WA a Top State in 8th “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” Report
May 29, 2012
Arkansas, 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.
2012 Partners in Emergency Preparedness Conference Presentations
May 17, 2012
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:
Vashon ARES Updates their Interface to the Sky
May 16, 2012
The local ARES team worked on the antenna candelabra at VIFR Station 55 last spring as noted in this post:
Natural Disasters loophole allows USAF drone spying on Vashon
May 14, 2012
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.
Emergency Preparedness becoming a hobby - for Preppers
May 14, 2012
The 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. 
They have a national group: the American Preppers Network – and even a Washington state presence – with only 2 likes so far…
Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) service starting this month
May 14, 2012
As 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, blizzards, and other life-threatening events – i.e., weather warnings – but not less severe weather watches.
Store food & water–or secure your furniture? Maybe do both…
May 10, 2012
National 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.
FEMA releases National Preparedness Report today
May 3, 2012
Today, 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.