Large Scale Emergencies to Prepare for

George Rebane

[This is the submitted form of my July column in the 9jul11 Union.  Its online version is available here.]

Have you thought about what you and your family will do in the face of a large scale emergency that directly impacts Nevada County?  Most people hereabouts think of the Forty-Niner Fire of 1988 as an example of a large scale emergency.  Wrong.  A large scale emergency (LSE) is one that can result from a magnitude 9 earthquake (‘The Big One’) near the coast, a pandemic of Bird Flu or some other communicable dreaded disease, terrorists detonating a dirty nuclear device in the Bay Area, and so on.

One of the reliable ways you can tell if Nevada County is impacted by a LSE is by just picking up the phone and dialing 911.  If no one answers, you got yourself a large scale emergency.  The other more horrendous indicator of a such an emergency is when you hear of or witness tens of thousands of people ‘heading for the hills’.

This escape destination has been used since biblical times by people living in more populated areas.  The everlasting hills are a beacon of safety, survival, and hope.  But people heading for the hills don’t usually arrive with the right stuff to shelter, feed, and medicate themselves – they had other things on their minds when they left home.

West county has always planned on taking care of about 3,000 arrivals on the fairgrounds property.  The planning from there becomes a bit more vague since the food in our local stores will feed county dwellers for at most three days, and during a LSE we can expect the distribution system (‘the grid’) to be down.  Add to that the fact that only a small fraction of our citizens are prepared for anything beyond hunkering down during a storm for a couple of days, and you begin to see a real problem here.

In response to an LSE and lesser emergencies, Nevada County operates the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).  Part of that program involves training citizen volunteers to become members of CERT – as a part of the solution instead of becoming a part of the problem.  To qualify you have take three 8-hour classes that teach you all kinds of things that you would want to know anyway in order to take care of family and friends in an emergency.  And during an LSE, people so trained become indispensible.

The next CERT course will be given on the Saturdays of August 13, 20, 27 at the First Baptist Church of Grass Valley across from NUHS.  The course curriculum is outlined as follows –

Disaster Preparedness - Disaster Threats: Earthquake, Wildfires, etc., Hazard mitigation, Community Preparedness.

Hazardous Materials and Terrorism - Identifying Hazmat situations, Securing Work and Home, Hazmat and terrorism incidents.

Disaster Medical Part I - Health considerations for rescuer, Opening airways, stopping bleeding and controlling shock, START triage, Disaster Psychology.

Disaster Medical Part II - Minor burns, Apply splints to arms and legs, Practicing Disaster, Medical skills.

Fire Safety - Reducing Fire Hazards in the Home and Workplace, CERT Size-up, Fire Suppression

Light Search and Rescue - Conducting Search and Rescue Operations, Lifts and carries of victims

CERT Organization - CERT Organization and decision making, Disaster plans and where CERT fits in, Documentation.

Communications - Composing emergency messages, Demonstration of FRS and Ham radios.

Skills Development and Application - Extinguishing fires, Triaging and treating victims, Search and rescue, Extricating a victim, Interior search for reported missing persons.

To register for the course or to get more information, please call (530) 265-7174 or email patti.carter@co.nevada.ca.us.   The course is free, but because the class size is limited to 35, pre-registration is required.

Finally, those readers, familiar with my take on what is going on in our country and our world, would not consider this column complete without a little extra warning thrown in.  The US dollar is doomed; it has only one future – to be marched to the wall and shot (aka hyperinflation).  And our government will attempt to do this with the least warning possible, as have all other governments who have spent themselves silly.

But in these times the markets may telegraph the end of the greenback, and then everyone will know.  The result could be what happened in Germany leading up to 1923, or what is happening in Greece right now.  Because there is no economy in the world that can bail out the United States, our ‘popular response’ in a multi-cultural nation may be even more extreme.

Just thought I’d throw in another type of large scale emergency that you are already betting the ranch on.

George Rebane is an entrepreneur and a retired systems scientist in Nevada County who regularly expands these and other themes on KVMR and Rebane’s Ruminations (www.georgerebane.com).

Comments

[John S]

It is the sad truth.
The bad part about this is; our economy has been savaged to a point recently it makes all of this even worse. We are now in a position of disadvantage given cutbacks, the new normal, and less of everything. You won't hear this anywhere, but it is even more important for everyone to become more self sufficient and personally responsible for their own well being. Our President would like everyone to rely upon him to save them, when the S*#t hits the fan all you will have are his empty words to comfort you. Then he has got you just where he wants you, dependant.

[Paul Emery]

There's another emergency that would us, as massive flood in the valley. The Red Cross recently held a training session about how we would handle thousands of refugees from the valley that would be evacuated here. This 200 year flood has happened and mathematically is sure to happen again. Here's more

"More than 1,100 miles of levees built more than a century ago to create farmland in the Sacramento River delta are vulnerable to collapse, endangering the water supply for 25 million people in Central and Southern California, the AP reported. Emergency officials said more than half the state's nearly 39 million people rely on levees and flood-control reservoirs for protection, a system that could be strained past the breaking point in a catastrophic flood."

http://www.theunion.com/article/20110517/NEWS/110519752

[Douglas Keachie]

For about $150 you can get a full facemask from 3M with excellent filters. If you can't see where you are driving, you are doomed. Of course if there is no oxygen left in the air near you, this mask doesn't help.

Airplane freaks, try: http://www.flickr.com/photos/keachie/collections/72157627155973396/

[Account Deleted]

Massive flooding? I thought drought was "settled science"? I just wish the left would get the story straight for something longer than 5 minutes.

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, you are trying to sell Airfest photos. You've also bitched about the rich being subsidized for their aviation hobby.

So tell me, how much did the GEriatric Flying Association (or is that the Golden Empire Flying Ass'n) pay Nevada County to take over the Nevada COUNTY Airport for a couple of days?

[Douglas Keachie]

I use photos of public events to make connections in the communities for selling mostly other non aviation related photography, and for honing my skills. I almost never make sales from images posted, but it is a cheap way to keep my name in circulation. Do you have a problem with that? As for whoever put the event on, and what they paid, you tell me and we'll both know. BTW, you're not exactly a Spring chicken yourself, you know...

Since the County benefits from tourists attracted to the event, I doubt they pay very much, and that helps keep your rates down. Does this event bother you? You sound a bit like you view the airport as your semi-private domain. Outside your rented/leased tiedown or hanger, it ain't.

BTW, there's a guy helping handle the balloons named Sean, who looks remarkably like George S. Rebane, but it couldn't have been George, as this guy said he wasn't George.

Wildly erratic weather leads to monster snow falls followed by heat waves melting the packs very rapidly, and voi'la, flooding...(Never did French, uncertain on spelling)

BTW, should that be your Gundernator or whatever, your answer is up on the photo, Greg.

[Douglas Keachie]

"Keach, you are trying to sell Airfest photos. You've also bitched about the rich being subsidized for their aviation hobby."

So, like you should think I shouldn't be trying to make some of it back? What kind of capitalist are you?

[Account Deleted]

Monster snow falls? The Sierra's are supposed to dry out. No more snow. That's settled science. You sound like one of those deniers. Actually, to be serious here, the biggest threat to the levees are the trees growing along and on the levees. Tree roots can be a great thing on hill slopes to prevent erosion, but in the levees they set up potential problems. And who is trying to prevent the removal of the trees? Our friends the tree huggers.

[Douglas Keachie]

No trees on the levee on 2 blocks north of our house in Marysville. There are two very tall (80 feet plus) tree like objects there. They're painted yellow and appear to be made of steel. They're call "pile drivers."

[Greg Goodknight]

Keach, if you can sell any of those photos, have at it.

Professional photos by my former next door neighbor, TheUnion's John Hart:
http://theunion.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1283282&CategoryID=15043&ListSubAlbums=0

To the best of my knowledge, the "Golden Empire Flying Ass'n", a private club and a minority of airport users (arguably skewed to the wealthier side), pays the county nothing for their taking over the airport for a couple of days.

[Douglas Keachie]

Not sure what you point is, Greg. My photos this year are at the dinner dance, hot air balloon ride party, his are of the Saturday events. I came back on Saturday after another job, paid up front, and took a few shots and the fire tankers, after visiting Habitat Restore. Two years ago I spent about 2 hours during the day and did the following:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keachie/sets/72157621308446794/with/3710891185/

If you wanted to gripe about people of wealth having friends in high places, why not try the BOS, instead of Rebane's Blog? As I said before, I suspect they like the revenues coming into the restaurants and hotel/motel/B&B sectors, plus rentals of equipment and party stuff.

[Douglas Keachie]

If you have concerns about selling action shots to pilots, I'm sure you are aware that air to air and air to air with good ground backgrounds are the only way to go. Brian Hamilton at The Union seems to have the connections to do that job quite nicely. I nearly had such an assignment last year, but then the guy's schedule changed. Boat to boat I can do in my sleep, but Scotts Flat and Tahoe do not provide the action and range of backdrops and number of races of San Francisco Bay, and that commute's now a killer.

[Greg Goodknight]

No Keach, I don't give a diddly about anyone selling an image they created. I was interested to see if your outrage was over the wealthy not paying their share of airport maintenance, or just asinine rhetoric intended only to bash me, based on your bizarre fabricated image of me as a rich "consulting engineer" able to fly myself wherever my jobs take me. It does appear it is just the latter, as the warbird community is the most conspicuously wealthy segment of aviation... it takes a lot of JellyBelly jellybeans to buy, operate and maintain a P-51 which has no utility whatsoever. I don't mind it at all, and were I to find myself with a few 10's of millions of bucks, a nice $2M toy like that might be on my short list.

The airport is a key piece of the transportation infrastructure of Nevada County. CalFire is a key emergency user, but CHP and the Forest Service are also in and out, and there was a dramatic air ambulance operation I once saw that was in essence a flying neonatal intensive care ward that whisked away a fragile newborn from SNMH to a bay area hospital believed the only good choice for survival.

Apropos to George's post, with major flooding in the Sacramento valley, the airport might be our only link to points west for days or even weeks.

[Paul Emery]

Scott

It amazes me how you enmesh even the Red Cross in your conspiracy theories about global warming. The "ARkStorm," that the Red Cross refers to has nothing to do with temperatures rather than the historically measured recurrence of a certain type of rain storm that will flood the valley with a magnitude that will disregard the levee system no matter what condition its in. Historically this happens every 200 years.

The Red Cross exercise held this April dealt with how we would manage the thousands of refuges from the valley who would flock to higher ground if the valley was flooded.

Here's more..

"The 1861-62 winter storm -- what scientists call an "atmospheric river storm" -- lasted for 45 days, producing precipitation that exceeded what some areas would experience once every 500 to 1,000 years. The flooding was so bad it reduced taxable land by a third, bankrupted the state government and left parts of the Central Valley looking more like an inland sea than the fertile farming area that today forms the backbone of the state's economy. "

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/01/20/20greenwire-200-year-flood-in-calif-more-devastating-than-80143.html

[Douglas Keachie]

"I was interested to see if your outrage was over the wealthy not paying their share of airport maintenance, "

It does seem like you have so issues with them.

Maybe these wealthy, like you, feel that just "being there," paying aviation fuel taxes, and paying for their homes along the runway is way more than enough a contribution to this vital link in transportation to points west in the event of a 200 year flood. I would think you would see their private hangers off to the north ass part of their "trickle down" to you, as if they didn't do that, they'd be hustling for your spot, and thus make it harder for you to get a coveted publicly owned/private hanger.

After all, what a great fall back in the event you lose your house and need a place to stay.

[Douglas Keachie]

BTW, do you subscribe to CALSTAR? We do, and since our younger daughter is still invincible, I pay for a separate membership for her too.

[Greg Goodknight]

Nope. My only issues were with you, Keach, and the county just giving a private club effective control of a *major* asset for a couple of days for the club's fundraiser.

Even Keachie probably has enough cash to fly one of the Cessna 150's that were banished to the dirt on the north side of the runway; a friend of mine owns one of those, cost him $15K, about what a used Chevy would set you back. A shame; here were a number of people interested in aviation coming in the gates with their voluntary $10 admission, and all of the planes they could actually fly introductory lessons in were hidden away.

[Douglas Keachie]

Keachie was barely able to pass medical way back at 24, between the hearing loss and vision loss. Would have loved to have been a pilot, but being a father took precedence, and by the time that was past, glaucoma kicked in. I fly, but always with someone else at the controls. As you pointed out, even the least of planes can kill you, and I've lost former pilot friends, 2 so far. besides, between skiing and the tractor, I take enough chances already. 600 people die by tractor every year...

Now if I win the lotto, yes, an ultralite is a possibility. The problem is, taking the camera with would be just so tempting.

[Douglas Keachie]

Who likes lightbulb stories? This one cuts across a lot of lines:

Re: conservatives may secure our right to use lightbulbs of choice!!!

I didn't know the Winchester plant had closed I hauled the bulb glass globe from Lexington Ky to Ge Winchester Va on a daily run. We ran team one drive over one drive back change truck and do again . We ran 250,000 globes per run 9 trucks a day If weather got us they had enough to run maybe 16 hours before shut down plant . Depending on when last load had got their.

One bad storm in early 90's shut Ky Down . Interstates were closed you could not enter state . Only trucks on road were medical supplies, food, and heating oil. That was emergency law You best have paper work , from governor office if you were out their in a truck. I was laying at home and company called , need to run to Va . Hey, Interstate closed with out special permit . GE has permits . (remember we hauled the glass globe) thats not medical food or heating oil. GE has permits. I reported . They took the 5 top teams in seniority and we were to make run. Ky closed, WVA barely passable in mountians , VA if you could get their open but slick. 490 miles of fun. I requested papers from company That accidents were not to be our fault. We were going under dangerous conditions and should not be responsible if we crashed on trip. I was worried about Mountians and one called Sandstone real bad in good weather 5 miles of downgrade fun. . Other drives back me and we got wavier on accidents. We got 50 miles from Lexington and state boy got us . We show permits he ask food or medical we said LIGHTBULBS . He went off Sorry we have the proper permits. Our governor loves GE donations. . He checked with supervisor and the said let them go. . Well the 9 hour trip (that was driving break and a meal) took over 20 hours . We rolled in to Winchester Hero's!!!! We saved the day plant can keep working. They almost lynched us. They were closing plant and going home with pay. Till we show up . Ingrates we had risked our lives and equipment for them and they were pissed. .

[Douglas Keachie]

Here's the link, for our special person, very entertaining site!

http://www.bersachat.com/forums/showthread.php/7181-conservatives-may-secure-our-right-to-use-lightbulbs-of-choice!!!

[Douglas Keachie]

Another Dim Bulb legislator from SoCal heard from.

We’ve lit up another SoCal nutcase who wants to divide California.

No way they get Yosemite!

In fact, they can come clear up the Central Valley to Tracy, but we keep the Coast to San Simeon, and we keep the Sierra to South of Mt Whitney. Everything above 2,000 feet in the Sierra, and 35 miles inland from the Coast. Must protect the watersheds.

[Douglas Keachie]

The shape of the new state would honor their famous freeways and their friendly waves.