Mira Mesa CERT Newsletter

Good morning, here is the News:

Team Meeting—Thursday, 9 August, 6-7pm, in the Senior Center.  Our primary topic will be the coming Fire Season.  We'll talk about CERT participation in a progressive disaster such as this.  Input from our veterans who have been through this before is appreciated, please let me know if you were there and would like to make a short presentation (no, you don't have to do the whole meeting, 5 minutes is fine).

Volunteer Opportunity—This is tomorrow (Thursday) morning, really sorry for the short notice, but sometimes it's like that.  One of our Rancho Penasquitos Members participates in a Summer Camp for children of the Employees of Scripps Green hospital.  They are doing a learning session for the children that covers Disaster Preparedness.  Emphasis will be on certain rescue carries (or drags I guess) that children can perform.  There will be 3-4 classes, 7-8 children each, ages about 8-13.  They are looking for a few good people to help out as Assistant Instructors.  If you want to do this, you'll need to be at Scripps Green Hospital tomorrow morning at 8am for orientation, the class ends at 11:00am.  Full CERT gear has been approved for this, and is encouraged but not required.  Really helpful if you remember your rescue carries and can demonstrate a few of them.  This is  late notice so they aren't really counting on us, but I don't think there is any way this won't be a REALLY good time, so I'm putting it out there.  Let me know THIS MORNING (Wednesday) if you want to do this, I will put you in touch with the Scripps people directly.

All for this week.  Not much for Battalion News today, I'll put it out before the end of the week if I get anything you can use.  Questions, comments, you know how to find me.

-Steve

Fire Season Bug Out List

     Fire season is fast approaching and there are a lot of good ideas on planning for evacuations. For example, take a look at Steve's container idea in the previous post. There really is no right or wrong to evacuation plans - except for having no plan at all.

     During the 2003 fire here in San Diego, I got to see an example of someone not having a plan for evacuation. The fire had already taken dozens of homes in the Scripps Ranch suburb of San Diego when a TV camera crew spotted a lady leaving her house in an area that had just been ordered to evacuate. She was walking a little unsteadily to her car carrying a potted fern. Her car looked otherwise empty and I remember thinking, she's in shock and didn't know what to take. So she just grabbed the first thing she saw - a potted fern. She got in the car and left her house and who knows how much she lost to the fire which consumed the entire neighborhood. That image stayed with me while I kept thinking there had to be some things far more precious than a potted fern which she left and she now sorely misses. If she'd only had a evacuation plan so she didn't have to think about what to take during the crisis.

     I started looking around at various plans but finally settled on a concept I call a "Bug-Out List". It has some major benefits compared to other plans. It doesn't make any assumptions on who is at home or how much time you have to evacuate. It doesn't matter if you have 3 minutes, 3 hours or even 3 days to evacuate. It mostly requires you to sit down with your family and create a list of things to get in order of importance.

     So let's begin building the list.. First let's assume that you are in bed asleep and that when you wake there are no lights or power and it's the middle of a dark, overcast night - no moon or stars to help you see. A big earthquake could cause something like this and we should be thinking about a worst case scenario.

     First thing you should be able to grab right at your bedside is a good flashlight however your cell phone can also double as a flashlight in a pinch. Next, hard-soled shoes for everyone in case there is glass or sharp objects on the floor or outside. Did you know that feet being cut by glass was the most common injury in the 1992 LA earthquake?

     So far we're only talking a minute or two getting our feet protected. Next, you probably want to grab your clothes and jackets. Just grab them - don't stop to put them on if it's dangerous inside but we need them if we have to go outside. Even the warmest evenings can quickly get miserable if we're outside in our pajamas.

     Ok, here's our list so far which assumes we only had 3 minutes to evacuate because of an immediate disaster such as fire or earthquake.

1. Flashlight
2. Shoes
3. Clothes
4. Jackets

     Now let's change the evacuation time to 30 minutes and keep adding to our list additional items in order of importance. Once we've escaped the danger, we now need to concern ourselves with staying healthy and treating injuries. So to my list I add any first aid supplies I have ready to go and all the prescription medicines my family will need.

5. Big First Aid Kit
6. Prescription Drugs

     We now have to consider the survival triangle: Water, Food and Shelter from the elements. Shelter and water are going to be the most important of the three sides, depending on the environment. Shelter from the elements is first but without water you could be dead in a few hours if you are in a very hot climate. So the next things on the list should address shelter, water and then food. First, personal shelter in the form of blankets and to that we will add bath towels. Towels can be used as shelter, for example as a head wrap, in additional to their more classic uses. Next, the camping gear will shelter us if we cannot return to our house and there isn't any other shelter available.

7.   Blankets
8.   Towels
9.   Camping Tents
10. Camp Heaters
11. Camp Stove
12. Matches
13. Firestarters
14. Water
15. Non-perishable foods: canned goods, dried pasta and beans. And don't forget food for your pets too!

     Food, water and shelter have all now been addressed. Probably within the 30 minutes you had to evacuate too!

     With more time available, you could get some less obvious items onto your "Bug-out List" such as toilet paper to go with a camp toilet or covered bucket which you might need if help is delayed. Radios, batteries, laptop computers and computer backup drives will be coming into focus when the above needs are met and more time is available for evacuating. My list goes as far as our photo albums, stamp collections, artwork and musical instruments if there is enough warning. For instance, I can have the trailer hooked up to one of the cars and loaded if there's a day or more time.

     In conclusion, you can make the list cover just a few items or virtually your entire house depending on how far you wish to take it.  Then just hang it on the wall where anyone can easily find it.  But if something happens, all you have to do is tell whoever is there to keep going down the list until you have to evacuate. You won't be grabbing a potted fern in desperation. You'll be getting everything off of the list in the time that you have and that potted plant won't cause you leave anything more important behind.

TJ Walters

Fire Season is here. Is your family ready?

Good afternoon, here is the News: Fire Season—We all know our traditional Fire Season is fast approaching. That said, some of you may have caught the article in the San Diego Union this morning (Local page 2). Chief Mainar thinks Fire Season is already here. I think he's right. So I have some thoughts about preparing for this year's fire season, and I hope everyone can set aside a little time at an upcoming team meeting to talk about how we can stay ready. Before I go on I think I need to talk a bit about so-called progressive disasters (such as a wildfire) as opposed to sudden catastrophic disasters (such as an earthquake). In general, a progressive disaster "starts small" for lack of a better term, and builds until it impacts a large number of people. The first and most obvious difference in a progressive disaster is that our emergency services and communications remain intact and operational. Under these circumstances CERT does NOT deploy until we are ordered out by the San Diego Fire & Rescue Department. If we are ordered to evacuate our homes with our families, we evacuate. Our duty as CERT is clear in either case, it's Self and Family first. So that means we have two obligations as CERT. The first is the same as every other citizen has, we need to prepare ourselves and our Families for an evacuation. As CERT, we should set a good example for our Friends and Neighbors. Next, we need to prepare ourselves to deploy as CERT if we are called. In our household, we are implementing a plan I learned about in CERT. We bought several mid-size plastic containers with lids. The ones we got came from Container Store and had water-resistant lids, and we made sure they would fit our vehicles. Our next step is to make a list of the things that go in each container. Then we tape a list to each container, and put them away against the day we can just take them out, pack them and leave with them. I'm sure this is going to call for some tough decisions, and we are both very busy right now, but we've made a pact to get it done in the next two weeks. As far as deployment goes, it is recommended that every CERT have a duffle or case sufficient to support three days in the field. Recommended packing lists abound for this, but think in terms of a three-day camping trip that might stretch to five. CERT Members should have food and water sufficient to sustain themselves for at least 12 hours. If space does not permit it, you don't have to have the bag packed and ready, just have it available with a list of the items that go in it. I prefer to have a toiletries kit ready to go with travel sizes of the things I use, the clothes, food and water I'll pack when I need it. I don't think there are any guidelines for this, my goal is to be ready in 15 minutes. If you must evacuate, remember to take your CERT gear with you. One last thing, during our great blackout a lot of San Diegans discovered the wisdom of not letting the car get that close to empty. "How much" is subjective, my thought is always be able to drive at least 100 miles at highway speeds. That can get eaten up quickly in stop and go traffic as many of us discovered, so more is better. I know many of us also carry our three-day pack with us to work during the season. I think that's good practice also. Whatever you do, make a pact with yourself and your family to get it done in the next few weeks. Then let's all hope we don't need it. All for this week. Questions, comments, drop your Team Leader a note. -Steve