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Friday, September 2nd, 2005 09:26 am
This morning my friends list had a bit of a theme: people cannot depend on "official" help.

"Katrina, in addition to stripping my hometown of life, unmasked the pretenses of government as savior."

"...every town and every household has to be ready to look after itself. Because by the time the "official" help arrives -- if it does arrive -- it's going to be too late." (One of the comments on this entry says to go check out your local CERT [Community Emergency Response Team]. "Official help" often gets things under control in a matter of days; CERT is meant to deal with things before that.)

There are also several entries mentioning how our government (Federal) has failed New Orleans. No matter what they do from this moment on, that assessment will still stand in the eyes of some.

What can we learn from this? I figure the first thing we can learn is the very thing everyone is observing: official help isn't enough. We can complain about that, we can think about whether it can be changed, but for now, it's like gravity: if you can see that it's true you better take it into account as a fact. We as individuals and as communities need to be ready.

I'm no preparedness guru, but I do have the basic supplies for the obvious disaster scenario where I live. It's not only for my own sake, although it certainly is that. If I'm in good shape the Red Cross can go help someone else instead of helping me, I might be able to help a neighbor, I can volunteer somewhere, or maybe I can just get the hell out of the way. I could do even more if I were better trained and equipped; I need to think hard about that.

Someone else on my friends list (I apologize: I can't find the link in order to provide proper attribution) said that if Katrina has any silver lining it might be this. People are planning more, and that might save lives in the future.

Preparedness is suddenly fashionable again.

The challenge, of course, will be to follow through.
Friday, September 2nd, 2005 06:11 pm (UTC)
One of the memes floating around is "a pack, not a herd." Government tends to foster centralized "solutions" that are very expensive and result in masses of doltish employees who can't think for themselves and are useless in a crisis -- note the example of the TSA, which costs at least twice as much as the private security companies used before 9/11 and is measurably no more effective at finding contraband, even if said contraband (nail scissors, etc) were still a likely means of taking over an aircraft. FEMA people are like the municipal fire departments of the world -- politically powerful, rarely used, male-guardian-oriented and with a vested interest in continuing the situations which lead to the disasters which are their raison d'etre. Promoting network solutions -- informal, citizenry-based volunteer groups -- is much cheaper but has no patronage rakeoff for the pols.

Friday, September 2nd, 2005 08:01 pm (UTC)
What I've observed leads me to believe most individual efforts are motivated by fear. Middle-class folks with some resources to spare will get their bug-out bags ready, realize how long it's been since their CPR certification expired, and replenish their emergency water cache when they're afraid. No surprise Katrina's made some people (even well outside of the disaster swath) very uneasy.

As for volunteer groups, I don't know what motivates people to organize and/or join their local CERT. I wish it were politically popular to support such a thing, because that sure would make it easy. Guess we have to work without such an easy solution.
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 03:06 am (UTC)
Fremont has an excellent CERT program, including amateur radio, search and rescue and suppplies stored in cargo containers deployed throughout the city. I'm happy to say I wrote the grant proposal which brought in the money to buy quite a bit of those supplies :).

The last time I had reason to notice, I found that San Jose had a pretty good OES program. Here's the website: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/emergencyServices/
They also have "San Jose Prepared!", which is, essentially, their CERT program. http://www.sanjoseca.gov/emergencyServices/sanjoseprepared/

One of the mantras of a major disaster: Don't expect outside help for 48 to 72 hours. Expect to be on your own, either as an individual or as a community. Plan accordingly.
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 03:55 am (UTC)
Excellent! Sunnyvale also has a CERT-type program which they call SNAP (Sunnyvale Neighborhoods Actively Prepare), also linked with ARES and owning multiple containers with supplies.

I didn't mean to imply no one around here had anything. Hope it didn't come across that way.

I really think individual preparedness is huge, too. I have the luxury of not being incredibly freaking poor, and also being almost physically healthy, and thus maybe I can not only prepare myself but be ready to help those around me. (While I've volunteered in the past with ARES and my previous employer's emergency response team, I am not currently being used that way at all. Perhaps I could be.) The "idealist" part of my LJ name is shining through. I'm wondering how we can make the next flood, or big quake or multiday blackout in a blizzard or true gas shortage with food delivery infrastructure halted, not so awful.

Don't expect outside help for 48 to 72 hours.

Amen. And for some individual folks in New Orleans, it's much longer than 72.
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 01:52 am (UTC)
I remember being very angry when CA had the rolling black-outs a few years ago. People were complaining that they couldn't do various things. Kinda makes you wonder what those people would do if an earthquake struck! PG&E gave them warnings days in advance that their power would be out for an hour, and that was too much for them to handle.

I don't hold any big hopes for people being prepared. Maybe we can do another Y2K?
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 01:58 am (UTC)
Some people do love to complain. What do you mean by "do another Y2K"?
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 02:01 am (UTC)
Sorry, that was a bit obscure. What I meant was that a lot of people got prepared for Y2K -- they were all afraid that banks would stop working, that computers would lose all track of you, that phones would stop, etc. As a result, they actually did things to be prepared. Kind of ironic that a non-emergency situation gets people to prepare, but a real situation doesn't get people motivated to prepare.
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 02:15 am (UTC)
Ah, got it: stir up lots of crazy worry about some basic scenario. Of course, then we'd all get to argue over which scenario and what is the perfect way to be ready for it. (Sometimes I think this is the best fun of the whole preparedness thing -- the brainstorming and arguing.)
Saturday, September 3rd, 2005 09:18 pm (UTC)
I'm thinking I like your general response much better; become informed, determine the level of risk you're willing to accept, then prepare accordingly.

Now to get motivated myself.

Creating a risk for people to respond to engenders far too much paranoia for my comfort. I stayed home on Y2K eve. Not because I was afraid the universe was about to end - I've enough programming skills and common sense to recognize that liability issues alone required organizations to test their preparedness long before the event. Even small companies spent inordinate amounts of time and money assessing risk, when they had reasonably simple solutions available. Lawyers had a heyday, furthering the fears where ever possible.

No, I stayed home, not due to technology, but to what I could hear outside my doors. People, stressed and driven to paranoia by over-hyping of the actual problem, creating havoc. There were lootings and beatings in my neighbourhood, BEFORE MIDNIGHT. I say well done to those whose job it was to inform the public.

[livejournal.com profile] enhydrasf posted about the squirrel reporter cartoon; while I find it somewhat offensive, it's also funny in the manner it ridicules the media and looters.

There are times when I think freedom of speech, as presented in the popular media, is a foolish, foolish ideal.

The brainstorming and arguing over a potential solution can be fun, I agree. When the hysteria and paranoia are offset by rational, informed decision making.

I know, I'm asking a lot.

Sunday, September 4th, 2005 04:14 am (UTC)
There were lootings and beatings in my neighbourhood, BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

Ouch. That's REALLY sad.

The brainstorming and arguing over a potential solution can be fun, I agree. When the hysteria and paranoia are offset by rational, informed decision making.

The challenge for each of us is to hit that sometimes-narrow zone between "enough worry to get off one's ass" and "hysteria". Sadly, with some people those two aren't spaced apart -- they overlap.