John's Vashon Preparedness Blog

All of John Cornelison's blogs are listed on this page chronologically. Use the Calendar or Search functions in the right column to search through time, via keyword, or look at the parent blog page to view all authors' posts.

John's Recent Blogs

Author: Created: 6/15/2010 5:35 PM RssIcon
Disaster news and links of interest for Vashonites
By John Cornelison on 6/21/2012 5:43 AM


Cancel another innovative idea. According to a commentary published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, storing harmful carbon dioxide gas underground is not practical. Why? Because it would cause earthquakes!

There is a long history of materials pumped underground causing earthquakes, and this report apparently finds this also likely in this situation. Although the quakes would likely be relatively small – they would be large enough to destroy the equipment used to pump the greenhouse gases down.

Read more in the LA Times article, which ends up quoting experts encouraging putting development funds into renewable energy instead. That makes sense to me!

...
By John Cornelison on 6/15/2012 10:31 AM


6-15-2012 at 11.30.25 AMThe Vashon Beachcomber has done a nice article on a key aspect of last week’s 2012 Evergreen Quake exercise. Entitled, “Emergency drill shows a marine lifeline could be established for Vashon”, Editor and author Leslie Brown included a number of great quotes from islanders and county officials...
By John Cornelison on 6/15/2012 9:46 AM


VIFRChief Hank Lipe has announced the hiring of Ms. Nicole Trent of Gig Harbor, WA to serve as an Administrative Assistant at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue – King County Fire District 13. A nine year veteran with Pierce County Fire District #16 (Key Peninsula), Nicole brings  a solid background in Fire District administrative services and is excited to become part of VIFR’s team.

Mark your...
By John Cornelison on 6/7/2012 2:35 PM


Drill includes delivering critical supplies to Vashon Island by boat

6-7-2012 at 3.24.59 PMKing County joined with federal, state, and local agencies this week to test its capacity to respond to and recover from a major earthquake. The exercise, dubbed “Evergreen Quake 2012,” gave participants a chance to assess their disaster response plans and emergency communication strategies. Six counties, including King County, participated in the drill, along with the state of...
By John Cornelison on 6/7/2012 11:19 AM


 

ff_1283059Nearly a hundred islanders took part in the regional Evergreen Quake on June 5th & 6th at the Vashon Emergency Operations Center.

It was fairly historic for a number of reasons:

- Initial test of Operation Lifeline (King County’s redirecting their passenger ferry or hiring a barge – to support emergency needs on Vashon) - The Planning Section has adopted the standard ICS Planning Clock - and had the 1st real run-though of this during a major exercise - The Public Information Team...
By John Cornelison on 6/7/2012 8:43 AM


If you like maps and haven’t checked out the Washington State Geologic Information Portal, it is a wealth of useful information! More than just interactive maps, they also have geoscience data and collections and links to other earth science information sites.

Of especial interest to Vashon residents might be the geologic map (showing faults on the surface, liquefaction, of geologic structures), the landslide map, and the subsurface geology map.

DNR-WAInteractiveGeologicMapDNR-LandslidesOfWAStateDNR-SubsurfaceGeologyInfoSystem

By John Cornelison on 6/7/2012 8:00 AM


RainierLahars.WA_DNR6Jun12Every 500-1000 years the slopes of Mount Rainier produce liquefied mud flows called lahars that can flow like rivers but have a density similar to liquid concrete. Based on the last Electron Mudflow ~550 years ago, and using HAZUS software, the DNR...
By John Cornelison on 6/4/2012 8:52 PM


EQES_LogoV2x250Washington Emergency Management Division is working with FEMA and a slew of local partners in the Puget Sound region to conduct the state's largest (i.e., most coordinated) earthquake exercise ever: Evergreen Quake 2012™.

The exercise’s goal is to “improve the collective joint-operational readiness of emergency management and other...
By John Cornelison on 6/4/2012 8:30 PM
WA_State_Tsunami_Game1A few months back I notices an exciting new source of disaster preparedness info: Sesame Street! Yep, FEMA apparently hired them to start educating tots early – in a variety of languages too. Fun! (I wish I had received that contract.)

Today I noticed that Washington State has developed some tsunami and earthquake games too. Educating kids is certainly an exciting new genre...
By John Cornelison on 6/4/2012 7:47 PM


Logo for the Great Washington ShakeoutThe ShakeOut™ moniker started a couple years back in California I believe – which perhaps accounts for it’s subsequent adoption thought the galaxy, and soon in Washington too! I’m a bit jaded about such marketing obviously, but it has generated LOTS of publicity and made many aware that otherwise wouldn’t have a clue.

So it is a good thing that Washington State will mount up to conduct our own version of this on October 18, 2012. Details and much more entertaining graphics should arrive soon, but you too can be in the know on this by going to our very own subsite at: www.shakeout.org/washington/ Register Now!

...
By John Cornelison on 6/4/2012 7:37 PM


Emergency Management Division - Washington Military DepartmentQuite a bit apparently! They don’t crow about it much, but they are fairly consistently busy apparently with some 4372 state-wide incidents to track last year! They only activated 14 times, but obviously spent a lot of time tracking activities throughout the state, but especially olde King County – with 865 of those 4372 incidents: 670 of our county’s incidents were Hazmat, 121 Search & Rescue, 73 Other & 1 Fire incident.

The EMD also organizes training program state-wide, exercises & drills, business & citizen education and probably a bit of accounting/administration too. For more information go to their: April 2012 Report...
By John Cornelison on 5/29/2012 7:22 AM


Ready_or_Not_2010Arkansas, North Dakota & Washington all received perfect 10 out of 10 scores in the most recent “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” study, conducted by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Key findings:

Seven states cannot currently share data electronically with health care providers; 10 states do not have an electronic syndromic...
By John Cornelison on 5/16/2012 9:41 PM


2012 Partners in Emergency Preparedness Conference (Acct #2152)The Partners in Emergency Preparedness Conference is an annual meeting held in Tacoma that is an excellent way to network with others in the disaster preparedness field – and get an excellent overview of the state of the art. Though a good deal, it doesn’t always fit folks schedules and may be too big a time and financial commitment for others. Fortunately, they make many of the presentations available after the conference. Here they are:

Visit www.cm.wsu.edu/ehome/piepc/68406 for live links to the following presentations:

Keynote: Dr. Grady Bray Changes in the National Incident Management System and how it will affect Federal, State and Local...
By John Cornelison on 5/15/2012 9:11 PM


eoc-ant.800x1206The local ARES team worked on the antenna candelabra at VIFR Station 55 last spring as noted in this post:

http://vashonbeprepared.org/News/Blogs/tabid/146/EntryId/77/Antenna-Remount-at-VIFR-Station-55.aspx

Then maybe 6 months back, the dedicated 2 meter antenna was replaced with a tri-band antenna covering 6 & 2 meter and...
By John Cornelison on 5/14/2012 9:08 AM


An April 23rd Air Force intelligence brief allows unmanned drone surveillance of Americans to be used for up to 90 days if obtained in scenarios like natural disasters or environmental cases.

- www.infowars.com/air-force-document-drones-can-be-used-to-spy-on-americans

...
By John Cornelison on 5/14/2012 8:16 AM


American Preppers NetworkThe Seattle Times published an interesting look yesterday at a new hobby (as they call it) – Emergency Preparedness. Less than 1 in 1,000 might be members of this new group of “Preppers”. At times the similarities to survivalist mentality sound some personal warning bells – though much of what they do is working in communities – not isolating themselves. imageThey...
By John Cornelison on 5/14/2012 7:29 AM


Wireless Emergency Alerts Capable LogoAs part of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) program, the Wireless Emergency WEA) service is starting up this month. Consumers do not sign up for the free, location-based 90 character text messaging service - but if they wish can opt out of weather and AMBER alerts – but not presidential alerts. Alerts will be issued for tsunamis, extreme winds, ice storms,...
By John Cornelison on 5/10/2012 7:44 AM


NPRNational Public Radio’s Lucy Craft has a number of interesting posts about life in Japan post last year’s tsunami and earthquake. Today’s post, “After The Quake, Japanese Shop For Survival”, notes that local stores are selling lots of all-in-one emergency flashlights-radios-etc. – but concludes with the observation from one survivor of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, “city dwellers should focus on how to keep their furniture from crushing them alive” – not storing food as that will quickly arrive.

While less true for isolated Vashon, it still makes me wonder if we’re doing enough to...
By John Cornelison on 5/3/2012 11:03 AM


SNAGHTML674e522Today, FEMA and its partners released the National Preparedness Report (NPR). The Report identifies significant progress the nation has made in areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.  Overall the Report found that the nation has increased its collective preparedness, not only from external threats, but also for natural and technological hazards that face its communities.

The Report was developed to meet the requirements of Presidential...
By John Cornelison on 4/19/2012 6:06 AM


As mentioned at last night’s annual meeting, preparedness efforts on Vashon made strong strides over the past year. These successes are only partially due to VashonBePrepared’s efforts, and mainly by our various partners, including some independent accomplishments by others in our community. Here’s the listing presented:

Business Neighborhood Emergency Response Organization created, numerous meetings led by Vashon Chamber of Commerce Enhanced relations with King County Office of Emergency Management: Operation Lifeline - Plan & contract for hiring a barge or dedicated ferry to shuttle supplies if normal ferry operations are down MOU with Vashon Island School District to serve as a Disaster Campus MOU with Camp Burton to house disaster workers from off island Vashon integration w/ county computer alerting/management systems Enhanced integration of CERT & MRC & EOC Team with VIFR ops Disaster Emergency Response Trailer...
By John Cornelison on 4/19/2012 5:53 AM


A new board was seated last night at VashonBePrepared’s Annual Meeting.

As set out in our bylaws, we have two classes of directors – ex-officio directors as set out by our bylaws – primarily the chief representatives of our partners – and those elected by the membership at our annual meeting: our at-large directors.

VashonBePrepared 2012 Board of Directors John Cornelison (past Prez) Donna Donnelly (at-large) Synthia Downs (at-large) Jill Janow (EOC Team) Tim Johnson (at-large) Hank Lipe (VIFR) Daniel Luechtefeld (ARES) John “Oz” Osborne (at-large) Scott Rice (CERT) Debi Richards (NERO) Catherine Rogers (VEPC) Bob Smueles (at-large) Ed Steyh (EOC Team) Rex Stratton (VIEMA) Rick Wallace (EOC Team)

The new board then unanimously elected the following directors to the Executive Committee, that subset of the board that meets monthly and tends to the daily business of our corporation:

VashonBePrepared...
By John Cornelison on 4/16/2012 10:26 AM


MakeItThrough_logoThere’s a new Puget Sound regional disaster website up and live today, known as www.MakeitThrough.org.

It looks good and emphasizes having at least 7-10 days worth of supplies – not just the old message of 3 day, 3 ways. (I suspect this replaces the old www.3days3ways.org website, but don’t know for sure.)

The list...
By John Cornelison on 4/13/2012 1:54 PM


4-13-2012 at 2.52.53 PMPBS Newshour just did a special segment about the risk to northwesterners of liquidification during quake tremblers. Thanks to Jill for noticing this. Read the transcript and see the video on their site here:

www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june12/liquefaction_04-12.html

...
By John Cornelison on 4/13/2012 12:33 PM


Sound Shake Earthquake Preparedness Guide for Businesses 2011Click the following link to download a guide for facilitating earthquake preparedness at your workplace. Identify your organizational risks and hazards and develop an emergency plan.

Sound Shake Earthquake Preparedness Guide for Businesses 2011
By John Cornelison on 4/13/2012 12:24 PM


Drop! Cover! Hold On!Earthquakes are one of the greatest natural hazards for Washington residents. Practicing what you should do when the ground begins to shake is an important part of being prepared.

On April 25 state broadcasters will initiated the “Drop, Cover and Hold” earthquake drill through the Emergency Alert System.

Tune into KIRO radio (97.3 FM) at 9:45 a.m. to join local residents and businesses as we “drop” to the floor, take “cover”...
By John Cornelison on 4/13/2012 6:47 AM


M8.6offSumatraWith all the recent earthquakes around the ring of fire it isn’t too surprising we want to connect these occurrences as having some pattern. But we shouldn’t, according to Lucile Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction at the USGS, in an interview with ABC News.

She did note that yesterday’s 8.6M strike-slip...
By John Cornelison on 4/11/2012 9:29 PM


clip_image002Today’s Vashon Beachcomber had a bunch of great quotes that Susan Riemer got from next week’s expert speakers. She especially covered the little reported tsunami risk that could damage our ferry docks, certain waterfront locations (those perpendicular to the surge), and perhaps the isthmus between Vashon and Maury Islands. Some information on this can also be found on our tsunami page.

Read her Beachcomber article here:...
By John Cornelison on 4/11/2012 8:07 PM


imageArt Frankel and Craig Weaver of the U.S. Geological Survey gave a presentation to the Seattle City Council on Monday (as noted in this agenda) that has raised some eyebrows – and reaffirms our sensitivity to upcoming seismic disturbances. See their PowerPoint presentation or read on for a few copies of a few of their slides.

In 2014, there will be a regular 6 year update to the National Seismic Hazard Maps. A workshop on the Pacific Northwest Portion of this was held locally on March 21-22, 2012.

...
By John Cornelison on 4/11/2012 7:26 PM

Vashon Emergency NewsThanks to the EOC Team’s Public Information lead, Jill Janow, for cleaning up how emergency bulletins will be posted to our web site in a future disaster. All Emergency Bulletins will be put on a dedicated page, so they will have the full width and will download as fast as possible.

Note that we will post here with any updates from our EOC when activated. Other key source of emergency news can be found on our News page’s Vashon Emergency News Links section.

By John Cornelison on 4/11/2012 7:12 PM


clip_image002The March 28th edition of the Vashon Loop put notice of our Annual Meeting in the lead position at the top of page 1! Given the interest I’m hearing about, I think we may have a very full house, as we only have room for some 300 people in the Chautauqua Multipurpose Room on April 18th.

www.vashonloop.com/article/experts-talk-vashon%E2%80%99s-earthquake-and-tsunami-risks

Read More Blogs, Read More Blogs

Eager to review even more blogs?!

  • Try the Blog Calendar, above on the right, to view blogs from previous months (the above list shows the 15 blogs starting with the date selected.)
  • Use the Tag Cloud to view blogs that share the selected topic (or tag).
  • Search for specific words of interest, using the Search Blogs tool, above on the right.

Search Blogs

Blog Calendar

Archive
<June 2012>
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
272829303112
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
1234567
Monthly
February 2024 (1)
June 2023 (2)
May 2023 (1)
March 2023 (2)
December 2022 (1)
October 2022 (1)
July 2022 (2)
June 2022 (1)
March 2022 (1)
February 2022 (2)
January 2022 (2)
December 2021 (1)
November 2021 (1)
September 2021 (3)
August 2021 (4)
July 2021 (6)
June 2021 (7)
April 2021 (2)
March 2021 (2)
February 2021 (1)
January 2021 (1)
September 2020 (2)
June 2020 (1)
May 2020 (5)
April 2020 (15)
March 2020 (9)
January 2020 (1)
April 2019 (1)
March 2019 (1)
July 2018 (2)
June 2018 (1)
March 2018 (2)
February 2018 (1)
October 2017 (1)
September 2017 (1)
June 2017 (2)
March 2017 (1)
February 2017 (2)
January 2017 (2)
November 2016 (2)
October 2016 (5)
September 2016 (3)
June 2016 (1)
May 2016 (2)
September 2015 (1)
June 2015 (1)
April 2015 (1)
March 2015 (2)
December 2014 (3)
November 2014 (5)
October 2014 (2)
September 2014 (1)
August 2014 (4)
July 2014 (3)
June 2014 (2)
May 2014 (5)
April 2014 (2)
March 2014 (1)
February 2014 (1)
January 2014 (3)
November 2013 (2)
October 2013 (3)
September 2013 (4)
August 2013 (1)
July 2013 (4)
June 2013 (7)
February 2013 (1)
January 2013 (3)
December 2012 (1)
October 2012 (4)
September 2012 (5)
August 2012 (4)
July 2012 (6)
June 2012 (11)
May 2012 (8)
April 2012 (11)
March 2012 (18)
February 2012 (11)
January 2012 (8)
December 2011 (4)
November 2011 (5)
October 2011 (22)
September 2011 (6)
August 2011 (4)
July 2011 (7)
June 2011 (25)
May 2011 (23)
April 2011 (36)
March 2011 (15)
February 2011 (8)
January 2011 (9)
December 2010 (4)
October 2010 (2)
September 2010 (8)
August 2010 (1)
July 2010 (3)
June 2010 (11)
April 2010 (1)
October 2009 (1)

Go

Blog Categories

There are no categories in this blog.

Recent Comments

Re: What to do if you have confirmed or suspected COVID-19 or are worried that you may have COVID-19
No on ventilators. They require a paramedic to insert the tubes and at that point should be off island in a proper care facility. Low flow oxygen is easily available, but those needing it only for COVID should also be in a proper care facility.
Re: What to do if you have confirmed or suspected COVID-19 or are worried that you may have COVID-19
The large national company, Lab Corp, announced that they can do testing as of last Friday. I believe they are used by both clinics on the island. Local clinicians just do a nasal swab as I understand it and then send those in for testing. The test kits reside at the laboratory.

In addition other test facilities exist, but are unlikely to be used directly by island providers. Contact their websites and offices before you go in with any respiratory issues. Their information is likely to change frequently until more is known about the virus.

I don't know about ventilators, but will ask. Thanks for your comment!
Re: What to do if you have confirmed or suspected COVID-19 or are worried that you may have COVID-19
Will Vashon be getting testing kits soon in the hands of all doctors and first responders on island? Can the Gates Foundation help in this regard? Can we get the Neighborcare Clinic better prepared in this regard?

How many ventilators are on island? This is where critical shortages seem imminent.

TagCloud

soap2day