Emergency Response Follow-up

OK I have to front page a comment from my last post, because it states some points I want to touch on. This is from my friend Jenny.

Yeah...but if we know about these things waaaay ahead of time (such as was the case for Wilma), why can't we have supplies already in place? Why wait until *after* the hurricane strikes?

And no, of course people don't understand about that stuff. Most people don't even know what all that jargon means. To them, it's, "The phone line is down," or, "The electricity is out." Hell, it's that way for me. But we also live in an age where we expect government offices to have better electricity/phones/etc than our personal homes--maybe having back-up generators, that sort of thing.

Personally, I don't see the sense in just warning people about disasters. Yes, warn them--but warning alone doesn't do much. It's like trying to get younger siblings to listen, or trying to supervise a group of unwilling employees. We would do better to have items already in place in times of emergencies--store up MREs in places like Florida, which is frequented by hurricanes. Make sure the place where the MREs are store is as secure as possible.

Plus, it's REALLY hard to store up 72 hours worth of supplies on a limited income--hell, it's hard enough to buy a week's worth of groceries, not to mention electric bills and the like. And, frankly, most of our country is on a "limited income" of some kind. Sad, but true.

Anyhow...that's a bit of my thoughts on the issue. *shrug*

Peace.

23:44 (10-29-2005 I think -SWK)

I hate to say this - This is the EXACT thought process that gets people dead in a disaster. We see pictures of a hurricane, we read about the destruction but its hard to conceptualize properly. I live in Indiana, so do many of my readers. I will put this into terms of a tornadoes. The Fujita Tornado damage scale states that

Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars overturned; large trees snapped or uprooted; light-object missiles generated; cars lifted off ground.

This damage is found at windspeeds of about 113-157mph. The link in the quote takes you too this picture :

One good think about tornadoes is that they are confined in a very small area, from a few yards wide to 1 mile wide.

A hurricane is a different story. I'm not entirely sure of this information but the eye of Wilma was about 15 miles wide and severe winds most likely surrounded that eye at about 10 miles out. That means the damage area had a radius of 17.5 miles and a diameter of 35 miles. This only includes that most damaging winds of the hurricane. Wilma was a Category 3 hurricane during its entire time over Florida (which is rare, hurricanes typically die when they go over land, even a small amount such as the peninsula of Florida). The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale states:

Winds 111-130 mph (96-113 kt or 178-209 km/hr). Storm surge generally 9-12 ft above normal. Some structural damage to small residences and utility buildings with a minor amount of curtainwall failures. Damage to shrubbery and trees with foliage blown off trees and large trees blown down. Mobile homes and poorly constructed signs are destroyed. Low-lying escape routes are cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the center of the hurricane. Flooding near the coast destroys smaller structures with larger structures damaged by battering from floating debris. Terrain continuously lower than 5 ft above mean sea level may be flooded inland 8 miles (13 km) or more. Evacuation of low-lying residences with several blocks of the shoreline may be required. Hurricanes Jeanne and Ivan of 2004 were Category Three hurricanes when they made landfall in Florida and in Alabama, respectively.

I want to make something very clear. The wind speed of a hurricane is measured over a 1 minute time span, a gust can be 20-25% higher than the base speed (Wilma was around 130 mph sustained and gusts in excess of 150 mph). A tornado with the wind speed around 130-150 mph is able to do significant damage to homes in a short period of time (around 30 seconds) imagine what several hours at those speeds will do. Now that we have a conceptualization of the damage of a hurricane let me respond to the post (FINALLY! =-) )

The government is not able to deploy significant resources to a possible strike zone of a hurricane. This would be very foolish. Not only would you need the resources to store the relief aid, you would need to protect it from the storm. This is shaky considering the many variables within a storm of that magnitude. This would mean deploying such aid to an area outside of the damage area of the storm. With a hurricane that is around 60-100 miles away. You would then need to ship that aid to the victims. Keep in mind that the worst hit areas are surrounded by a giant damage area. Also keep in mind that not only are the phone lines down, but many of the radio towers used for cell phones and government communications are down, leaving many agencies with backup systems capable of only about 15 miles of communication radius (Very high frequency radios). This means drivers of the trucks would have a difficult time delivering the goods because landmarks may not be there, road signs are down, GPS can easily fail (that's from personal experience), and radio communications are hit and miss. In addition to finding their ways they would have to find their way around thousands of trees that are knocked down into the road. This will make a trip of two hours possibly take 12 or more hours. Now for the relief points. Many of these places will be open, though the supplies stored there would be token compared to the people being served. The supplies would run out quickly and many would have to wait on trucks which are battling the poor road conditions. This action would take a well prepared state (which Florida is a very well prepared state for hurricanes) about 24-48 hours to enact. It is during this time you would be on your own, regardless of income. Heck this doesn't even touch a persons ability to GET to the distribution center.

My insight comes from relief training and practical experience I have gained while working and an Emergency Management officer. We are told to keep supplies for 72 hours in our cars. I also make sure my parents have that in their basement. What exactly constitutes emergency supplies and what do they cost?
There are several sources of commercial kits available I found one for 2 people for $71. That's for specialized food and prepackaged water. I imagine I can put one together for about $15 on eBay, most likely less. The Department of Homeland Security recommends a gallon of water a day, so for a 72 hour kit you will need 3 1 gallon jugs per person, and the wherewithal to fill them. They recommend 3 days worth of food. That means you need to get a box of ramon from Aldi's, and 10 cans of some sort of mostly prepared food, ravioli comes to mind. In addition to that make sure you have blankets around the house, a battery powered radio, a flashlight, first aid supplies, and your own personal medications. Most of these things you already have around the house, though if you need to buy them they can be had at very low costs. If you live in a house with a basement in Indiana, you would want to gather these supplies and put them in the basement.
I got to respond directly to what Jenny says in the last paragraph. What would happen to you if we had a blizzard this year? That's the reason why you buy an extra can of whatever a week to shove someplace just in case, hell if you don't I'll buy yah a kit and send it to yah. Regardless of if you have power in a blizzard, you can't go anywhere to eat, and if its enough snow, it will clog up DoT's ability to clean roads for at least a day if not more.