John's Vashon Preparedness Blog

After April’s huge strike-slip earthquake, the USGS reiterated the one earthquake doesn’t jolt others (out of the region) into existence.

However Fred Pollitz of the U.S. Geological Survey is now reporting...

Be ready for an earthquake with Earthquake by American Red Cross. Get notified when an earthquake occurs, prepare your family and home, find help and let others know you are safe even if the power is out – a must have for anyone who lives in an earthquake-prone area or has loved ones who do.

FEATURES: •Step-by-step instructions let you know what to do even before/during/after an earthquake, even if no data connectivity. •Get notified when an earthquake occurs; see the intensity impact to your area or those of loved-ones with notifications generated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). •Let family and friends know you are okay with the customizable “I’m Safe” alert for Facebook, Twitter, email and text. •Find open Red...

President Obama has declared 20 more disasters than in 2010 and 2 times the numbers declared by President George W. Bush in his first two years in the White House.

Are there really that many more disasters though? Despite all the severe weather this year and portent for much more ahead (partially due to massive declines in Artic Ice levels) and resultant economic losses (e.g., a huge downturn in salmon runs), there may also be some politics at play, with Obama being pressured to declare disasters according to this ABC News report.

President Obama has proclaimed September as National Preparedness Month.

A 2009 Citizen Corps National Survey revealed only 57% of Americans have supplies set aside in their homes just for disasters, and only 44% have a household emergency plan.

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U.S. seismologists at CA’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have released a study indicating fault zones weaken in select locations shortly after a fault reaches an earthquake tipping point. This can then transform a smaller series of quakes into a large mega-quake.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/08/30/Study-Hot-spots-may-up-earthquake-size/UPI-89401346363108/

You only have seconds. Do you know exactly what to do the moment the ground starts shaking? If it involves a doorway, a triangle, or running – these are not quake-safe actions. Register now at www.ShakeOut.org/washington/register to learn more and practice updated quake safety. Be a part of Washington’s ShakeOut drill.

You are invited to join thousands of people who will Drop, Cover, and Hold On on October 18th at 10:18 a.m. in the 2012 Great Washington ShakeOut!

More than 12.5 million people were registered...

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,...

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...

Western North America experienced the strongest drought in 800 years from 2000 to 2004 – but that may be the new normal for the next century. Reduction in carbon uptake during turn of the century drought in western North America – pg 551 – 556,...

U.S. Geological Survey’s Brian Atwater has found evidence of a powerful tsunami near Bremerton recently – due to an earthquake which was “much more dangerous than previously thought”. Their conclusion: climb to safety after an earthquake.

Watch or read the full story at: www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-scientist-massive-quake-struck-area-1000-years-ago-could-happen-again-20120716,0,6181048.story

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...

Funny that DHS is getting criticism for NOT using drones, when my take is that drones further compromise our civil freedoms, but apparently their use helps some key corporations' bottom lines – and their use can be more palatable by using them for Disaster Response.

According to Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano, they are considering drone use to gather situational awareness for forest fires or “large public safety” matters.

Anyways, here’s one story:

www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/07/homeland-security-experiment-rescue-drones-inside-united-states/57023/

another citing the value of drones:

www.stripes.com/news/spies-in-the-north-dakota-sky-signal-a-new-age-of-surveillance-1.184116...

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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According...

The University of Washington Seismology Lab, has released a new map of major semi-recent quakes and fault lines around Puget Sound.

Read more about this at: www.heraldnet.com/article/20120722/BLOG48/707229962#Major-modern-quakes-of-Puget-Sound

I still...

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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The Vashon Beachcomber has done a nice article on a key aspect of last week’s 2012 Evergreen Quake exercise. Entitled, “Emergency drill shows a marine lifeline could be established for Vashon”, Editor and author Leslie Brown included a number of great quotes from islanders and county officials...

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...

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...

 

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...

If you like maps and haven’t checked out the Washington State Geologic Information Portal, it is a wealth of useful information! More than just interactive maps, they also have geoscience data and collections and links to other earth science information sites.

Of especial interest to Vashon residents might be the geologic map (showing faults on the surface, liquefaction, of geologic structures), the landslide map, and the subsurface geology map.

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...

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...

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...

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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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...

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...

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...

The local ARES team worked on the antenna candelabra at VIFR Station 55 last spring as noted in this post:

http://vashonbeprepared.org/News/Blogs/tabid/146/EntryId/77/Antenna-Remount-at-VIFR-Station-55.aspx

Then maybe 6 months back, the dedicated 2 meter antenna was replaced with a tri-band antenna covering 6 & 2 meter and...

An April 23rd Air Force intelligence brief allows unmanned drone surveillance of Americans to be used for up to 90 days if obtained in scenarios like natural disasters or environmental cases.

- www.infowars.com/air-force-document-drones-can-be-used-to-spy-on-americans

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