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HURRICANE AND Emergency Communication Disaster plan Check List AND HOW TO get ready

WHAT TO DO TO GET READY AND
THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'LL NEED

School DirectorySchool Dirctory

 

Security Are Your Schools Prepared? There have been Disasters that devastated whole school districts.
You can't prevent disaster, you can only prepare for it and mange it when and after it happens. It will happen. The only secure computer is a dead computer. The only secure community in a hurricane zone is a dead community.

conelrad.comAlerted Not Alarmed: Is this your 2007 plan?
Film star Mia Farrow 7-year-old Maria de Lourdes (as Mia was known at the time),participated, along with her siblings, in an astoundingly well covered Cold War media stunt that was a certifiable stroke of PR genius on the part of Archer Productions, the company that produced DUCK AND COVER for the U.S. government. Bert the Turtle, the animated star of the first civil defense film produced for children.
DUCK AND COVER [1951] a 1950's civil defense film starring Bert the Turtle written by Ray J. Mauer.
Excerpt:
RAY: "Seems to me there were about 50 reps from the NEA—teachers throughout the country who came and filled us in with the information that was very important because I didn't know anything about school kids anymore. I participated both days, but had nothing to do with organizing the meeting. It took place in a sizeable hall, with the Civil Defense people and us (Langlois and Mauer) seated facing the educational group.
CONELRAD: Did the teachers seem to appreciate what was being done?
RAY: They seemed quite pleased that we were interested in getting their ideas and getting things right.
CONELRAD: The working title for DUCK AND COVER was "Civil Defense for Schools" correct?
RAY: Those titles were given to us by the government. Those were the working titles. DUCK AND COVER was our concept, I mean we got it from the teacher (Helen Seth-Smith of The Potomac School). Because one group in particular said that's what they called doing the exercise. You know, the kids dove under their desk and what not. One of the women (Seth-Smith) called it "Duck and Cover" so it sounded good. And I thought that's as good as anything.
CONELRAD: Do you recall what the government's reaction was to DUCK AND COVER when it was submitted?
RAY: Only in a very general way. They were very pleased with it. They should have been. It didn't cost them anything and it was a damn sight better than any other films in that series. And it was better than the other one we had done by far (OUR CITIES MUST FIGHT)
CONELRAD: When you were bidding on the opportunity to produce the civil defense films did you take OUR CITIES MUST FIGHT by default?
RAY: I think we took the clunker in order to get "Civil Defense for Schools" (the working title for DUCK AND COVER). We worked harder than hell on the other one, but it never came to life.

Montgomery County PA - installed the Countywide Law enforcement Alerting and Safety System (CLASS) in schools. Wireless silent alarm "panic buttons" alert police. It is possible for dispatchers to upload specific school floor-plans to responding officers on their car laptops. Principals can wear wireless transmitters. This will not require the signal be received by as privatye alarm company. It cost 1 million.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT BIRD FLUE

School Emergency Email
If you are a government agency or nonprofit community service: (local, state, or federal) and you want to be able to send emergency notification broadcasts on the Emergency Email Network to citizens in your area please click here. click here.
Almost every cell phone available today is able to send and receive SMS text messages. SMS infrastructure generally holds up better in times of crisis than email, and it automatically appears on your phone’s screen when you receive one.

1. LEAVE TOWN

Train out, drive out, or fly out (if the planes are still taking off) and take your pets with you.

2. Go to high ground

You will not have any: food, medicine, clean water, fuel, electricity, escape, clothes, ice, a roof over your head, disinfectant, bathroom, sleep, phone, cell phone, generator, gasoline, air conditioning, schools, tv, books, computer, email, internet, national guard, navy, police, income, insurance, a job . . .

NIST SECURITY CONFIGURATION CHECK LIST

Make sure company assets and hardware are distributed geographically. Have backup
tapes located in different places. Move key processing systems from regional data centers to primary data centers.

FORMULATE A RESPONSE PLAN - REPORT THE INCIDENT

Trusting cell phones to work in many emergency situations can be dangerous or fatal.

 

 

 

The main problem is no communication. Connectivity and telecommunications will breakdown.

GET

Emergency Email & wireless network GET
BREAKING WEATHER sent to your Wireless
Palm & Email Click on your State.

1. Pre-paid cell phone cards some cell phone users will able to make outgoing calls, but can't receive calls.

Buy satelite connections

2. Buy satellite phones to ensure that communications remain in place. High end stars at $1,000 used, and $20 a day to rent. Low as $300 used or $45 a week to rent. If you're heading to an ultraremote location, be sure to bring along a solar-powered battery charger (about $40).  Choose a provider. Satellite telecommunications companies such as Globalstar USA and Iridium Satellite offer competitive plans and varied coverage zones.

3. generator / fuel

4. more batteries

5. radio

Iridium trumpets latest satellite phones for emergency
response
Just a month before the official U.S. hurricane season begins on June 1, Iridium Satellite LLC today unveiled satellite telephone communications equipment that will interoperate with existing UHF and VHF radio systems already used by police, rescue agencies, firefighters and other first responders. The Iridium systems offer interoperable voice and data communications, will work anywhere and are portable, according to the company. The data services include integration of radio frequency identification tags to help track vehicles, supplies and personnel wirelessly during emergencies so that response efforts can be monitored. Iridium, Satellite telephone handsets are priced at about $1,500 each, while a fixed base station that can be used in a rescue facility costs about $3,000, including an external antenna. Small mobile wireless modems that can be attached to vehicles and supply containers for wireless tracking cost about $500 each if tracking capabilities are to be deployed. The equipment can be used with solar chargers so it can be recharged when power is out, or vehicle battery charger adapters can be used.


Friends,
I am the secretary of the international cellular emergency alert  services association (CEASa). I noticed your discussion about cell broadcasting and thought you might like to know that our group is now working with FEMA on the deployment of cell brodcast for public information purposes just as you have discussed. By the way I want to congratulate you on understanding it so well, when many seem confused about what it is.
see our website at www.ceasa-int.org for more details, or dont hesitate to write to me for more  information. We are currently working on Washington DC, Kansas and New Orleans.
Warm regards,
Mark Wood From: Mark Wood <mark.wood@engineer.com>
Date: April 13, 2006 4:18:38 PM EDT

HOME
72 HOUR KIT

 

Get a "72-hour kit" in a backpack that could help you survive for 72 hours until rescued or able to return home. It should contain a change of clothes, important medications, food and water. If you google "72 hour kits" you will find lots of websites on how to make them or where to buy ready-made ones.

Your home 72-hour kit should contain at least the following items:

A Complete List

Food and Water Supply Examples per Person

Purchase Order/Donations

TOOLS:

SUPPLIES:

* Every employee should have a kit that includes at least one each of these items

ADMINISTRATION KIT

Pack in a portable, weather-resistant container (backpacks work well):

* Food and Water Supply Examples One Person

Some other examples:

You should keep your 72-hour kits for all family members somewhere near an exit to your home. Some people also keep them in their cars, but you never know if you'll be able to use your car in a disaster.

Disaster planning for libraries, institutions and business.

WHERE TO FIND OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING

 

National Hurricane Center Hurricane Cat 1,2,3,4,5
Scipionus.com a giant visual "wiki" page, creating a public document of astonishing detail. NOAA's National Geodetic Survey - Satellite images
NOAA WEATHER UPDATES
FROM THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER 		STORM CARIB CARIBBEAN CORRESPONDENTS ON LINE LIVE REPORTS FROM THE CARIBBEAN
Cyclone Watchers Hurricane Chasers
Hourly Weather for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Center
Weather channel NASA Weather Forecast

An April, 2004 report by the Government Accounting Office: "The wireless communications used today by many public officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, and other public safety agencies do not provide [the ability] ... to effectively carry out their normal duties and respond to extraordinary events."  There are approx. 3.2 million emergency responders in the United States. THE PROBLEM is that police departments, fire departments and EMT services don't want others sharing their spectrum This has always been about control: do the police control the spectrum? This is about first responders solving turf wars and deploying digital technology to use their spectrum more efficiently. Communication Networks for Humans

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank - in case you forget what we are talking about!  compelling images and stories seared into the memories of all who lived through them.

April 13th - 19th National Public Safety Telecommunications Week
The lesson is that even the most modern communications technology can fail, and that there is still value in having an independent communications infrastructure, especially when it costs the community little or nothing to maintain it. Dedicated Amateur radio operators assist local, state and federal workers by providing needed communications services both in the region and also to other parts of the US. ~ Andrew Seybold (W6AMS)

Federal Protective Service (FPS)

 

will show up to provide law enforcement and security services to all federally owned and leased facilities nationwide. FPS focuses directly on the interior security of the nation and the reduction of crimes and potential threats to federal facilities. They secure federal properties like courthouses, federal  office buildings, but not ordinary citizens.

FEMA's Disaster Registration

 

BUT to do that on the website you must be JavaScript Enabled and use Internet Explorer version 6 or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) or (TTY) 1-800-462-7585 to register." Fema Rap for Kids - no kidding!

Homeland Security
Emergencies & Preparing America

Homeland Security National Response Plan

The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. Implementation of Proactive Federal Response Protocols are for catastrophic events involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive weapons of mass destruction, or large magnitude earthquakes or other natural or technological disasters in or near heavily populated areas.

You will have Looters. Police will also loot and Scammers that are not real charities.

FEMA - mapping and analysis center

Google Maps has updated satellite imagery of Katrina in New Orleans.  people are posting addresses, and others are downloading NOAA sat images, overlaying, and posting images to show degree of flooding.  For example:Bad shape and Not-so-bad shape
If you do have Google Earth, this is an interesting overlay that shows the damage ratings the Federal Government has given to various areas.  The data is dated 6PM Sept 5.

Everyone needs to vote. Government policies have life and death consequences. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And we pay the price for  those policies. State and local officials do not think that have to plan because they assume FEMA is in charge, and FEMA doesn't think it has to be a first responder because that is not their mission. March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism. FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.
Remember, we don't have one government. We have 50 separate governments, and one federal government to help them interoperate. We can't solve every problem at the federal level. You have to be ready to save yourself and then help your neighbor.

Love Canal-type landfill submerged in New Orleans floodwaters. The Agriculture Street Landfill (ASL) A toxic landfill is situated on a 95-acre site in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. The ASL is a federally  registered Superfund site, and is on the National Priorities List of highly contaminated sites requiring cleanup and containment. The situation could exacerbate the already dire threat to human health and the environment from the flood waters.

What's happened to the infected animals? Tulane National Primate Research Center, a cluster of Level-3 biological labs containing around 5,000 monkeys, most of which are housed in outdoor cages. According to an article in Tulane University Magazine, "The primary areas of focus today at the Tulane National Primate Research Center are infectious diseases, including biodefense related work, gene therapy, reproductive biology and neuroscience. The Tulane primate center is playing a key role in the federal strategic plan for biodefense research."

9/2/05 Who is jamming ham radio communications in New Orleans?

HURRICANE PREDICATION IS NOT PERFECT
In the Gulf region, forecasters can only tell you 36-72 hours in advance that a hurricane is headed toward a region. At that point, a hurricane's strike zone is several hundred miles wide. "Forecasters cannot come close to predicting a storm's landfall accurately beyond 24 hours. Three days before a hurricane hits, the official forecast can be off by as much as 250 miles in either direction -- the distance from New Orleans to a point between Pensacola and Panama City, Fla., to the east and Beaumont, Texas, to the west."

America's Vulnerable Cities - These articles are especially instructive, particularly as to the difficulties of evacuation.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of  the Crime of Genocide Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General  Assembly on
9 December 1948.

 

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER PEOPLE WANT TO REBUILD

 

This was the City of New Orleans' Hurricane Preparedness Plan - School buses needed to help with evacuation

Heavy rains fell over the Mid Mississippi Valley in April of 1927 which flooded down to the lower Mississippi Valley. The river broke through 13 levees along the river which caused widespread flooding that encompassed 26,000 square miles. The catastrophe caused more than a thousand deaths and forced almost a million people from their homes. More than five million acres of farmland were ruined. The flooding occurred from April until June.
KRVS, a public radio station in Lafayette broadcasts in English, Creole and Cajun French where you can find music and research about previous natural disasters, from the devastating Mississippi River flood of 1927 to Hurricane Betsy in 1965. NPR did a story on this with songs.

Hurricane Katrina Time Line

Hurricane Katrina Commentary

The "city" of Louisiana (Keith Olbermann) 9/5, 2005
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/5/205428/2030

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences by Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky The two writers were paramedics who were in NO for an EMS conference.

Swimming to New Orleans By Nick Glassman senior manager of programming for MediaFLO at 
Qualcomm, Inc. September 9, 2005,

Flood Waters Can't Sink Net Link
http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68725,00.html

Zipa - Zipa's data center -- built by Enron and and sister company DirectNIC, still communicates with the outside world through disaster, powered by a 750-kilowatt diesel generator and connected to the rest of the world by a fiber optic connection buried deep underneath New Orleans' flooded streets. DirectNIC's "crisis manager," Michael "Interdictor" Barnett, updates his Live Journal continually with on-the-street reports. It may be the only blog currently both written and hosted inside New Orleans, and it's receiving nearly 3,000 visitors an hour. A webcam streams images from inside the data center.

Telecoms face 'one big mess' in Gulf Coast region 9.1.05 - Matt Hamblen
Cellular and other communication services are gradually improving in the Gulf Coast region more than three days after Hurricane Katrina blasted through, but service providers said today they still can't reach equipment in the flooded city of New Orleans to make needed repairs.
Officials at Cingular Wireless LLC, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Corp. and BellSouth Corp. reported separately at noon today that with flooding and power outages in New Orleans, crews can't access cellular sites
and switching stations for repairs. Sprint’s crews are waiting in Baton Rouge, La., until officials say it's safe to enter New Orleans, a spokesman said.
The carriers are all relying on backup generators and in some cases portable generators and cellular transceivers carried on panel trucks. When possible, the carriers are also increasing power to rooftop cell
sites in New Orleans to boost signals, the spokesmen said.
"I think it will be a long time before we can determine how each carrier is doing, but it will not be easy," Kagan said. "This is much worse than the 9/11 emergency. It is not just a part of a city like New York. It is the entire Southeast that has been devastated.
Only a small portion of a cellular call is carried over a wireless link, with cell sites usually connected to the rest of a network through T1 or fiber-optic connections, the spokesmen said.
"Flooding has its most dramatic effect on land lines, such as T1s and fiber," said Verizon spokesman Patrick Kimball.
Where there is service, even in restored areas, network congestion is high, and land-line users have heard "all circuits are busy" or a fast busy signal, Bill Oliver, BellSouth's president of Louisiana operations, said in a statement. The wireless providers urged callers to use text messaging as an alternative to voice calls, partly because it requires less bandwidth.
None of the carriers could predict when service will resume, but Oliver said "key fiber breaks" in southeastern Louisiana will take more resources to repair. Of about 1 million landline phones in Louisiana that were out of service after the deadly storm hit on
Monday, only 130,000 have been restored so far, Oliver said.
Various reports from New Orleans tell of desperate survivors offering to pay strangers to use a cell phone to reach family and friends.
Meanwhile, a few companies in the Gulf Coast region set up communications backup plans in advance of Katrina, which has left hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people dead.
Siemens acted as integrator to arrange for satellite network bandwidth, allowing the users to connect to a Siemens IP-based voice switch in Atlanta. With the Siemens VoIP phones, the workers can make five-digit calls over a familiar device to co-workers without needing special codes for the satellite links, Perez said.
All of the wireless carriers in the region have supplied thousands of cell phones to be used by relief workers and emergency personnel. Even so, the cell phones are only as good as the network that supports
them, said Jack Gold, an independent wireless industry analyst based in Westboro, Mass.
"When stuff's under water, electrical stuff doesn't work," he said. "Fundamentally, you are still dealing with the laws of physics."
Gold said emergency personnel and utility workers from hundreds of different groups face the same lack of radio interoperability with their private system emergency radios that has plagued police and fire departments for decades. The hurricane and the resulting flooding are another reminder that "we're not moving fast enough" to create emergency radio interoperability for responding to homeland security
and natural disaster emergencies.
"There's a lot of work to be done with radio interoperability, since we have 80 years of private radio networks as an installed base," he said. Gold noted that Austin and its suburbs, as well as some communities in California, are working together to find common radios. But most municipalities don't have the funds to abandon their systems.
A number of small companies is offering portable mesh networks that work over Wi-Fi and can be driven to disasters on short notice to provide a common IP platform so utilities, police, fire and other officials have interoperable communications, Gold said. "One universal IP network would help, but how you coordinate that is the problem," he said.

The US Army is shipping its Battlefield Medical Information System-Tactical (BMIS-T) to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) teams working in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina along the
Gulf coast. The system consists of handheld devices that will give medics quick access to patient records and notes on potential treatment. BMIS-T uses iPaq handhelds from Hewlett-Packard to enable medics to document a clinical session in seconds, embedding patient records into the system. The Army has used BMIS-T in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

"This American Life." http://thislife.org public radio program source
FEMA Had Authority to Act, even without Emergency Declaration
William Nicholson, author of the books "Emergency Response and Emergency Management Law" and "Homeland Security Law and Policy" says that once the governor asks for help, and the president declares a state of emergency, the feds basically have the broad powers to do what's necessary. And, he says, even if the President hadn't declared a state of emergency, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Chertoff, could have acted. There's this whole newfangled way for him to take emergency powers under something called the National Response Plan. Nicholson: "Well, basically, the way it works is, the Secretary of Homeland security designates this as a catastrophic incident, and federal resources deploy to preset federal locations or staging areas, and, so they don't even have to have a local or state declaration in order to, uh, move forward with this."
Glass: In other words, it doesn't matter what the governor says, it doesn't matter what the local people say, basically, once that happens, they can just go ahead and do, what needs to be done to fix the problem.
Nicholson: That's correct. It's utterly clear that they had the authority to preposition assets and to significantly accelerate the federal response.
Glass: And they didn't need to wait for the state? Nicholson: They did *not* need to wait for the state.

According to the nations disaster response  plan, the Federal government could have activated special powers to  push their assets into affected areas without waiting for state requests.  This, despite administration claims that they were forced to follow the states lead.  (The powers were never invoked, needless to say.)



DHS failed to use catastrophe response plan in Katrina's wake By Chris Strohm

The Homeland Security Department did not use a plan for handling  catastrophes in its response to Hurricane Katrina, even though some  officials say that doing so could have saved lives and brought the  chaotic situation in New Orleans under control.
The department didn't activate a section of the National Response  Plan that deals specifically with responding to catastrophes, DHS  spokesman Russ Knocke confirmed this week. The section -- called the  Catastrophic Incident Annex -- is tucked deep within the 426-page  plan, which was published last December.

. . .

The Catastrophic Incident Annex, however, gives the federal  government special powers, including the ability to bypass state  governments. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or one  of his designees has to approve use of the annex.
That was not done during Hurricane Katrina. Instead, the federal  government and state of Louisiana got caught up in negotiations over  what kind of federal assistance would be provided in the first few  days after the storm hit, while thousands of people were stranded in  New Orleans and others died in hospitals, nursing homes and their  houses.

DONATE TO CHARITY AND WHAT TO EXPECT

Make sure you are giving to a legitimate charitable organization.

Southern California Earthquake Data Center
map of the region that features information on recent earthquakes in California and Nevada. Learn about the local faults and recent activity along each fault.

If you can it is a good idea to help get supplies listed below to volunteer organizations. Find Volunteer opportunities, displaced students, colleges taking students, charitable giving, animal rescue, missing persons, temporary housing, flood control, levee management, gas prices, environmental factors, news sites, maps and images, and much more. Donate Computers or get a free one.

HUMOR:

 

A flood came and a man had to climb onto the roof of his house.   As the waters rose a neighbor in a rowboat appeared, and told him to get in. "No," replied the man on the roof, "the Lord will save me."  Then a firefighter appeared in a speedboat. "Climb in!" shouted the firefighter. "No," replied the man on the roof, "The Lord will save me." A helicopter appeared and the pilot shouted that he would lower a rope to the man on the roof. "No," replied the man on the roof, "the Lord will save me."   Eventually the man drowned and went to heaven, where he asked God why He hadn't helped him.   "I sent a neighbor, a firefighter, and helicopter," said God.  "What more do you want?"

"Somebody asked Bush what he thought about Roe v. Wade.  He said didn't care how people got out of New Orleans."

The Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!

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