I thought it would be a good idea to present some info on what you can do to prepare yourself and your family in the event of either a natural or a man-made disaster. The following web sites can get you started.

http://www.ready.gov/
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=14
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=36
http://www.redcross.org/
http://www.scouting.org/pubs/emergency/index.html
http://www.adcouncil.org/campaigns/homeland_security/

Check your town/city and/or county website for local response plans. Typically, emergency management, if not a seperate department, falls under the local fire department’s responsibility. Also check for your state’s response plan.

Community and Family Preparedness
http://www.fema.gov/preparedness/community_prepare.shtm

Community Emergency Response Teams (Get formal training on how to help your family and your community in the event of a disaster.)
http://www.citizencorps.gov/programs/cert.shtm
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/CERT/certfaq.asp
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/CERT/overview.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_emergency_response_team
(If you’re interested, do a search for your local/nearest Community Emergency Response Team.)

Canadian Center for Emergency Preparedness (Gotta remember my Canadian friends.)
http://www.ccep.ca/
http://www.emergencypreparednessweek.ca/kit_e.shtml

Animals and Disasters (For the pet owners.)
http://www.fema.gov/preparedness/animals_and_disasters.shtm

Specific incident preparedness information. (If you’d like more, just do a search on a specific type of incident and preparedness. Hurricane Preparedness, Earthquake Preparedness, etc.)

Dam Safety
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/damsafety/

Earthquakes
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/earthquakes/
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/prepare.html
http://www.lafd.org/eqauto.htm

Extreme Heat
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/extremeheat/

Fires
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/fires/

Floods
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/floods/

Hazardous Materials
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/hazardousmaterials/

Hurricanes
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/hurricanes/
http://hurricanes.noaa.gov/prepare/

Landslides
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/landslides/

Multi-Hazard
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/multihazard/

Nuclear
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/nuclear/

Terrorism
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/terrorism/

Thunderstorms
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/thunderstorms/

Tornadoes
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/tornadoes/

Tsunamis
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/tsunamis/

Volcanoes
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/volcanoes/

Wildfires
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/fires/wildfires.shtm
http://www.firewise.org/

Winter Storms
http://www.fema.gov/hazards/winterstorms/

Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness
http://www.fema.gov/preparedness/csepp.shtm

Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program
http://www.fema.gov/preparedness/repp.shtm

Emergency/Personal Survival Checklists
http://www.dola.state.co.us/oem/PublicInformation/72hrkit.htm
http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/weather/776961/detail.html
http://www.gov.ns.ca/emo/AbsPage.aspx?id=1064&siteid=1&lang=1
http://survivalcenter.com/
http://www.machartownship.com/checklist.htm
http://preparedness.com/traveschec.html
http://www.lacofd.org/mini_survival.htm
http://www.prepare4disaster.com/checklist.htm
Etcetera…

Websites where you could acquire personal/family survival supplies:
http://www.cert-kits.com
http://www.uscav.com
http://www.actiongear.com/
http://beprepared.com/default.asp
http://www.equipped.com/
http://www.emergency-preparedness.info/personal_kits.htm
http://www.survivalinc.com/
http://www.firstaid-supply.com
http://www.bestglide.com/
http://www.safetycentral.com/
http://www.quakekare.com/
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/
http://www.urbansurvivaltools.com/
http://www.safetyservicesinc.com
Etcetera. Do a search on survial gear, military gear, military surplus, etc.

Also check out the LJ community “Making A Plan”.
http://community.livejournal.com/making_a_plan/profile

Strikingly astonishing news…

Kill FEMA? Start all over again? (…shades of killing Civil Defense, and coming up with FEMA…Jimmy Carter…1978…)

I dunno…it may be the only thing that may be able to bring SOME semblance of control to the leading disaster response agency of the United States…

What do you think?

Senate Panel Recommends Abolishing FEMA
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

The nation’s beleaguered disaster response agency should be abolished and rebuilt from scratch to avoid a repeat of multiple government failures exposed by Hurricane Katrina, a Senate inquiry has concluded.

Crippled by years of poor leadership and inadequate funding, the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot be fixed, a bipartisan investigation says in recommendations to be released Thursday.

Taken together, the 86 proposed reforms charge the United States is still woefully unprepared for a disaster such as Katrina with the start of the hurricane season a little more than month away.

“The United States was, and is, ill-prepared to respond to a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina,” the recommendations warn. “Catastrophic events are, by their nature, difficult to imagine and to adequately plan for, and the existing plans and training proved inadequate in Katrina.”

The recommendations, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, are the product of a seven-month investigation detailed in a Senate report to be released next week. It follows similar inquiries by the House and White House and comes in an election year in which Democrats have seized on Katrina to attack the Bush administration.

President Bush will visit Louisiana and Mississippi — which bore the brunt of Katrina’s wrath — on Thursday.

Katrina, which hit last Aug. 29, was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. The storm and its aftershocks killed more than 1,300 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.

The Senate report urges yet another overhaul of the embattled Homeland Security Department — FEMA’s parent agency — which was created three years ago and already has undergone major restructuring of duties.

It chiefly calls for a new agency, called the National Preparedness and Response Authority, to plan and carry out relief missions for domestic disasters. Unlike now, the authority would communicate directly with the president during major crises, and any dramatic cuts to budget or staffing levels would have to be approved by Congress. But it would remain within Homeland Security to continue receiving resources provided by the larger department.

The proposal drew disdain from Homeland Security and its critics, both sides questioning the need for another bureaucratic shuffling that they said wouldn’t accomplish much.

“It’s time to stop playing around with the organizational charts and to start focusing on government, at all levels, that are preparing for this storm season,” said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown said the new agency would basically have the same mission FEMA had a year ago, before its disaster planning responsibilities were taken away to focus solely on responding to calls for help.

“It sounds like they’re just re-creating the wheel and making it look like they’re calling for change,” Brown said. “If indeed that’s all they’re doing, they owe more than that to the American public.”

But Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, who led the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee inquiry, said the new agency would be “better equipped with the tools to prepare for and respond to a disaster.”

Describing FEMA as a “shambles and beyond repair,” she said the reforms “will help ensure that we do not have a repeat of the failures following Hurricane Katrina.”

Written in matter-of-fact terms, the recommendations do not place blame on any official or government agency. But a spokeswoman for Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate panel, said he will file “additional views” to the report accusing Bush of failing “to provide critical leadership when it was most needed.”

“That contributed to a grossly ineffective federal response to Hurricane Katrina,” Lieberman said in a statement.

The House report, issued in February, similarly criticized Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA’s Brown for moving too slowly to trigger federal relief. The White House report, which came a week later, took a softer tone and singled out the Homeland Security Department for most of the breakdowns.

Many of the rest of the Senate recommendations were far less dramatic, ranging from creating a Homeland Security Academy to encouraging plans to evacuate and shelter pets during a disaster.

Without specifying where the money would come from or how much was needed, the recommendations call for more funding for disaster planning and response at all levels of government. They also urge clarifying levee maintenance responsibilities — a concern because of structural weaknesses of the New Orleans’ flood walls that spawned deadly floods after Katrina hit_ and suggested better contracting procedures to avoid waste or fraud in the rush to get aid to disaster victims.

The Senate plans were issued as Congress’ investigative arm predicted FEMA is destined to repeat million-dollar mistakes of disaster aid waste and fraud unless it quickly can establish controls for verifying names and addresses.

Gregory Kutz, managing director of special investigations for the Government Accountability Office, said he has little confidence that FEMA will be ready by June 1 start of the hurricane season to safeguard taxpayer dollars should a disaster like Katrina strike again.

A FEMA spokesman said agency officials are working hard to improve and tighten controls in its disaster aid program.

___

On the Net:

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: http://hsgac.senate.gov/

This weekend was the one hundredth anniversary of the Great 1906 San Franscisco earthquake, which killed over 1,800 people. While this is one of the strongest earthquakes in history on the west coast, another quake of even larger proportions is just waiting to happen. The article below is a review of what has been accomplished in preparing for the next quake…and what has NOT been accomplished.

In other words, lots of work still needs to be done. Nothing can stop the next big quake…only mitigate the effects and damage that might happen, so that less people are hurt or killed.

Read the article, and then review your own preps…could YOU make it through a huge catastrophic event, on your own, with food and water for you and your family…or would you be dependent on the GOVERNMENT to provide for you….just like the Feds did for those folks gathered in the Superdome in New Orleans a few months ago…for DAYS without help?

Make the call. Get your preps ready, and know what you have to do, if it’s only YOU, and no government coming to your rescue.

Rich

Bay Area far from ready for the next ‘Big One’
Repeat of 1906 earthquake would leave San Francisco region devastated

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 10:48 a.m. ET April 17, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO - 1906 will happen again. And it will be worse than you can possibly imagine.

Years of work costing billions of dollars to shore up infrastructure and retrofit buildings, bridges and procedures will mitigate the impact of a “major” or “great” earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, but only a little. When the Big One finally hits, the destruction will be immense, utterly overwhelming rescue and recovery efforts, according to a review of more than a dozen recent government and academic reports and interviews with numerous experts in seismology and disaster preparedness.

Among other things, the review — assessing measures taken over about the last 20 years — found that only about a tenth of the region’s governments have shored up their municipal water systems to survive a major disaster. Disaster-response experts identify the water supply as the crucial link in the recovery chain both to fight inevitable widespread fires and to help keep survivors alive.

And while doctors say critical care in the first 72 hours is what keeps most people with major injuries in hospital beds and out of body bags, most of the region’s hospitals would be unable to provide any reliable patient care.

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The 1906 San Francisco Quake…

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I am very concerned about the sad state of affairs in airline security. Why? For the first time in 6 years, I’m going to be flying cross country, and in a 3 hop jump, no less, to California in late April, to receive a scholarship award I mention in earlier postings here on Cosmic Echoes.

Before I share the story from today’s headlines, let’s start with the TSA “excuse”…

TSA STATEMENT GIVEN TO NBC NEWS
“Detecting explosive materials and IEDs at the checkpoint is TSA’s top priority. Advances in aviation security since 9/11, such as hardened cockpit doors, 100 percent baggage and passenger screening, and the addition of thousands of federal air marshals and armed flight deck officers allows TSA to focus more acutely on evolving threats.

TSA has already initiated enhanced detection technology training for security officers to identify possible explosive materials and IED components. This additional training complements the ongoing and aggressive deployment of state-of-the-art explosive detection technologies nationwide. TSA also uses intelligence, random canine team searches at checkpoints and other security measures, both seen and unseen, to more effectively counter this threat.”

With THAT said, let’s review what NBC shared with the world this afternoon, based on tests done by Investigators for the Government Accountability Office conducted, between October and January, at the request of Congress. The goal was to determine how vulnerable U.S. airlines are to a suicide bomber using cheap, readily available materials.

Would you believe that we’re STILL VULNERABLE as hell? Who’da thunk?

Here’s the story, as seen on NBC, and reported on MSNBC.COM

Airline screeners fail government bomb tests
21 airports nationwide don’t detect bomb-making materials

By Lisa Myers, Rich Gardella & the NBC Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET March 16, 2006
WASHINGTON - Imagine an explosion strong enough to blow a car’s trunk apart, caused by a bomb inside a passenger plane. Government sources tell NBC News that federal investigators recently were able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports.

In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.

NBC News briefed former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, on the results.

“I’m appalled,” he said. “I’m dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they’re not.”

Investigators for the Government Accountability Office conducted the tests between October and January, at the request of Congress. The goal was to determine how vulnerable U.S. airlines are to a suicide bomber using cheap, readily available materials.

Investigators found recipes for homemade bombs from easily available public sources and bought the necessary chemicals and other materials over the counter. For security reasons, NBC News will not reveal any of the ingredients or the airports tested. The report itself is classified. But Lee Hamilton, the vice chairman of the 9/11 commission, says the fact that so many airports failed this test is a hugely important story that the American traveler is entitled to know.

NBC News asked a bomb technician to gather the same materials and assemble an explosive device to determine its power. The materials for the bomb that exploded a car’s trunk fit in the palm of one hand. NBC News showed the results to Leo West, a former FBI bomb expert.

“Potentially, an explosion of that type could lead to the destruction of the aircraft,” said West.

The Transportation Security Administration would not comment on the tests, but issued a statement to NBC News, saying “detecting explosive materials and IEDs at the checkpoint is TSA’s top priority.” The agency also said screeners are now receiving added training to help identify these materials.

That’s not soon enough for Tom Kean.

“They need to do it yesterday,” Kean said, “because we haven’t got time.”

Given hardened cockpit doors and other improvements, experts say explosives now are the gravest threat posed by terrorists in the sky.

Lisa Myers is NBC’s senior investigative correspondent.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11863165/

What’s the bottom line here? Our government, which includes The Bushies, The Demmies, All-O-Congress, and those various bureaucratic wonks, such as that oh-so-important Department of Homeland Security…IS NOT DOING THEIR JOB!

My God…21 airports tested…TWENTY ONE AIRPORTS FAILED.

How many HUNDREDS of BILLIONs of tax dollars have been WASTED the last 4 and a half years since the horror that we call 9/11 occured…in planning, hardware, software, thousands of security jobs, TRILLIONS spent in the “War On Terror”, and more…and we are NO SAFER than we were the day BEFORE Ground Zero?

Why? Why are we putting up with this? Why are we letting THE FEDS spend OUR money on useless, ineffective, completely disjointed “security measures”, while we, the American people, are losing our constitutional rights daily? Who has do die next, because one, or a HUNDRED, precious TSA employees let ANOTHER explosive device go UNCHECKED and UNRECOGNIZED onto another airliner, after today…hell, after 9.11?

As citizens, are we going to let this continue? Or, as citizens, are we going to RESPOND to this news story, contact our congressman, and threaten to REPLACE them in the next election cycle, STRICTLY on this one issue of insecure airliners?

The failure of the airports in these tests, represent a complete failure of government to bring up an already lacadaisical transportation system with a record of total and utter failure on 9.11, to ANY increase in security.

I am pissed. I am livid. I am VERY disturbed by this news. I am not going to let this news pass into the shadow of yesterday. How do YOU feel about this TSA failure? What would you see changed?

Comment below..

Rich

Gee…a lot of folks think the USA is gonna nuke Iran…soon.

Really!

Need proof? Here ya go…some scallywag at GlobalResearch.ca claims to Know It All…pictures of nuke clouds and EVERTHING! Scary…

Mr. Scallywag’s real name is Chossudovsky…sounds like a relocated Russian diplomat to me…he even uses big words like Shock and Awe, F117, and Stealth to make his point.

Read for yourself…

Personally, I seriously DOUBT it. I think when it happens, ISRAEL will be floating the balloons…

Rich

The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.

Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in “an advanced stage of readiness”.

Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack.

Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In recent developments, CIA Director Porter Goss on a mission to Ankara, requested Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets.” Goss reportedly asked ” for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation.” (DDP, 30 December 2005).

read the rest here….

Probably the best overview I’ve ever read about the SHORTCOMINGS of the current system of Federal Response and Recovery. The system as it is now is just another entitlement program…like welfare…like social security…hell…most federal programs.

What is needed is INDIVIDUALS taking responsibility for personal preparedness. That won’t happen until massive disasters are happening EVERY WEEK…or EVERY DAY. Only then, when disaster is just a stroke of luck away, but almost guarenteed to affect someone near you…including you…will prepping become a daily, instinctional event…for everyone.

Still, there will ALWAYS be those that will DEMAND that the government take care of them…and those will be the ones, like New Orleans, that will be standing in a foul smelling, unpowered, uncomfortable, crowded, and dangerous mass shelters…if their dead and bloated bodies aren’t found later in the debris of their own unprotected homes.

Sorry to be so blunt…but if you can’t and won’t start learning how to take care of yourself in any situation, you deserve no sympathy or compassion from me or anyone else.

Source The Brookings Institute

Sharing and Reducing the Financial Risks of Future “Mega-Catastrophes”
The Brookings Institution, November 11, 2005
Robert E. Litan, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Program, Global Economy and Development Center
Robert E. Litan
Executive Summary

The devastating 2005 hurricane season—especially the three large hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast and Florida (Katrina, Rita and Wilma)—has graphically demonstrated how dangerous nature can be. The huge storms also should serve as a wake-up call to remind us that, even if the United States manages to escape another terrorist attack, it is virtually certain that at some point there will be one or more natural catastrophes with similar or even greater catastrophic impacts: earthquakes in the West (California, Seattle) or Midwest (along the Mew Madrid fault) and perhaps multiple Category 4 or 5 hurricanes (like Katrina or worse) in the Gulf or on the East Coast, including a possible direct hit as far north as New York.

So far, policy makers and the media have concentrated on how to rebuild the areas damaged by the storms so that they can withstand Category 4/5 hurricanes in the future. This is appropriate and necessary. But little or no attention is being given to how to reduce and pay for the potential costs of future “mega-catastrophes” of the kinds just witnessed, singly (Katrina) or in combination, during the 2005 hurricane season. This must change. Had more thought been given to this subject and suitable action taken prior to this summer, the losses (human and economic) would not have been as great, especially in the case of Katrina, and the process of recovering from losses would have been less chaotic.

Read the rest of the story here…
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Sharing and Reducing the Financial Risks of Future “Mega-Catastrophes”

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Source (IAEM list)

A disastrous history
Nov 24, 2005
by Marvin Olasky

While Congress plays at cutting a few billion dollars from the bloated federal budget, the larger financial disaster hanging over us is Washington’s promises to pay the multibillion-dollar costs of Hurricane Katrina and of hurricanes and earthquakes to come. How did we get into this mess?

It started small. Huge deficit-builders are always as small as newborn pandas at first, although hardly as cute. When Minnesota suffered flooding in 1950, Rep. Harold Hagen asked his congressional colleagues to provide relief for his state. He introduced a bill that became the Disaster Relief Act, the federal government’s first means of creating “an orderly and continuing method of rendering assistance to the states and local governments in alleviating suffering and damage.” The bill’s price tag was only $5 million.

Read the rest of the story here…
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A disastrous history