatchet Trade Group. “And so they were almost, like, helpless. And I saw it was like in America, we shouldn’t have that problem. One, we have the Second Amendment, but we as citizens should have the ability to defend our country and ourselves, and it’s in our Constitution.”

It's an interesting article, given that the author of the piece seems to have been mostly clueless about prepping. There was one interesting statement.

“Riots, elections, foreign wars, people realizing that their safety is their own personal responsibility,” [Ben Brown, owner of Wise Men Company] said. “No one’s coming to save them.”

The first place I saw that phrase was in the Graham Killhouse Rules:

The Cascadia Subduction Zone Is in the News Again

I don't believe I've ever seen this much press coverage of a POTENTIAL disaster. This kind of fascination is usually reserved for the aftermath.

It seems to have started about 3 weeks ago. This article from Scientific American seems fairly typical. Could a Monster Earthquake Actually Sink Parts of the Pacific Northwest?

Scary headlines about the Pacific Northwest sinking into the sea are circulating online, with warnings that a major earthquake in the notorious Cascadia subduction zone could be worse than expected.

After a flurry of articles from 2 or 3 weeks ago, I saw another cluster of articles in the past week. Maybe it was a slow news day.

Of course the furor seems to be over "estimated sea level rise by 2100." Take that as you will. At least it seems to have woken people up to the underlying issue. No one should be living in that part of the Northwest. Not that people will change.

People talk about "the big one" being an earthquake that hits the San Andreas fault in Southern California. San Andreas has about 6% of the potential of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, off the coast of Washington and Oregon. The earthquake and resulting Tsunami will kill many thousands of people who will not be able to get out of the way. A 2011 study by the Washington National Guard concluded that over 8,000 people would die. Later estimates triple that number of dead. More than 500,000 buildings would be damaged or destroyed, and about 400,000 people would need emergency shelter.

I had a post on the subject back in 2019, but the magazine article I quoted has moved behind a paywall, and the FEMA document referenced has moved, or been removed. I can find very little information from FEMA today, beyond the "executive summary" of the periodic exercises that they run. I suppose someone decided it was a security risk to publish the full documents, or a PR nightmare.

Here is a video from 7 years ago, on the topic from KING 5 Seattle: Disaster planning: Cascadia rising. Cascadia Rising is the name that FEMA gives to exercises that they run every few years to try to prepare for this event. It is six and a half minutes long.

Of course preparing should consist mostly of getting as many people as possible to move out of the area that will be devastated by the event. But that won't happen.

For anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of tests like Cascadia Rising, you can take a look at this document, which has links to many others. Washington State Cascadia Rising 2022 Exercise (June 2022): Final After-Action Report and Improvement Plan.

While I can't say that FEMA has removed public access to their documents, it so far eluded my Google-Fu in tracking any of them down.

“Everybody should have an evacuation plan”

Okay, so this has been kicking around in my drafts for a while, and since I don't have anything else for a Sunday afternoon...

Preparing to bug out on a moment's notice is something that people in cities should be doing anyway. NJ town prepares for evacuation over mystery chemicals

Monmoth County, New Jersey is in the central part of that state; it is actually a part of the New York Metropolitan Area. It is in the north of the Jersey Shore.

A toxic cleanup in a quiet section of New Jersey could soon force residents to flee their homes.

Schools and homeowners in parts of Monmouth County have been told to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice, as Environmental Protection Agency crews do cleanup work at a former industrial plant in the village of Farmingdale near the Howell Township border, NBC New York reported.

I thought it was EPA's job to clean up places like this. The company in question has apparently been shut down for decades, though they don't explicitly say. Long enough for all of the barrels to be rusty wrecks with no labeling in sight.

One resident told NBC New York she remembers decades ago when her children were coming home from school, and they saw drum lids exploding — up in the air.

As for the current situation, the site is located about a mile from a school.

“Everybody should have an evacuation plan or get-out-of-here plan just in case,” said Howell-Farmingdale OEM Director Victor Cook.

The EPA, that brain trust responsible for the situation in East Paletine, Ohio, says don't worry they have everything under control. Or as much as they can "without knowing what’s on the site." So, none at all.

But aside from pointing out what useless bureaucrats at the EPA have to say, my point is that you need to be able to bug out at a moment's notice, especially if you live in an urban area; there are more things that can go wrong. Things like toxic waste fires.

While I'm on the subject, do you know what hazards are around you? Are there any dams in the area, if so who is responsible for maintaining them, and are they being responsible? Like this situation in New Jersey, are there any toxic sites? Routes that trucks carrying toxic chemicals routinely travel? Power plants? ... What do you mean you don't know. Why not? (Being an adult is hard, but necessary.)

One of the Worst MREs - Taste Test

A new-to-me YouTube channel. Steve1989 MRE Info.

When I was living on my boat, and more to the point, sailing it around, I got to keeping a small supply of MREs on hand. I could get stuck at the helm if the weather turned bad, but I learned the hard way that you really needed a hot meal once in a while, especially in bad weather. Even in good weather, sitting at the helm of my boat, you could occasionally get a bucket of water in the face. That was not bad on an 85 degree afternoon, but if it turned cold and gray you could get very cold, very fast.

The only thing required to heat an MRE is water. You have plenty of that on a boat, especially if it is raining. They were not great, but they weren't this bad. Of course I would never have purchased Creamy Spinach Fettuccine in an MRE. (Beef stew. Turkey and stuffing. Stuff like that.)

No longer being in a position where I can't cook a meal, I no longer keep a supply of Meals Ready to Eat on hand. Though I could be convinced, I am probably more likely to go in for the hikers' freeze dried meals and a small backpacking stove that burns twigs. (There are several.)

In the meantime, you can see what they are torturing our service members with...

This is the Steve1989 video for 2019 US MRE Creamy Spinach Fettuccine Another One of the Worst Meal Ready to Eat Tasting Test.

The most recent entry from Steve1989 is about a Ukrainian 24 hour ration pack based on Pork Tushonka & Kasha, whatever they are.

I did learn a couple of things about MREs.

I stopped buying the full meals, and only bought the entrees. (They are, or were, available that way.) I would then buy my own energy bars, drinks, crackers, whatever. That was a more economical way to acquire that stuff, and still have a hot entree.

The full meals that I did buy, all had tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce. Hot sauce can cover up a lot of ills. It won't make an MRE taste good. It will make an MRE edible. I always had hot sauce on hand, but lately I have 8 or 10 varieties. (Here's a small selection of what I dug out of one cupboard a while back.)

What If You Can't Call 911?

There are any number of reasons that you won't be able to call 911 for help in an emergency. Let's look at the issues in and around New Orleans, after Hurricane Ida swept through the area.

In Jefferson Parish, cell phones can't reach the system. In some cases, anyway. Cell phone providers having 911 difficulties in Jefferson Parish

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office is reporting that multiple cell phone providers are having difficulties routing calls to through their 911 system.

Officials are asking as providers work through this, residents call the administrative number for the 911 center at 504-227-1400 if needed.

Do you know the non-911 number for police or fire in your area? What would you do if 911 breaks?

The Jefferson Parish sheriff's office was also urging people to limit travel, as it is still dangerous. You don't want to be part of the problem, when they are still trying to see if people need rescuing.

In Lafouche Parish, the Sheriff's department phone lines are cut off. Lafourche Parish 9-1-1 and phone lines down.

It is hard to call 911 for help if they can't answer the phones, though the sheriff has apparently put some workaround in place.

9-1-1 and phone lines are down at this time. For Emergencies only call (985)-772-4810 or (985) 772-4824 in Lafourche Parish. If busy, please keep trying.

There are probably more issues in other places.

Calling 911 is a fine thing to do. Under normal circumstances, they can send all kinds of help your way, and even guide you through some actions while you wait. But in the aftermath of a regional disaster, like a category 4 hurricane, circumstances are not normal. You need to be prepared to survive on your own, at least for a while. And in the case of something like this, it would have been very good for people to have evacuated ahead of time. There were several comments by people on the various news reports I was watching Sunday night, where people basically said, "I've never seen weather like this before." What you saw last time, was not the NE quadrant of a category 4 hurricane, so no, you didn't see this before.

Deaths Related to Heat in the NW and Canada

I'm not sure how to feel about any of this... Hundreds of deaths could be linked to Northwest heat wave - Chicago Tribune

So there is record heat in the NW and Vancouver. As high as 115 in "some areas" but they are not exact.

The National Weather Service showed a couple of hours over the past 7 days where the temperature hit 107℉ in Seattle (at the airport - the university was not as hot), but at that point the relative humidity had fallen to 24 percent. That is hot, but all you have to do is stay wet with cool water. And make sure you stay hydrated.

Unless you are ill, or elderly, or both, you should be able to survive that weather. (It is much hotter in Phoenix in the summer!) Some of the people who passed away were in their 40s and 50s. And if you are ill, most cities have some place during these times called "cooling centers" where they have air conditioning. Even on days it was over 100 degrees, it did cool off some overnight.

And yes, I get that it is a tragedy. Maybe it is the prepper in me. I get not having air conditioning, but some of these people didn't have a fan. And they probably did have access to cool water. And if you don't have access to clean drinking water, you have other problems.

This reminds me, like it is the other side of a coin, of the people in Texas who didn't know how (or why) they should shut of the water in their homes before their pipes froze this past winter. Learn a little bit about extreme weather, how to deal with freezing temperatures, how to deal with heat, how to prevent heat-stroke, and the like. Learning something will only hurt for a minute, and it might just save a life, and the life you save might be your own.

British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period.

“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather,” LaPointe said in a statement.

They do not provide very detailed numbers, but it appears that fewer people died in Seattle and Portland.

Keep Calm and Run for Your Life

The Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, Concow, California, and the surounding area remains fascinating. At least to me. Camp Fire Lessons – Keep Calm and Run for Your Life

The image at the right is of one of many that were taken the day the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, Concow, and other places in California.

Homeland Security Today is a publication of an industry group that does business with Homeland Security. As such I am never sure how much to take them seriously, and how much they are just selling something.

But this week they seem to have something good to say.

And while this is dealing with Wild Fires, there are many kinds of emergencies or disasters that require evacuations. I am most familiar with hurricanes, but even if your disaster doesn't give you any warning (like an earthquake or a tornado) having a plan for those contingencies will help.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the 3rd report on the 2018 Camp Fire. A Case Study of the Camp Fire – Fire Progression Timeline. That is a 421 page PDF, so you may not want to download it on your phone. And while I have started to go through it, that is a lot of government-speak. So let's concentrate on the HST summary from the link at the top.

Lesson 1: Stay Calm

Even if your escape is slow, even if the streets are clogged and danger seems to be mounting, as it was in the Camp Fire, keeping your cool may prevent you from making a rash mistake that stops you altogether.

Lesson 2: If You’re Asking, “Should We Evacuate?” LEAVE NOW

A retired firefighter who has watched wildfires get bigger, faster and deadlier since the 1970s said this best: “If it occurs to you that you need to evacuate, you already should have evacuated.”

LESSON 3: Implement YOUR Emergency Plan A. And B. And C…

You do have a plan, don't you?

The nice thing about a plan is it gives you a head start when time is of the essence. While it’s true that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, that does not mean the planning is wasted.

As the emergency sirens (or your own good sense) reveal to you that a disaster has arrived, follow your plan. Trust that in more tranquil moments, you’ve thought about priorities and needs. Begin checking things off that list.

Lesson 7: Respect the Math

Our first impulse in an emergency is often to call 911 and wait for someone else to either deal with the issue or at least advise us.

In a normal emergency situation – a co-worker’s heart attack, a shooting, a building fire – those first responders “outnumber” the forces causing the danger. They can arrive and deal with it. But in making your plan to deal with disaster, this ‘call someone’ impulse works against you.

In a disaster you are your own first responder. Firefighters will be dealing with their own families.

And you should take a look at the other lessons as well.

And you can't even rely on "The Authorities" to tell you what to do. In Paradise, the cops abandoned the station, and the town, without having given an evacuation order to every neighborhood. If you waited for them to tell you what to do, you would have died.

The rest is good, and the small portion of that 421 page PDF I have gotten through isn't bad, but the 4th and 5th reports from NIST look to be a bit more interesting. Camp Fire Report #4: Notification, Evacuation, and Temporary Refuge Areas, and Burnovers, and Camp Fire Report #5: Emergency Response and Defensive Actions are still to be published. I haven't seen anything like a schedule of when they will be published.

And the House Rules are worth repeating here, because our whole modern world seems to be predicated on the idea that you are not responsible for your own safety. But in a disaster, you certainly will be.

The Graham Combat Killhouse Rules:

1. NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.  Whether an event lasts a few seconds, a few hours, or even a few days – you have to work as though nobody is coming to save you.

2. You are your savior, so start working because EVERYTHING IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.  You are your security, you are your medic, you are your rescuer.

3. You are your own best resource to SAVE WHO NEEDS TO BE SAVED.  Nobody wants to save your life more than you, so set yourself up for success by having the simple tools and knowledge to do so: do what you can with what you have.  Recognize that nobody is in a better position to start saving your life than you.

4. Sometimes saving lives means you have to KILL WHO NEEDS TO BE KILLED.  It has been almost 15 years since I first wrote “the more effective you are at taking a life, the more successful you’ll be at saving one” and nothing in the intervening time has changed my mind.  Be swift, be decisive, be final.

5. Mostly, ALWAYS BE WORKING.  There is always something you can be doing to improve your position.  Always.  Because nobody is coming to save you.

Belated Lessons Learned from a Disaster

A derecho^‡ in northern Wisconsin hit a community in 2019. The linked article is a review of plans and the aftermath. Commentary: Lessons Learned From Disaster Response - The Daily Yonder

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Here are some lessons learned from one area's natural disaster to help your rural community be better prepared - and maybe duck a few blows.

Plans and contact information must be kept up to date. Communication may be via means you are not used to using. Information is hard to come by, power will be out, even The Red Cross will have trouble getting relief to an area.

Anyway, click thru. It is mostly from the point of view of a rural municipality, but there are some things for the population to consider, and you can probably come up with how you would respond.

The basic message for the population: you might be on your own for a few days, or more. Be prepared.

‡ derecho - definition courtesy of the National Weather Service:

A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-REY-cho") is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to the strength of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term "straight-line wind damage" sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.