cjsmith | Preparedness is suddenly in fashion again

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Preparedness is suddenly in fashion again

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