Friday Fish Wrap: March 11, 2011

Whatever I’d planned to lead off about in this blog post was shaken, not stirred, last night as the largest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history struck. Needless to say, perhaps, but the Twitter/Facebook feeds are busy. I happen to know a couple people who were raised in Japan, and still have family there, and they are trying to track down information.

When events like this occur, the emergency responder/critical incident Lt. Col. Ryan comes back into play, and I begin thinking about what my own response plan would/should be if the unexpected were to happen right here. Nevada - I hope everybody understands this - is a seismically active area. That’s an understatement. And, it’s only a matter of time until we have a really large ‘event’.

This is a perfect time to stop and take stock of our personal circumstances, and think about an emergency plan for ourselves, our families and neighbors/co-workers.

Next week, why not initiate a family crisis planning evening? Talk about what the first and then fall-back plans might be - and how they would affect the various family members during a typical day. How would you communicate? What if all cell service was down? Where would you go first? Second? Those kinds of scenarios are critical to discuss.

Planning is your first step to survival. Coordinating your planning - integrating it within your family, neighborhood and community is the second step to survival.

I would even suggest that you bring this up at your place of employment. A lot of our time is spent at our jobs, so what does everybody do if something happens there? Each forward thinking employer should have an emergency/crisis plan in place. If they haven’t already thought about it, you should bring it up. Who knows, maybe it will earn you some ‘Brownie Points’, and show the boss you care. Offer to craft the plan if there isn’t one. Facilitate a company wide meeting. Bring in local Emergency Planners from the state, city or county. They can be a great deal of help, and will be eager to participate.

In Japan, schools and workplaces are being used as safe havens for folks until they can safely return to homes - if they have homes left. If you have a Home Owners Association, why not dedicate one meeting to emergency planning? How would/could/should your HOA react during a crisis? What could you offer and how?

Although you make not be able to help Japan during its’ crisis, you can do a lot to help yourself, your family and community right now - before an event happens.

You can get more information from the following sites:

USGS Earthquake preparedness,  and locally, the UNR Mackey School of Mines Earthquake Preparedness site (hoping it will still be there after Gov. Sandoval gets done gutting UNR’s budget), FEMA ‘Are You Ready’ Guide to Emergency Preparedness (Uh, another way those pesky government agencies, public employees and tax dollars are working hard for you!) and perhaps the most comprehensive site is Ready.gov.

State of Nevada, Dept of Public Safety, Office of Emergency Mangement

National Preparedness Month Planning Toolkit

Think about it all this way - this is a great reason to get your whole family involved in a project that will benefit the everybody. It’s also a great learning opportunity for the kids and will help them feel safer and more empowered in the event of an emergency!

With all the GOP/TeaPary deficit cutting sound and fury back in Washington D. C., in addition to the political theater right here in Nevada, I think this is a perfect time to remember that emergency preparedness and national crisis management don’t come for free or for cheap.

It’s one thing to walk around with a puffed out chest and an axe, calling for budget cutting here, there and everywhere. But where will these same assholes be when the big 8.9 or other ‘event’ calls somewhere here in the United States - and we coulda/shoulda/woulda been ready except we cut the budget and couldn’t afford to be?

I’ve spent more than a decade in and around the emergency management field on the local, state and national levels, and it takes money - along with a lot of dedicated (as in ‘not there for the money’) public employees to ensure that American lives and property are saved. I never noticed too many Teabaggers  out in the muck, doing the dirty work, deriding government and public employees as they passed out bottles of clean water.

Keep that in mind when you hear them crying for more and more budget cutting.

Finally, I saw the orthopedic surgeon this morning, with MRI images in hand. Yes, my ACL is cleanly snapped, but he was fairly amazed that there was no other damage, say to the Meniscus. The only other thing he could see was some fairly substantial bruising to the bone. Testament to the impact of the fall. So, the bottom line is physical therapy and a custom fitted ACL brace. I know too many people who - if they had to do it over - wouldn’t have opted for ACL surgery, and are skiing and performing just fine.

Have a good weekend.  

-maven

Comments

[PEG]

One of the budget casualties of the Republican cost cutting program is the Tsunami Early Warning System in Hawaii. My friends at the UNR Seismological Lab are all wondering if they'll have their jobs at the end of the month. Something's so wrong here.

[Shar]

Dear Maven:
This is a timely blog. You are already aware of my personal ties to Japan: Born & raised there till age 18 as an AF Brat. My father was creer Air Force and mother is Japanese. While a U.S.citizen for the past 45 yrs, she has been thrown into PTSD-like symptons watching the TV news coverage 24/7 of her homeland during this disaster. Mom was a young girl in Japan during the War and air raid sirens remind her of running barefoot in the middle of the night to the tunnels beneath Hiroshima and Tokyo. She had since survived many earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis in Japan- as have I ,in the nearly 18 years living there.

I spent nearly four days this past weekend attempting to reach our relatives in Japan while my mother was falling apart. Finally on Day Three I reached an Aunt. She spoke no English but my rusty Japanese returned quickly to nearr-fluent.

In reporting to my mother that her family was okay, she responded by tearfully demanding I send her to Japan immediately. Again, she is elderly with compromised mental health so I could not explain that this was impossible.

HOWEVER it seems a possibility that I will be sent to Japan as part of a Humanitarian/Relief Mission in the next few months. It appears that my language fluency, familiarity with the culture and country, as well as years of excellent Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Search & Rescue and Public Affairs Officer (PAO) training is a skillset in demand. YOU my dear Maven were a mentor in my PAO training!

This is longer than a 'posting' but I wanted to let you know....

~Sharlet Post-Berentsen
Winnemucca, NV