By John Cornelison on
8/27/2012 6:21 AM
The Vashon Beachcomber has just published a nice story about CERT’s new equestrian team which has been organized by Beth Kellner with help from Penni Symonds, Wanda Moore,...
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By John Cornelison on
8/27/2012 6:08 AM
After some 7 years in a conference room in VIFR’s main Station 55, the Vashon Emergency Operations Center (EOC) may be relocated next year to the VIFR Association Building across the street. Slightly larger, the room would be shared with King County...
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By John Cornelison on
8/2/2012 9:48 AM
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By John Cornelison on
7/28/2012 12:44 PM
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By John Cornelison on
7/27/2012 11:53 AM
Barb Graff, Director of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management has just announced the hire of Tracy Connelly as Seattle Office of Emergency Management’s new Community Planning Coordinator. Tracy starts August 1st. Tracy Connelly has been a Public Outreach Specialist at OEM working with access and functional needs, immigrant and refugee, homeless, and multi-cultural populations. In...
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By John Cornelison on
7/27/2012 8:00 AM
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By John Cornelison on
7/26/2012 8:58 AM
As they indicate below, this appears to be a pretty basic course, but by clicking on one of the initial pages you can see much of the complete course outline and quickly skim it to see how much of it is applicable to your family or business. This outline serves as a great reminder of all the steps we should be taking – and a reminder for us to complete those missing action items that we’d not completed (or refreshed) recently! The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is pleased to announce a new web-based, independent study training course, IS-325—Earthquake Basics: Science, Risk, and Mitigation. ...
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By John Cornelison on
7/26/2012 7:39 AM
According...
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By John Cornelison on
7/23/2012 10:38 AM
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By John Cornelison on
6/21/2012 5:43 AM
Cancel another innovative idea. According to a commentary published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, storing harmful carbon dioxide gas underground is not practical. Why? Because it would cause earthquakes! There is a long history of materials pumped underground causing earthquakes, and this report apparently finds this also likely in this situation. Although the quakes would likely be relatively small – they would be large enough to destroy the equipment used to pump the greenhouse gases down. Read more in the LA Times article, which ends up quoting experts encouraging putting development funds into renewable energy instead. That makes sense to me! ...
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By John Cornelison on
6/15/2012 10:31 AM
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By John Cornelison on
6/15/2012 9:46 AM
Chief Hank Lipe has announced the hiring of Ms. Nicole Trent of Gig Harbor, WA to serve as an Administrative Assistant at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue – King County Fire District 13. A nine year veteran with Pierce County Fire District #16 (Key Peninsula), Nicole brings a solid background in Fire District administrative services and is excited to become part of VIFR’s team. Mark your...
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By John Cornelison on
6/7/2012 2:35 PM
Drill includes delivering critical supplies to Vashon Island by boat
King County joined with federal, state, and local agencies this week to test its capacity to respond to and recover from a major earthquake. The exercise, dubbed “Evergreen Quake 2012,” gave participants a chance to assess their disaster response plans and emergency communication strategies. Six counties, including King County, participated in the drill, along with the state of...
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By John Cornelison on
6/7/2012 11:19 AM
Nearly a hundred islanders took part in the regional Evergreen Quake on June 5th & 6th at the Vashon Emergency Operations Center.
It was fairly historic for a number of reasons:
- Initial test of Operation Lifeline (King County’s redirecting their passenger ferry or hiring a barge – to support emergency needs on Vashon)
- The Planning Section has adopted the standard ICS Planning Clock - and had the 1st real run-though of this during a major exercise
- The Public Information Team...
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By John Cornelison on
6/7/2012 8:43 AM
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By John Cornelison on
6/7/2012 8:00 AM
Every 500-1000 years the slopes of Mount Rainier produce liquefied mud flows called lahars that can flow like rivers but have a density similar to liquid concrete. Based on the last Electron Mudflow ~550 years ago, and using HAZUS software, the DNR...
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By John Cornelison on
6/4/2012 8:52 PM
Washington Emergency Management Division is working with FEMA and a slew of local partners in the Puget Sound region to conduct the state's largest (i.e., most coordinated) earthquake exercise ever: Evergreen Quake 2012™. The exercise’s goal is to “improve the collective joint-operational readiness of emergency management and other...
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By John Cornelison on
6/4/2012 8:30 PM
A few months back I notices an exciting new source of disaster preparedness info: Sesame Street! Yep, FEMA apparently hired them to start educating tots early – in a variety of languages too. Fun! (I wish I had received that contract.) Today I noticed that Washington State has developed some tsunami and earthquake games too. Educating kids is certainly an exciting new genre...
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By John Cornelison on
6/4/2012 7:47 PM
The ShakeOut™ moniker started a couple years back in California I believe – which perhaps accounts for it’s subsequent adoption thought the galaxy, and soon in Washington too! I’m a bit jaded about such marketing obviously, but it has generated LOTS of publicity and made many aware that otherwise wouldn’t have a clue. So it is a good thing that Washington State will mount up to conduct our own version of this on October 18, 2012. Details and much more entertaining graphics should arrive soon, but you too can be in the know on this by going to our very own subsite at: www.shakeout.org/washington/ Register Now! ...
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By John Cornelison on
6/4/2012 7:37 PM
Quite a bit apparently! They don’t crow about it much, but they are fairly consistently busy apparently with some 4372 state-wide incidents to track last year! They only activated 14 times, but obviously spent a lot of time tracking activities throughout the state, but especially olde King County – with 865 of those 4372 incidents: 670 of our county’s incidents were Hazmat, 121 Search & Rescue, 73 Other & 1 Fire incident. The EMD also organizes training program state-wide, exercises & drills, business & citizen education and probably a bit of accounting/administration too. For more information go to their: April 2012 Report...
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By John Cornelison on
5/29/2012 7:22 AM
Arkansas, North Dakota & Washington all received perfect 10 out of 10 scores in the most recent “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” study, conducted by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Key findings: Seven states cannot currently share data electronically with health care providers; 10 states do not have an electronic syndromic...
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By John Cornelison on
5/16/2012 9:41 PM
The Partners in Emergency Preparedness Conference is an annual meeting held in Tacoma that is an excellent way to network with others in the disaster preparedness field – and get an excellent overview of the state of the art. Though a good deal, it doesn’t always fit folks schedules and may be too big a time and financial commitment for others. Fortunately, they make many of the presentations available after the conference. Here they are: Visit www.cm.wsu.edu/ehome/piepc/68406 for live links to the following presentations: Keynote: Dr. Grady Bray Changes in the National Incident Management System and how it will affect Federal, State and Local...
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By John Cornelison on
5/15/2012 9:11 PM
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By John Cornelison on
5/14/2012 9:08 AM
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By John Cornelison on
5/14/2012 8:16 AM
The Seattle Times published an interesting look yesterday at a new hobby (as they call it) – Emergency Preparedness. Less than 1 in 1,000 might be members of this new group of “Preppers”. At times the similarities to survivalist mentality sound some personal warning bells – though much of what they do is working in communities – not isolating themselves. They...
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By John Cornelison on
5/14/2012 7:29 AM
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By John Cornelison on
5/10/2012 7:44 AM
National Public Radio’s Lucy Craft has a number of interesting posts about life in Japan post last year’s tsunami and earthquake. Today’s post, “After The Quake, Japanese Shop For Survival”, notes that local stores are selling lots of all-in-one emergency flashlights-radios-etc. – but concludes with the observation from one survivor of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, “city dwellers should focus on how to keep their furniture from crushing them alive” – not storing food as that will quickly arrive. While less true for isolated Vashon, it still makes me wonder if we’re doing enough to...
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By John Cornelison on
5/3/2012 11:03 AM
Today, FEMA and its partners released the National Preparedness Report (NPR). The Report identifies significant progress the nation has made in areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. Overall the Report found that the nation has increased its collective preparedness, not only from external threats, but also for natural and technological hazards that face its communities. The Report was developed to meet the requirements of Presidential...
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By John Cornelison on
4/19/2012 6:06 AM
As mentioned at last night’s annual meeting, preparedness efforts on Vashon made strong strides over the past year. These successes are only partially due to VashonBePrepared’s efforts, and mainly by our various partners, including some independent accomplishments by others in our community. Here’s the listing presented:
Business Neighborhood Emergency Response Organization created, numerous meetings led by Vashon Chamber of Commerce
Enhanced relations with King County Office of Emergency Management:
Operation Lifeline - Plan & contract for hiring a barge or dedicated ferry to shuttle supplies if normal ferry operations are down
MOU with Vashon Island School District to serve as a Disaster Campus
MOU with Camp Burton to house disaster workers from off island
Vashon integration w/ county computer alerting/management systems
Enhanced integration of CERT & MRC & EOC Team with VIFR ops
Disaster Emergency Response Trailer...
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By John Cornelison on
4/19/2012 5:53 AM
A new board was seated last night at VashonBePrepared’s Annual Meeting.
As set out in our bylaws, we have two classes of directors – ex-officio directors as set out by our bylaws – primarily the chief representatives of our partners – and those elected by the membership at our annual meeting: our at-large directors.
VashonBePrepared 2012 Board of Directors
John Cornelison (past Prez)
Donna Donnelly (at-large)
Synthia Downs (at-large)
Jill Janow (EOC Team)
Tim Johnson (at-large)
Hank Lipe (VIFR)
Daniel Luechtefeld (ARES)
John “Oz” Osborne (at-large)
Scott Rice (CERT)
Debi Richards (NERO)
Catherine Rogers (VEPC)
Bob Smueles (at-large)
Ed Steyh (EOC Team)
Rex Stratton (VIEMA)
Rick Wallace (EOC Team)
The new board then unanimously elected the following directors to the Executive Committee, that subset of the board that meets monthly and tends to the daily business of our corporation:
VashonBePrepared...
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By John Cornelison on
4/16/2012 10:26 AM
There’s a new Puget Sound regional disaster website up and live today, known as www.MakeitThrough.org. It looks good and emphasizes having at least 7-10 days worth of supplies – not just the old message of 3 day, 3 ways. (I suspect this replaces the old www.3days3ways.org website, but don’t know for sure.) The list...
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By John Cornelison on
4/13/2012 1:54 PM
PBS Newshour just did a special segment about the risk to northwesterners of liquidification during quake tremblers. Thanks to Jill for noticing this. Read the transcript and see the video on their site here: www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june12/liquefaction_04-12.html ...
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By John Cornelison on
4/13/2012 12:33 PM
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By John Cornelison on
4/13/2012 12:24 PM
Earthquakes are one of the greatest natural hazards for Washington residents. Practicing what you should do when the ground begins to shake is an important part of being prepared. On April 25 state broadcasters will initiated the “Drop, Cover and Hold” earthquake drill through the Emergency Alert System. Tune into KIRO radio (97.3 FM) at 9:45 a.m. to join local residents and businesses as we “drop” to the floor, take “cover”...
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By John Cornelison on
4/13/2012 6:47 AM
With all the recent earthquakes around the ring of fire it isn’t too surprising we want to connect these occurrences as having some pattern. But we shouldn’t, according to Lucile Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction at the USGS, in an interview with ABC News. She did note that yesterday’s 8.6M strike-slip...
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By John Cornelison on
4/11/2012 9:29 PM
Today’s Vashon Beachcomber had a bunch of great quotes that Susan Riemer got from next week’s expert speakers. She especially covered the little reported tsunami risk that could damage our ferry docks, certain waterfront locations (those perpendicular to the surge), and perhaps the isthmus between Vashon and Maury Islands. Some information on this can also be found on our tsunami page.
Read her Beachcomber article here:...
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By John Cornelison on
4/11/2012 8:07 PM
Art Frankel and Craig Weaver of the U.S. Geological Survey gave a presentation to the Seattle City Council on Monday (as noted in this agenda) that has raised some eyebrows – and reaffirms our sensitivity to upcoming seismic disturbances. See their PowerPoint presentation or read on for a few copies of a few of their slides.
In 2014, there will be a regular 6 year update to the National Seismic Hazard Maps. A workshop on the Pacific Northwest Portion of this was held locally on March 21-22, 2012. ...
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By John Cornelison on
4/11/2012 7:26 PM
Thanks to the EOC Team’s Public Information lead, Jill Janow, for cleaning up how emergency bulletins will be posted to our web site in a future disaster. All Emergency Bulletins will be put on a dedicated page, so they will have the full width and will download as fast as possible.
Note that we will post here with any updates from our EOC when activated. Other key source of emergency news can be found on our News page’s Vashon Emergency News Links section.
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By John Cornelison on
4/11/2012 7:12 PM
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By John Cornelison on
3/26/2012 8:20 AM
VashonBePrepared is celebrating our 5th anniversary by sponsoring two of the state's foremost experts on Vashon's unique earthquake and tsunami risks. Recent scientific reports, a number based on lessons from Japan's devastating Tōhoku...
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By John Cornelison on
3/26/2012 7:56 AM
An ‘ongoing’ effort (but apparently in abeyance since 2002?!) to create an accurate seismic model for the Puget Sound region and British Columbia is the USGS’ Seismic Hazards Investigations in the Puget Sound (SHIPS) project. Since March 1998 SHIPS has conducted a series of seismic studies to better describe...
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By John Cornelison on
3/26/2012 7:32 AM
The Community Preparedness Webinar Series provides up-to-date information on community preparedness topics and resources available to citizens, community organizations, and Citizen Corps Councils. These webinars will feature new community preparedness topics several times each month and are free to the public. Each webinar will accommodate the first 500 visitors that enter the website at the time of the webinar. In addition to airing live, each webinar will be recorded and viewable after it completes at your convenience. View the current listings of webinars at: http://citizencorps.gov/resources/webinars/webinarlibrary.shtm ...
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By John Cornelison on
3/26/2012 6:46 AM
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By John Cornelison on
3/26/2012 6:32 AM
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By John Cornelison on
3/24/2012 10:53 AM
Some of our descriptions of potential disasters that might befall the Puget Sound region - and Vashon in particular - might sound a lot like crying “Wolf” to some. But there is a very serious reality out there, even if most of us haven’t been exposed to it in our brief lives here on earth.
The...
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By John Cornelison on
3/21/2012 12:06 PM
In digging through some old public relations materials for our new campaign, I came across this treasure of a VashonBePrepared promotional movie featuring long time volunteer Walt Stempek. (Walt has reported that Michael Monteleione filmed and edited this video. Most excellent!) Anyone have any additional stories about this?!
Watch it on VashonBePrepared’s new YouTube Channel: ...
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By John Cornelison on
3/21/2012 10:08 AM
Most folks think of an overseas or Cascadia based quake as generating a terrible tsunami – and they are right. However such a tsunami is not likely to cause massive damage to Vashon from what I’ve heard – largely due to the moderating influence of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. (It will be interesting to verify this at our upcoming April 18th community meeting with Washington State experts).
There...
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By John Cornelison on
3/21/2012 9:29 AM
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By John Cornelison on
3/21/2012 8:44 AM
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed consolidating their grants program for fiscal year 2013. This was met with criticism in Washington DC Tuesday. Democrats particularly questioned the proposed consolidation of 16 individual grant programs into the National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP) during a hearing of the House Homeland Security emergency preparedness subcommittee. There were calls for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), port grants, transit grants and the State Homeland Security Grant Program to remain...
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By John Cornelison on
3/20/2012 7:56 AM
Ted Buehner, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service has announced a new Weather Spotter Training opportunity for the evening of April 26th.
The National Weather Service will train new and veteran spotters on how to look for and report significant weather events. The training includes video demonstrations. Interested citizens, Amateur radio, CERT, Citizen Corp, Law Enforcement, Transportation (Metro drivers, DOT) Fire, Public Works staff, and those who have weather instrumentation such as an anemometer are invited to attend!
Thursday, April 26th from 6:00-8:30 pm ...
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