John's Vashon Preparedness Blog

Similar to what happened on Vashon several years ago, CenturyLink’s main fiber optic cable to the San Juan’s got severed Tuesday and has cut 911 service to Lopez, Shaw and Orcas islands – with no estimated restoration time. See the report at: www.kirotv.com/news/news/thousands-san-juans-unable-call-911/nbkKn/ for more details.

The Northwest faces poorer forest health (more forest fires), earlier snowmelt (lower stream flows) and raised sea levels (eroding coasts), according to Monday’s release of the Northwest Climate Assessment Report (NWCAR, 2013). Impacts might total some $14 billion dollars...

VashonBePrepared Community Summit Leaders from the Vashon community came together for the first VashonBePrepared Community Summit Saturday morning at Chautauqua School. Moderated by President Rick Wallace and Vice-President Bob Smueles, the group brainstormed for over 3 hours on current  community need if a disaster were to befall us.

Specifically the group...

Saturday VashonBePrepared will hold it’s annual membership meeting, open to the public, from 8:30 am – noon at Chautauqua Elementary School.

Purpose Develop a consensus among the community leaders on: What the Island community needs to survive and recover from an incident that would impact the entire community, and How best to meet those needs. This will be followed by the requisite VashonBePrepared...

On January 26, 1700 an estimated M9 earthquake unzipped the 700+ mile Cascadia Subduction Zone fault from northern California, USA to southern British Columbia, Canada, much like recent events in 2011 in Japan and 2010 in Chile. The newly released “Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquakes: A Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake Scenario”...

You can share your views about transportation needs with Senate Transportation Committee members at public forums on Tuesday, Sept. 17 in Bellevue and Monday, Oct. 14 in downtown Seattle.

These “listening sessions” are part of a statewide tour hosted by the Washington State Department of Transportation. At least half of each meeting...

King County has told the local cities that it does not plan to provide snowplowing services to Tier 2 through 5 roads this winter due to budget cuts. Click here to see which roads in unincorporated King County are currently identified as Tier 1 through 5, and to see contact information for questions. (Hint only Vashon Highway is rated as a tier one road.)

The County may in fact plow as resources become available, but is suggesting that it may not be in a timely fashion. Details on the county’s ice & snow program can be found at: www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/Roads/SnowAndIce.aspx

We are unaware of actual staffing changes locally so...

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

Time and again, America faces crises that test our readiness and challenge our resolve -- from natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods to shootings, cyber incidents, and even acts of terrorism. While my Administration is working tirelessly to avert national tragedies, it is every American's responsibility to be prepared. By planning for emergencies, individuals can protect themselves...

While scientists can't predict when a great earthquake producing a pan-Pacific tsunami will occur, thanks to new tools being developed by federal and state officials, scientists can now offer more accurate insight into the likely impacts when tsunamis occur. This knowledge can lead officials and the public to reduce the risk of the future tsunamis that will impact the west coast.

 

Maximum current speeds for the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB), according to the SAFRR Tsunami Scenario. In the POLA, currents are strongest at Angels Gate, the Cabrillo Marina, the Boat Yard, and the old Navy Yard. Once...

Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) provide free notifications of imminent threats to safety or missing persons to your mobile device. In order to receive WEAs, you must have a capable device and be located in an area (e.g., county) targeted by Authorized Senders to receive one of 3 types of alerts:

Presidential Alerts – Alerts issued by the President or a designee; Imminent Threat Alerts – Alerts that include severe man-made or natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., where an imminent threat to life or property exists; and AMBER Alerts– Alerts that meet the U.S. Department of Justice's criteria to help law enforcement search for and locate...

As our culture becomes ever more dependent on electricity, the current distribution system has a huge vulnerability – induced current from external electrical flux.

One source of such an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) would be a nuclear bomb (or a dedicated gamma ray bomb that North Korea...

Crowdsourcing is being used as early indicator of earthquakes according to an article at: www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130711-using-crowdsourcing-for-earthquake-monitoring. The full, original report is...

The World Meteorological Organization has just released its report, “The Global Climate 2001-2010, A decade of climate extremes”, along with a Summary Report, WMO-No. 1119.

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Overview of Vashon's Status and Systems for Disaster Response

This 3-hour overview, VashonBePrepared 101, is a great introduction to the systems in place on Vashon for major disasters, and an update on the status of our readiness.  It's free and open to the public, with a packed agenda covering all the components we have assembled here to work in partnership...

Some 50 cyclists tested their disaster preparedness skills at the 1st Seattle Disaster Relief Trial. It was held near the University of Washington on June 21st.

According to their Facebook event listing:

“Imagine a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hitting the Seattle Fault. Freeway overpasses crumble, a Lake Washington sieche (oscillating wave) takes chunks out of bridges. Motor vehicles are rendered useless, but following the example of Sandy Relief by bike, Seattle residents with bikes and trailers or cargo bikes are able to transport food and medical...

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center’s (NCDC) announced that according to their 2012 weather and climate disasters information, 2012 saw 11 weather and climate disaster events each with losses exceeding $1 billion in damages. This makes 2012 the second costliest year since 1980, with a total of more than $110 billion in damages throughout the year. The 2012 total damages rank only behind 2005, which incurred $160 billion in damages due in part to four devastating land-falling hurricanes.

The 2012 billion-dollar events included seven severe weather and tornado events, two tropical...

While Puget Sound rarely sees tornados, they certainly are possible, with 3 tornadoes in the 1960’s alone. www.TornadoHistoryProject.com offers a list of them and can also map them.

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Last October, the American Red Cross released a free Wildfire App for iPhone and Android platforms, which allows users to track blazes this summer.

Features: • Step-by-step instructions let you know what to do even before/during/after an wildfire, even if no data connectivity. • Get notified about current wildfires or wildfire-conducive weather. • Let family and friends know...

If you have even been curious about the potential impact of all those various earthquakes that geologists have identified – and see which might have the largest impact for a general region like Vashon Island (i.e., parcel level damage estimates are NOT supported!), then check out the State Seismic Hazards Catalog.

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Canadian scientists apply new methods to better understand Pacific coast earthquakes Understanding the size and frequency of large earthquakes along the Pacific coast of North America is of great importance, not just to scientists, but also to government planners and the general public. The only way to predict the frequency and intensity of the ground motion expected from large and giant "megathrust " earthquakes along Canada's west coast is to analyze the geologic record. A new study...

The Vashon Maury Island Radio Club and VashonBePrepared invites the public to visit Vashon’s amateur radio volunteers at our 2013 Field Day event. Vashon Hams gather at Sunrise Ridge on June 22 & 23 for Field Day’s 80th anniversary to compete in the largest single amateur radio and emergency preparedness exercise, with over 35,000 operators participating throughout the US & Canada.

Local ham volunteers...

Every spring in Tacoma there is a great conference for meeting and sharing ideas with a wide range of disaster experts. Early Bird Registration closes at the end of the month!

Why Attend

Successful management of emergencies can only be accomplished through effective and pre-established partnerships.  This conference offers you the opportunity to develop those relationships; gain the necessary information to develop your response, recovery, and mitigation plans; create your preparedness messaging to those you serve; and gain valuable insight into lessons learned and established best practices.  This is the largest and most successful regional emergency management preparedness conference in the Pacific Northwest – attracting attendees from:

Emergency...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) is pleased to announce a 1 ½ hour webinar on Reducing the Risks of Nonstructural Earthquake Damage (FEMA E-74). Please join and share this opportunity with other individuals and organizations who might be interested. See details below and in the attachment.

Webinar Description Nonstructural components of buildings include all elements that are not part of the structural...

Congratulations to Vashon islander Daniel Luechtefeld for

Training to support his community, Volunteering (with VashonBePrepared, VIFR, VMIRC, ARES and other community organizations), Responding and actually saving a neighbor’s life, and Volunteering to help make a video of that dramatic rescue. Daniel has served on the VashonBePrepared Board for a couple years now as the Vashon Maury Island Radio Club (VMIRC)’s...

The Main Himalayan Thrust has historically been responsible for a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake every several hundred years. (Illustration: Warren Caldwell)



Will a megathrust earthquake strike the NW in 2013? New Years brings out speculators, and this time it is the Seattle PI, which quotes the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network’s director John Vidale and Stanford University geophysics professor Paul Segall whose studies indicate some potential links between "episodic tremor and slip,"or ETS activity and subsequent quakes.

According to the Stanford release:

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In an admittedly narrow look at just one operation during Super Storm Sandy, professional disaster professionals wasted several days waiting for deployment. Fox’s sensational article...

Workers at the University of Washington’s Seismology Lab have concern that the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that occurred on the British Columbia coast over the weekend may pretend future seismic activity in Washington. As reported at King5:

“Earthquakes trigger...

A study published published 7 August (in Harden, J. W., et al. (2012), Field information links permafrost carbon to physical vulnerabilities of thawing, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L15704, doi:10.1029/2012GL051958) indicates that thawing tundra has “the potential for...

Congrats to the variety of people (but especially Randall Bardwell with assistance by Tim Hardy) for huge new progress on getting a second repeater up and (soon) operational for Vashon’s amateur radio community. While it will be able to serve as a backup to the existing W7VMI club repeater, it also is vastly more modern with a super flexible architecture that will allow a much broader array of services and modes in the future. This likely will play a role in enhancing emergency communications in coming years.

Rick Wallace was instrumental in coordinating the Sun rise Ridge board, Voice of Vashon PSE and Potelco to obtain permission and actually get the new antennas installed as shown to the right.

See all his photos, a video, and read more...

On Saturday October 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Vashon Island Fire & Rescue will open its doors to the public for their annual Open House at the end of Fire Prevention Week.

There will be a flu shot clinic from getaflushot.com, training demonstrations at the Penny Farcy Training Center across the street, "hands on" the fire hose, as well as displays by VashonBePrepared, CERT and the Red Cross.

The following items will be for sale: WHAT'S COOKIN' AT VIFR cookbook; bike, skating, equestrian and ski helmets; "blue" address signs and registration for upcoming CPR classes.



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