Ok…this is getting fun. I was asked Francis “Frank” Steffan to appear on The Frank Show, on American Voice Radio. This makes the second time in less than a week to be on that network.

This being my second “real” radio interview on big time radio, I felt a lot better and was much happier with how the show went, including topics covered, and some darn good questions.

So, please give it a listen, by clicking the Play button below, or download the mp3 and add it to your Ipod to listen to later.

Comments are most welcome…

Rich

 

 Rich Fleetwood on FEMA, InfraGard, CERT, and Family Prepping: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This just in from Yahoo news…

White House calls meeting on al Qaeda threat: report Tue Jul 10, 8:25 PM ET

The White House has called an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday to discuss a potential new al Qaeda threat on U.S. soil, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to meet in the White House Situation Room to report on steps to minimize or counter the threat and what steps are being taken to tighten security at government buildings, ABC said.

The meeting would be one of a number that have been convened in light of new intelligence and information learned from the recent failed car bomb attempts in London, ABC reported, citing a senior U.S. administration official.

The unnamed official told ABC the level of concern of a new attack in the United States was now higher than it had been in some time.

The White House had no immediate comment on the report.

Law enforcement officials said the botched bombings in London provided clues about possible tactics, ABC reported.

Two car bombs were found in London and a fuel-packed jeep was rammed into Glasgow Airport in Scotland two weeks ago. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said both plots were associated with al Qaeda.

ABC News cited senior U.S. intelligence officials as saying that new information suggests a small al Qaeda cell was on its way to the United States or may already be in the country.

Read More here…

From ABC News…more info on the same theat….

Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror ‘Spectacular’ Planned
Official Cites Resemblance to Warnings and Intelligence Before 9/11
By BRIAN ROSS, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and RICHARD ESPOSITO
July 1, 2007 —

A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror “spectacular” this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.

“This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001,” the official told ABCNews.com.

U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that the United States did not have “have any specific credible evidence that there’s an attack focused on the United States at this point.”

As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against “airport infrastructure and aircraft.”

Read more here…

Next, hear what DHS head Michael Chertoff had to say on video about these latest threats…in a video interview with the Chicago Tribune.

Finally, read the transcript of the interview with Chertoff on Sunday, July 1st, on ‘FOX News Sunday’, regarding the UK attacks, and current threats to the US under investigation…

Situational Awareness is your friend….

Rich

Shane Connor of Ki4u.com, Nukalert fame, and other great prep sites asked me to convert this video into an online presentation.

In this video, Steve Jones of Physicians for Civil Defense, interviews Kirk Paradise, of Huntsville, Alabama Emergency Management and Madison County EMA. A very good discussion of what the recent history of the national fallout shelter program looked like, what was accomplished, and who was mostly responsible for the fallout shelter program in the United States falling apart because of decisions at the highest levels of government to not shelter our population.

This video goes into detail of what a city or county can do with data left over from the federal studies, and create a workable shelter plan for most of it’s population, before fallout shelter is needed. In the case of Huntsville, they are downwind from a nuclear power plant, and if the plant were to be attacked by terrorists, a fallout situation would be a very real issue.

Unfortunately, this 24 minute video had to be cut into three pieces, due to YouTube’s 10 minute video time limit. No problem. Below are all three videos in the proper order…Enjoy!

Rich

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

After being offline for a few months, I have finally been able to replace our dead forum board, with a brand new state of the art forum system called the Invision Power Board.

We HAD been using IkonBoard 3.1.1, which suffered massive unfixable security issues, and upon trying to update many different ways to the latest version of 3.1.5, it promptly committed suicide. Hundreds of spams a day were being injected, and the Ikonforum team in the years since I had originally installed the software no longer existed or cared for full path upgrades. This was very disconcerting, and painful to loose so many useful posts.

I was able to save the data in a database, but attempts to salvage them coherently into the new software haven’t been fully successfull…yet.

But… the NEW board is COMPLETELY operational. I’ve already got two new moderators, and more to come.

Jump on over to the SRCC (SurvivalRing Community Center) and register a username and start posting away.

The more the merrier…

Rich
Founder - SurvivalRing

Occasionally, I’ll receive emails to my old email accounts asking specific fallout shelter questions…some that make sense, and some that are completely off the wall.

This question arrived today, and it made sense. Hopefully you’ll bookmark this post and remember it someday, should you be thinking the same thing.

This was my response to him. Print it out and have it in your three ring emergency END OF THE WORLD binder in your Bug Out Bag.

Hi,

Yes, it is possible to have an emergency egress portal…but not neccessarily a window. You’ll need the protection of mass (dirt, sand, gravel, etc) to keep the gamma ray instrusion down, to avoid rad illness, immunodeficiency problems and general syptoms of death.

A quick overview of how…

Build your shelter underground, or in a corner of the basement. Use plenty of mass for 360 degree protection. Check out the shelter plans available on my website at www.survivalring.org .

On one wall with access to the yard, you’ll want to build what is essentially a window frame into the concrete/cinderblock well. After your shelter is done, but before you backfill the outer wall, fill that window frame with bricks and mortar…maybe two layers thick. Probably wouldn’t hurt to put several layers of plaster, mortar, or even a layer or two of fiberglass, over the inner and outer surfaces of this emergency egress point to waterproof the opening as much as possible.

Let it set for several days and harden appropriately. Then, backfill the outer surface of the area of that “egress portal” with coarse rock, then gravel, and a foot or two of earth.

Your external shell of your shelter will now be complete and protective to the best possible level.

Now, what do you do if you NEED this exit to get out…such as the rest of your home collapsing in the blast wave of a nearby nuclear detonation? First, wait…until possible fallout threat is past. Do your research on time needed to stay in shelter, have emergency food and water, several kinds of radios (am, fm, shortwave, police scanner, etc), and LISTEN for what is happening. If you cannot get out of your shelters main entrance after at least 10 to 14 days down there, you’ll need to use the egress portal.

Here is where the rest of your escape planning BEFOREHAND comes in.

When you finished your shelter, you will have stocked it. Add to that stock of supplies a couple of good quality pickaxes, hammers, chisels, and a couple of shovels. These are your EGRESS TOOLS.

Putting that brick and mortar filled portal in your shelter created a weak spot that you could manually dig out with good old manual hand tools.

To get out…use the tools, and hammer away to remove the bricks and mortar from that hole in the slab concrete (or whatever else you used for the rest of the shell of your shelter. Simply let the debris fall to the floor of the shelter, where you can sweep it away, kick it aside or climb on top of to help you get it. Might not hurt to have in your preps a couple of large empty barrels to let the debris fall into as you’re digging out.

As you get thru the bricks and mortar, the coarse rocks (which by the way, will help in keeping water from draining thru any cracks, by funnelling moisture (rain, etc) away from the egress portal, will start falling into the new opening, as well as the gravel on top of it, and then some of the earth…just let this all fall into the shelter/barrels/whatever. Use your shovel to dig up into the rest of the yard and grass that may be supported from the root system…and you should be out.

You might possibly have more debris on top of that egress hole. A good reason to have a couple of large 5 to 20 ton bottle jacks in your shelter for just this possibility, and a couple of 2×6 or 2×8 wood end pieces to brace the jack against the egress opening, to provide a solid foundation for the jacks to lift up any extreme weights. These could lift debris enough to get you to freedom and fresh air.

A basement shelter could be blocked completely should the house fall in on it…so a middle of the yard buried shelter might be the ultimate plan…less debris to have to lift directly off the emergency exit.

Hope this helps.

Rich

P.S. These are my other websites, where you will find thousands of pages of shelter info …I’ve been working on these for many years since…

www.survivalring.org

www.myfalloutshelter.com

www.theblastshelter.com

www.cosmicechoes.org

www.survivalcd.com

I just finished two college degrees…in web design, and electronic media .. and I’m continuing my education to finish a journalism degree in the next couple of years. I’m going to be producing a LOT more online and offline materials of just this kind of info.

Do some googling of survivalring, richard fleetwood wyoming, and fallout shelter…and you’ll find I’ve been very busy continuing my preparedness pursuits…

Today is Wednesday, April 11, 2007. It is three days after the 9th anniversary of the April 8th, 1998 tornadic storms that tore through north Central Alabama in the evening of the 8th.

I was there. I was involved. I had family hurt. I had friends hurt. I knew people that were killed in the storm. I knew people that were some of the first responders to the scene. I was involved in helping with recovery that was needed for months after.

It was a horrible evening. Tornadoes had been mentioned in the weather for days before this day. All day, on the radio, and in all the newscasts from early morning throughout the day…it was mentioned that possibility was high for “severe tornadoes” later in the day.

At the time, I was a letter carrier in Bessemer, Alabama, and had been for years. I lived in rural Tuscaloosa county, just a couple of miles south of the beginning of this terrible event, and very close to the Jefferson County line.

I had been home for less than two hours when the storms started to move in. I was online watching live radar and reports from multiple weather websites. I had my police scanner on, scanning, and plugged into the computer’s speakers.

And then…it started. Oak Grove High School was one of first building to be destroyed…with many people inside…but no deaths there..that started minutes later.

Read more here at my Tornado Survival website.

It was a nightmare…it still brings nightmares. Police and firemen just arriving…reporting in as first on scene…and hearing “there are bodies on the road”…just a few miles from my home…and my wife and kids SOMEWHERE out on the road, heading home from church that evening.

This is just MY observations of that terrible day.

There have been others…in this same time of the year…early Spring…first couple of weeks of April..which is why I write this post today.

In fact, yesterday, April 10th, was the 28th anniversary of the Wichita Falls, Texas tornadic storm system that saw thirteen twisters wreak havoc in the region, with direct hits of Wichita Falls.

From the Texas Tornadoes website, created by the meteorology department of Texas A&M University, this quote says it all..

“The Wichita Falls Tornado is the tornado event that occurred on April 10, 1979. This tornado was the most notable of thirteen tornadoes that ripped through the Red River Valley on the day commonly called “Terrible Tuesday” by many meterologists.”

Here’s an image of the twister that did the most damage to the city, from the NOAA photo library.

A very early summer storm, the Pampa F5 tornado of June 8th, 1995, was one of the best storms ever captured up close of the fury of 250-300 mile an hour winds, with trucks and cars being clearly seen tossed hundreds of feet in the air end over end. You can watch a short, tiny clip here…

Another early summer storm was the Jordan, Iowa tornado of June 13, 1976, considered by Professor T. T. Fujita, developer of the Fujita Scale, to be the most violent he had ever studied. A college thesis by John Brown on a portion of this storm has tremendous detail of the particulars of this storm, including images and a ton of pure weather data about the event and events leading up to it. What was particularly interesting of this tornadic system was development of twin tornadoes, one an F5 with normal rotation, and another F3 twister that was antic-cyclonic (rotating the wrong direction), that developed from the same mesocell and traveled in parallel on the ground for a period of time. The original funnel was a multi-vortex twister, and from what I can understand, the second tornado seemed to develop from one of these vortexes, and then take on a life of its own. Read the report, view the images, and be glad you don’t see these everyday.

There is a vast amount of scholarly information on this storm system that amazed even Fujita, available through Google’s library system

Every meteorologist and weather geek either remembers the Super Outbreak of April 3/4, 1974…33 years ago, as of a week ago. Perhaps the wost hit area of the country during that fateful few hours was Xenia, Ohio was an F5 storm - track length 32 miles - 33 killed - over 1,150 injured - watch a video clip here. A pilot, one Mr.Robert Schwarts, had an amazing tale to share of this day…

From http://www.xeniatornado.com/pilot.htm

On april 3 1974 I was flying in a twin engine airplane which when we left Louisville Kentucky. (actually from Haps airport in Jeffersonville In. ) we studied the weather and found it strange. We delayed our trip for about one and one/half hours before deciding to go ahead and go up to Mad River Ohio to install a radio in an airplane so we could fly it back to Jeffersonville for repairs. We were almost to Cincinnati when everything went crazy. the instruments went crazy and the lights went out. we were blind as It turned pitch-black outside and the plane actually started flying backwards and we could feel ourselves being bounced to the overhead and then thrown to the dash then back against the seat. We had no control of the plane. Our radio was nothing but noise and we could not get through to the Cincinnati airfield. Our transponder was out also. Finally the air control answered our emergency call and had us make a try at turning 90 degrees after we maintained some control of the plane. They said there was so much debris in the air they could not find us. Finally they had us make another turn and they said that they thought they had us. It was still pitch black and we could not see anything. They maneuvered us several times and confirmed they had us. They told us to make a 90 and corrected us as our instruments meant nothing. They told us to continue as fast as we could to our destination. They said to drop in altitude several times and finally after following their directions they said we should see the end of the runway (NOW) and sure enough we broke through the clouds and we were 10 feet off the runway when we broke through the blackness. As we landed we rushed to the hanger and tied the plane down. 5 Minutes later the radio announced that the tornado was tearing through Xenia Ohio. This was quite a trip and hope that anyone caught in a tornado like that has the opportunity to tell his tale. I was very lucky. My Brothers business In Louisville was hit bad and he was almost wiped out. What an EXPERIENCE.. Survivor of one of the most harrowing experiences.”
“We flew over as close to Xenia as we could do to the restrictions about flying over a disaster area and saw the destruction. It was something to see and We did not have a camera with us so could not take pictures but saw the circle drives with the scattered wood and destroyed houses caught in the path of natures fury. We were thankful to those great guys way down in Cincinnati airport (actually in Kentucky) for their patience and knowledge to be able to direct us so accurately to our destination. The letter was getting so long I broke it up. Thanks again for the pictures . These are the first ones I have seen from Xenia.” Robert Schwartz

A few weeks from now will be the tenth anniversary of the May 27th, 1997 Jarrell, Texas F5 storm that killed many, in one of the worst tornadoes to ever hit Texas.

In 3 weeks, we’ll see the 8th anniversary of one of the strongest tornadoes ever measured in history…the F5 storm that struck the Oklahoma City area with 76 confirmed tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas, which put the outbreak in the top 10 for number of tornadoes in the U.S.

There are so many more stories…so many more storms…so many more personal observations. It’s a good time to take an hour or two to review what spring storm systems can occur near you, how you can be aware of threatening weather, and what you need to do should storms bear down on you and your family.

A look at the nation’s current weather at www.weather.gov right at this moment near Atlanta, with one warning nearby. A click on this link, bookmarked on your computer, can give you instant access to severe storms near you.

Hi Friends,

As usual, when things are getting interesting, I get the occasional email from someone in the world of media production, journalism, or entertainment…asking for help, usually finding “volunteers” who wouldn’t mind being interviewed…in places convenient to the producer’s location…with something to do with survivalism, skills, or nuclear prepping.

I received the latest one last night, from Elisabeth

Quote:

Dear Richard,

I saw a lot of your writing online and was very interested in contacting you. I am working on a series of online documentaries for www.cbs.com and we are dealing with quite a few issues of nuclear preparedness, disaster scenarios, private military, and citizen’s armies. We are shooting some interviews in New York City about the possibility of a modern day civil war in the US…and looking for some theorists or sociologists who could talk about some hypotheticals.

I wonder, would you have any aquantences in the New York area who might be able to talk about this sort of thing?

I know it is a long shot…but I hope to hear your thoughts!

Many thanks,

Elisabeth Harris
Associate Producer
CBS News / 48 Hours
212-975-xxxx

I’ve posted this kinds of requests here before, as well as on my website, and on my blog at www.cosmicechoes.org .

Below is my response back to her this morning, after sleeping on it…

Quote:

Hi Elisabeth,

Thank you for contacting me.

In the past, I have helped journalists like yourself connect with individuals in all parts of the country regarding preparedness, survival skills, and community involvement. Regarding the topics you’ve mentioned, there are a great many folks who are quite knowledgeable of these areas.

Unfortunately, I have found that since 9/11, the Patriot Act, and somewhat lopsided news coverage of these people and their work, that most are becoming quite shy about assisting journalists, and the media in general.

I have been sharing these media requests I receive such as yours below, with close friends and contacts, and posting on my websites, my blogs, my email lists, and several forums I frequent for many years now (since 1999), and the response I get back lately is one of concern for their safety, their privacy, their ideas and ideals being misrepresented, and general concern for what the real angle of the news story is. In other words, they fear misrepresentation and downright hostility, just for wanting to help their fellow man.

Personally, after seeing this happen for years, I have decided to do something about it, and returned to college, having finished two degrees and working on a third, which just happens to be Journalism. In the work I’ve done, I believe there is still much to be learned and shared by these intelligent and caring people, but MSM just is not going to get very far with most of them. I hope to be able to tell these stories that others don’t seem to be able to get anymore, through the long term work and longevity of my SurvivalRing project.

I will be glad to forward your request below, and locations needed and contact info, to my usual outlets, and see what we can turn up for you.

As always, I would be glad to talk with you on any of the subjects and help your project if you can use me. I do have a TV and radio studio at my disposal here at my college campus (I am the radio station Operations Manager) to produce any content or on camera work you might need…just in case.

Let me know if you’d like me to move forward, and I’ll start immediately with the call to help.

Rich

To this, Ms. Harris responded with much more enlightening info, specifically regarding a TV show on CBS that many of us here find quite interesting and enjoy watching.

Read more…

Quote:

Hello Rich

Thank you for your honest answer! I understand completely where you are coming from and I don’t really think of myself as part of the news media even though I am freelancing with CBS right now. Our project is 22 episodes and almost all complete. We have spoken with experts of all sorts of backgrounds, on very controversial issues. You can see 17 of our episodes at:
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/jericho/digital.php

This is not for TV and is not high enough exposure for anyone to be concerned about safety. In fact, we don’t intend to really go into conspiracy or underground groups, but rather just want to talk about the climate today vs. the climate at the time of the Civil War and how they are similar. And what kind of scenario it would take for red & blue states to separate and fight. This is all in relation to the show JERICHO which features an all out war between neighboring towns.

I hope this makes a little more sense now…we must find someone in the next few days so if you do have any thoughts of people on the east coast, near NYC, please do let me know!

Much appreciated,

Elisabeth

Personally, these web based videos are about the CLOSEST thing I’ve seen with REAL SURVIVAL information being put out by MAIN STREAM ANYONE in years.

I fully support helping in these projects, but alas, I am in the middle of Wyoming…lightyears away from the Big City.

So…again…the call goes out.

Could you or can you volunteer to help Ms. Harris at CBS, with background info and personal theories on possible future civil war (something pretty much aligned with the current story line in Jericho), in the next few days?

If you’re interesting in helping her, email me for her email address and phone number.

Rich