At the 2/8 refresher, Rick & Deb Brown of VIFR kindly came with their daughter and helped local Vashon CERT members practice first aid and bandaging techniques on each other – including participant Rex Stratton. Here are a few photos (click on them to open larger pictures):
The Associated Press came to this week’s 5th Annual Hazus conference held at the federal building and wrote up a nice piece citing (yet again) that we are not ready for the huge quakes possible from any number of faults, but especially the Seattle and Cascadia faults:
A second disaster threatens to overtake Joplin MO by way of a tidal wave of unsolicited goods (things like clothing, miscellaneous household items, mixed or perishable foodstuffs, diapers...) and volunteers who just show up to help. Critical resources are being redirected from the important work of response and relief to managing what has become a crush of unneeded donated items. Social networking sites are promoting collection drives while radio stations, small and large businesses, business and fraternal organizations and churches around the country fill semis with items that threaten to crowd warehouses and overwhelm distribution channels in the impacted area.
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 and organizations that make our coalition thrive.