The Vashon Maury Island Radio Club’s May meeting will be this coming Tuesday, May 3rd. 7:00PM at Vashon Fire Station 55 in the EOC room. Our first Show & Tell "Topic - Randy Bardwell, K7RDB presents his home-brew, high tech "uber go-box" and also VMIRC Business Meeting.

- Sharon Danielson KE7HBZ, VMIRC President

Several major source of funds for Vashon – as distributed from FEMA to the State and then to the King County OEM have taken a major hit. Future funding is going to be tighter:

The State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSP), which supports a variety of state and local endeavors, including exercises, training, planning and equipment was cut by $225 million. That’s slightly more than 26 percent of the program, leaving a 2011 budget of $725 million. FEMA asked for $1 billion for the SHSP program. ...

The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are pleased to share the following compilations of FEMA earthquake publications, at no cost:

Earthquake Publications for Teachers and Kids, FEMA P-710CD...

Washington State Emergency Management Association (WSEMA) will hold their annual conference at the Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles, Washington on September 27-29, 2011. The theme for the 2011 conference is “Preparedness: It’s Not a Mystery”.

If anyone is interested in speaking, the deadline for their call for presentations is 1 Jun: contact Cheryl Bledsoe [Cheryl.Bledsoe (at) clark.wa.gov].

Susan Wolf, Linda Hamilton & Barb Cooper have been working to collect recipes for a cookbook, the sales of which will go towards providing an Explorer scholarship.  Everyone is encouraged to submit a recipe toward this great cause! Though no publishing date has yet been set, you can check with Barbara Cooper at 463-2405 for the latest information, and to reserve your copies.

Today there is a 300 yard isolation zone set up around the Hyundai Oakland container ship in the Port of Tacoma after a ~4:30 AM leak from a 55 gallon container of chlorobenzotrifluoride solvent. See KIRO TV’s report for details.

Might there be other chemicals...

AT&T has started selling portable cellular antennas so customers can provide their own wireless coverage in disaster-struck or remote areas. Typically cell phone companies deploy mobile trucks with larger mobile cell towers, but this gives responders control over their own deployments – albeit with fairly limited service:

The Remote Mobility Zone can handle 14 simultaneous calls, and data at less-than-broadband speeds. Coverage extends up to half a mile from the unit. The "portable cell tower" can also be mounted in a car or truck.

The...

King County OEM’s Pascal Schuback had a neat 138 character tweet today that took me well over an hour to digest:

Know the difference 2B ready RT @USGS: How much bigger is a 8.7 2A 5.8? Click "Try It Yourself" Calculator at top of http://go.usa.gov/baq

As they note on their site, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/how_much_bigger.php:

The magnitude scale is really comparing amplitudes of waves on a seismogram, not the STRENGTH (energy) of the quakes. So, a magnitude 8.7 is 794 times bigger than a 5.8 quake as measured on seismograms, but the 8.7 quake is about 23,000 times STRONGER than the 5.8! Since it is really the energy or strength that knocks down buildings, this is really the more important comparison. This means that it would take about 23,000 quakes of magnitude 5.8 to equal the energy released by one magnitude 8.7 event.

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As Eric Holdeman recently pointed out, federal disaster funding is all wrong in 2011:

“The Disaster Relief Fund is getting $2.65B (that's a B for billion dollars) and the Predisaster Mitigation Fund is at $50M.”

We’re catching the cows after they’ve left the barn and not heeding Ben Franklin’s advice that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” which is a 1:16 ratio – not the 1:53 ratio federal politicians have apparently settled on.

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The Five-Year NIMS Training Plan, originally released February 2008 is being revised. The comment period for the new National Incident Management System Training Plan ended February 22, several hundred comments have been adjudicated, and just last week the document was transmitted up to FEMA Deputy Administrator Manning,...

1) Installed latest version of the Document Repository software: Bring2mind.DMX_05.03.07_Install Release Notes for 05.03.07

Fix: Notifications not attaching document to email DMX-395

Fix: Notifications sent to all users DMX-402

Enhancement: Double check correct file transfer to storage DMX-400

Fix: WebDAV editing of entry in absolute root not possible DMX-397

New Feature: Add a script to analyze the state of the file storage rather than take immediate action DMX-396

2) Installed a photo gallery extension for the document exchange (Bring2mind.DMX.NewGallery_01.03.04_Install):

The gallery addon allows you to show DMX content as an image gallery. In the module's settings you specify where in the document tree you want the gallery to start. Folders...

Tom Miner, head of the Northwest's  sole FEMA Urban Search & Rescue Incident Support Team, riveted an overflow audience with a clear message that after a major regional disaster, federal help is very unlikely to arrive on Vashon for well over 3 days and likely 10 – or more...

Disasters can typically generate up to fifteen years worth of a community's solid waste over a few days, with the potential to overwhelm day-to-day solid waste operations and to lead to years of disruption; FEMA estimates that debris removal accounted for 27 percent of their total disaster response costs for those U.S. disasters between 2002 and 2007; prolonged problems with the management of solid waste can lead to public and environmental health issues;  slow management of solid waste can also impede economic recovery by inhibiting rebuilding activities.

-- www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/waste-management-critical-natural-disaster-recovery

Read more in Charlotte Brown, “Disaster waste management: A review article,” Waste Management...

Randy’s got the hottest (communications, not survival) go-box on Vashon – at least that I’m aware of. I don’t see any straps on it to carry it around, but otherwise it looks pretty impressive. Check it out at NineByFive.com

Also Randy has just created a new MeetUp group for W7VMI. Join up at www.meetup.com/Vashon-Radio-and-Technology-Meetup/

Five active U.S. nuclear reactors -- the Diablo Canyon Power Plant and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California; the South Texas Project near the Gulf Coast; the Waterford Steam Electric Station in Louisiana; and the Brunswick Steam Electric Plant in North Carolina -- are situated in seismic activity-prone zones.

William Leith, acting associate director for natural hazards at the US Geological Survey, said that although most nuclear plants are in the central and eastern United States, where earthquakes are rare, the USGS ranks thirty-nine states as having a high or moderate earthquake risk. USA Today notes that new studies have shown that at least twenty magnitude-9.0 earthquakes have struck off the coast of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington in the past 20,000 years, most recently in 1700, he said.

-- www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/five-us-nuclear-plants-earthquake-zones

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National Volunteer Week is observed 10-16 April, and according to  FEMA Regional Administrator Ken Murphy, it’s all about inspiring, recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities.

“National Volunteer Week offers an invaluable moment in time to celebrate this nation’s volunteers, and sounds a clarion call for all of us to help strengthen our communities,” said Murphy.  “Planning for disasters means that we must plan for the Whole Community, including people of different ages and those with various access and functional needs.  It means planning for children – and not just thinking of them as small adults. It means planning for the elderly, and planning for families without access to personal transportation.  Whole Community preparedness...

At their 2010 Awards Ceremony yesterday at Camp Burton, the Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s 2010 Commissioners Award was bestowed upon VashonBePrepared. Fire Commissioners Rex Stratton, Gayle Summers, Ron Turner, David Hoffmann and Neal Phillip presented the award to General Joseph Ulatoski, Catherine and Michael Cochrane, Richard Wallace and myself on VashonBePrepared’s behalf. The award was clearly in recognition of all the volunteers...

New features are detailed at http://dotnetnuke.codeplex.com/releases/view/63026. I’ve also updated the Wiki module to 4.3.0 (alpha), and the Links module to 6.0.0 beta, and Forum module to 5.0.1. Lightbox Gallery has is a new install allowing FancyBox display of images. Unfortunately I’ve had to uninstall the effority.UserDirectory for now due to this issue, but a reinstall may solve this. To provide support for IE9, the Telerik controls have been updated to their Q1 2011 release, per Joe Brinkman’s guidance.  The wiki upgrade in particular should allow us to finally clear up those extraneous pages with funky characters – that prevented their deletion or even editing – but actually completely broke functionality for now. I anticipate the...

Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry, and the Seattle Emergency Operations Center where a large reprint is prominently displayed, is this neat old photo.

I also have an old news clipping of Laura Snyder's that I pledge to scan and make available before too much longer. There is also a treasure of Vashon Historical photos at the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum, though I don’t know the number that pertain to disasters and preparedness, aside from a movie they scanned to DVD entitled “Billingsley’s on Vashon Island” showing another (more explosive!) Civil Defense Drill.



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After lunch today I caught this poignant reminder of the recent Japanize triple disaster – and the world-wide support for the Japanese.

[Updated:...

Curious how...

A host of sister neighborhood preparedness groups in Seattle exist, all working under the City of Seattle OEM:     West Seattle Be Prepared (that apparently partially chose their name based on VashonBePrepared!)     Magnolia | Queen Anne | Interbay     Capital Hill Preparedness people          See Seattle Community Network for additional resources and organizations

    See http://www.facebook.com/goSCALLOPS for a regional sustainability group

This...

Cathy Wenderoth works for the Seattle Police Department as the Seattle OEM’s Volunteer Coordinator. She is now organizing Seattle’s first CERT classes.

Here’s another funding source we’ve yet to consider on Vashon, but that is likely available.

In response to direction by Congress to develop "all-hazard regional catastrophic event plans and preparedness," in 2008 FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security established the Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (RCPGP), and released grants to the ten largest urban areas in the country. To implement this...

On March 30th, President Obama signed a Presidential Direction on the subject of “National Preparedness”, reflecting upon H1N1, Deepwater Horizon Christchurch and Sendai events - and lessons learned since the previous December 2003, Bush-era policy. 

Unusually, the text was released today, only the second of his six directives released to date, per...

FEMA just announced this.

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/22726 describes a major multi-state, national exercise simulating the 1811 New Madrid earthquake – actually a series of seismic events (up to seven on the Richter Scale) from December 1811 into 1812. According to FEMA, NLE 2011 will be the first NLE to simulate a natural hazard and also uses a state-based planning process rather than federal.

From FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate comes word of a new base plan for such events, the National Exercise Program Base Plan, as updated a few weeks ago, on March 18. National standards for such exercises are coordinated through the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP).

Yesterday a lightly attended hearing was held by the Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation looking at renewing funding for earthquake preparedness. Two northwesterners testified: Mr. Jim Mullen, Director, Washington State Emergency Management Division; President, National Emergency Management Association & Dr. Vicki McConnell, Oregon State Geologist and Director, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

In 1977 Congress passed the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act (NEHRP) as a long-term earthquake risk reduction program for the United States....

If you haven’t seen this yet, there’s a fun preparedness campaign going on in April. Even if folks aren’t part of the first 200 people to sign up and get a free crank flashlight/radio or emergency kit, everyone will be entered for the Grand Prize! Note that the campaign is for people in King and Snohomish County. Please spread the word!

April Tip of the Month:  It’s Disaster Preparedness Month in Washington. Don’t forget, at 9:45 a.m. on April 20 – it’s the state-wide “Drop, cover and hold” drill. And check out this year’s preparedness campaign:

Take the "3 to Get Ready" preparedness challenge...

At today’s Region 6 Homeland Security Council’s EMACS meeting, approximately $16K of unused funds from the FFY2009(or 2008?) Homeland Security Grant Program previously designated for Disaster Emergency Response Trailers (DERT) in King County, was re-allocated for Vashon! The trailer will primarily be used to store ADA compliant cots, blankets and pillows for use in community shelters to be set up for off-island visitors and workers unable to get home, or for residents with damaged houses.

Don Price (King...

View our latest tweets at @VashonBPrepared, or just visit the home page of www.VashonEOC.org as an easy way to view these. Note that twitter names are limited to 15 characters, so the “Be” in our name has been shortened to “B”. Please note that we are only POSTING to this account and that they are NOT monitored, as is common with other public service accounts. For all emergencies, always call 911 first.

www.seattle.gov/emergency has a new set of nice publications for citizens with very basic advice to citizens for surviving and earthquake or tsunami.

A great list of 2010 accomplishments by Barb Graff, Director of Emergency Management, and her staff at the Seattle Office of Emergency Management can be downloaded at: www.seattle.gov/emergency/docs/accomplishments_2010_seattle_oem.pdf

Amateur Radio operators are people from all walks of life--no matter what age, gender or physical ability. Did you know that most of the astronauts are Amateur Radio Operators? You're never too young or old. And, getting started in Amateur Radio has never been easier! Now, you no longer have to learn Morse Code to get your first Ham Radio License, the Technician Class, as in years past! Just pass a 35 question multiple choice exam given by volunteer Ham Radio Operators and you will be "on the air" in no time!

Vashon - Maury Island Radio Club in conjunction with West Seattle Ham Radio Club will be presenting a Technician License Exam Preparatory Class Friday evening, 05-20-2011 to Sunday evening 05-22-2011.  This is a free course but participants are required to purchase a text book (approximately $29) and your ARRL VEC Test Fee will be $15

If you would like to sign up for this class, please contact Sharon Danielson at kharazi@aol.com

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April is Disaster Preparedness Month. VashonBePrepared, in conjunction with the King County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) urges citizens to take simple steps to prepare for earthquakes, floods, man-made disasters and other emergencies.

“We can’t stop disasters from happening, but we can prepare to survive them,” says OEM Director Hillman Mitchell. “Now is a perfect time to think about what you would do if a large disaster were to strike our region."

Disaster planning consists of three simple steps: 1. Make a Plan Every family should have a plan for how they will communicate during an emergency and where they will meet if separated.

Establish an out-of-area contact. This should be someone out-of-state that each family member can contact to communicate their well-being.

Texting will often work, even if phone calls can’t go through.

If cell towers are down, landline calls may work.

Long-distance calls...

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Thanks to Phil W7PDZ, Tim W7TRH, Jim WA7KYI & VIFR’s Bob Larsen...

  You’ve no doubt heard about volunteers across the globe helping assist with Haitian, Libyan, and other crises by crowd sourcing: geolocating and tagging new reports and data from a wide variety of news sources like phones, web forms, tweets, email and more. By filtering for keywords and locating these reports on a map, a wide variety of emergency managers, researchers, and citizens can rapidly get a better feeling for late breaking information – well before a reporter or others have had time to synthesize the data into a summary or overview.

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Release Date and Time:03-25-2011 08:19:00 AM

"Triangle of Life" theory is dismissed by quake experts. The technique is not applicable for earthquake experiences in the U.S. The safest response is to "Drop, Cover, and Hold" until the ground stops shaking.

With images of Japan’s devastating earthquake fresh on our minds, so is another round of Internet misinformation about what should be your first move during an earthquake. The King County Office of Emergency Management wants you to know that "Drop, Cover, and Hold" is the best method to protect yourself during an earthquake in the United States, especially in our own quake-prone region.

“Unfortunately, emails have circulated recently, touting the ‘Triangle of Life’ technique, which incorrectly claims that people can use ‘voids’ or ‘empty spaces’ as a way to survive earthquakes,” said Hillman Mitchell, Director of the King County Office of Emergency Management. “Simply put, the technique is not applicable for earthquake experiences in the United...

Jim Mullen, director of the Washington State Emergency Management Division and president of the National Emergency Management Association, wrote an excellent op-ed in yesterday’s Seattle Times, citing the value in maintaining funding for disaster preparedness – which is currently under threat. Read it online at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014538720_guest21mullen.html

Residents and business owners in unincorporated King County have a new way to report non-emergency crimes and traffic complaints.

The King County Sheriff's Office launched a new online reporting system today at www.reporttosheriff.org. Citizens living in unincorporated King County and the 12 communities that contract with the Sheriff's Office can use the website to report a variety of crimes, including vandalism, car prowls, thefts from vehicles or yards, identity theft, mail and bicycle thefts and nuisance phone calls. Abandoned vehicles, suspicious activity, drug activity and chronic traffic problems also can be reported.

Crime victims will be able to print out copies of the their reports so the information can be sent to insurance companies.

The system is meant for non-emergencies. Emergencies and in-progress crimes should still be reported to 911. "This new reporting system was developed for the convenience of folks who may not want to call in or wait for a deputy," Sheriff Sue Rahr said in a press release.

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Today's 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan has had surprisingly limited impacts on the structure and routing dynamics of the regional Internet. Of roughly 6,000 Japanese network prefixes in the global routing table, only about 100 were temporarily withdrawn from service — and that number has actually decreased in the hours since the event. Other carriers around the region have reported congestion and drops in traffic due to follow-on effects of the quake, but most websites are up and operational, and the Internet is available to support critical communications.

Those who have been following our blogs on Libya...

Diesel-powered unit will serve community shelter during power outages 

Franciscan Health System has donated a large emergency-power generator to the community of Vashon Island so residents can have a safe, warm, lighted building in which to seek shelter when Mother Nature knocks out electricity to homes and businesses...

www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm has incredible photos of the Japanese earthquake’s aftereffects – as contrasted with an initial view of the same scene.

You may think your insurance policy covers your home, apartment or business for earthquakes and floods. The Northwest Insurance Council thinks you should take a closer look, because many people are not insured for such national disasters.

The Olympian reports the insurance council is urging Washington residents to consider both earthquake and flood insurance. The council says earthquake and tsunami damage is not covered under most standard homeowners, renters and business owners insurance policies.

Earthquake insurance is available as a separate policy or as an endorsement to current coverage. Flood insurance policies are provided through the federal government's National Flood Insurance Program.

- http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_quake_insurance.html

Gauges at the University of Washington lit up for hours after the initial Japanese earthquake, which now has been determined to be the fifth largest earthquake in the world since 1900.

"Unmistakable; any instrument in the world could see this earthquake," said John Vidale, a seismologist at UW.

"You can see there are still continuing magnitude four, five and six earthquakes," he said as he motioned to a monitor on Friday.

Vidale said he wasn't totally surprised by the massive quake -- it happened on one of the most volatile subduction zones in the world.

Local seismologists haven't seen any increased seismic activity on Washington's side of the Pacific Ocean, but Vidale said the event should serve as a reminder that the region is due for a smaller quake.

- http://www.kirotv.com/news/27169289/detail.html

Losses from the quake, tsunami and fires will total at least $100 billion, including $20 billion in damage to residences and $40 billion in damage to infrastructure such as roads, rail and port facilities, catastrophe modeling firm Eqecat estimated.

Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated that losses covered by insurance could reach between $15 billion and $35 billion from the earthquake alone. It did not estimate losses from the tsunami or the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan.

According to AIR, the number of Japanese businesses and homeowners with earthquake insurance is relatively low, ranging between 14% to 17%. As a result, the total financial toll for the catastrophe could be considerably higher than the estimate of insured losses.

- http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/13/news/international/japan_earthquake_cost/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

“This week's earthquake caused the main island of Japan to shift as much as 13 feet to the east, seismologists say. That may sound like a shocker, but it's just one of the natural changes that come along with an 8.9-magnitude temblor — like the 1.6-microsecond speed-up of Earth's daily rotation and the 4-inch shift in Earth's axis.”

- http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/12/6256280-how-the-quake-shifted-japan?chromedomain=cosmiclog>1=43001

[updated] Also Cathy Rogers forwarded this link with additional details on this topic:

- http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110314/ts_yblog_thelookout/japans-earthquake-shifted-balance-of-the-planet

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I happened to be out taking pics of the new...

The ARRL is mobilizing the amateur community to oppose HR 607, a bill that would offer up the entire amateur 70 cm allocation for other purposes as part of a spectrum swap: www.arrl.org/hr-607 www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h607/show  

HR 607 would devastate W7VMI and local ARES emergency efforts. The bill was introduced on 2/10. Voice your option to: www.opencongress.org/people/show/400262_James_McDermott

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/lubbockleft/2011-02-27/gop-targets-public-radio-amateur-radio-and-pbs ties this with the apparent additional effects of the bill to defund PBS and NPR.

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