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...

The Emergency Operations Center wants you!  What is that and why do they want me, you ask?  Scenario: So, the big one hits - but you and your family were ready.  You have enough food and water for yourselves and your animals to last easily for 10 days and you've called your designated out-of-state contact and let them know you and your family are okay.  Your house is strapped to its foundation and your water heater and shelves are still securely bracketed to the walls and clean up is a breeze.  You've still got major adrenilin in your system and you're looking around at the homes of friends and neighbors and realizing that there is a mountain of work to do to get the island back on its feet - and you are ready!   

Vashon's EOC will need many volunteers to help run every aspect of island recovery from the moment a major event occurs until every member of our island family has food, clothing and permanent shelter.

So, what can you do? Start with what you are good at! If you are well prepared for a disaster then you are good at planning.  You can join the Planning Team and help bring everything that islanders will need here and have it ready to support this community.

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In the near future, the Are You Ready? campaign will include an new phase focused on NERO (Neighborhood Emergency Response Organization).  This phase will include descriptions, contact information and other relevant information for joining an existing NERO or forming a new NERO.  Watch this space for updates.

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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