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Are We Prepared?
With this major disaster happening in Japan. A news media broadcast I watch this morning showed training for citizens to prepare for a earthquake in California. Then they asked a official if they felt the US was ready for a similar disaster. He answered that we are years behind being ready for anything that big.
California is not the only area that will have a earthquake because there are faults across the US that could slip and slide and shake any area.
The East Coast could be hit by a tsunami that I heard can be caused by a major land slide across the Atlantic.
9/11 may have been a wakeup means to put preparness out there for everyone but have we gone back to our comfort zones and let building a better system slow down?
There maybe other disasters to worry about like hurricanes that haven't hit areas of the country in sometime.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 0t4h7dtwvwzdf on
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This is why I make the statement, no. On our law enforcement and EMS side, we know the situation of what may occur. However, have you ever talked and/or started a conversation was someone who is not or has never been involved with "Real World" emergency? They will be quick to either change the subject or just look at you zoned out. The average American does not get it. They don't want to get it. They think this life style is a right. They do not realize it is a privilege. They (Americans) feel is is a right for them to pull up to 7-11 and grab a coffee....Folks, we are very lucky to have what we have. This is why a true emergency nationwide scares the hell outta me. I feel we will have good people. But I also know we will have very ugly ones too. IMHO.
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Permalink Reply by ashfire on
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At times I can see in our own ranks or at the top people who will say the way things are OK and don't need to change and don't worry. Then there are those that worry about spending the money to have training or equipment to have if something happens.
One day something big happens and its a rush to call everyone and get help from all around you and then talk about it and back to the norm again and hope that doesn't happen again.
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I have this to throw out there. Some areas of the country have tornado drills to test people sheltering and response of emergency services.
I work in a building that is not suppost to be tornado safe and I learned if we have a warning we have to leave the building cross a parking lot and a street to shelter in a building across the street. Have we ever practice doing this. NO. I guess they feel everyone knows what to do but there is no public adress system in the building to alert the people there.
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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The National Disaster Medical System, a collection of medical, veterinary and mortuary teams that now report the Health and Human Services, have way too few resources and too little training. We've struggled through lean years. We were overwhelmed by Katrina. Now our budget dwindles to the point of embarrassment. Urban Search and Rescue teams have somewhat more resources, but not enough to be as ready as they'd like to be. Fortunately the U.S. military has lots of resources and training, but many of their personnel are overseas and overworked. I agree with you guys who are scared of what might happen if we have a really big disaster (bigger than Katrina???). Thousands will die while the beaurocrats try to decide how to respond.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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People are no more likely to pay more in taxes for their own fire department than they will for a rainy-day fund of what-ifs that includes tornadoes, hurricanes or earthquakes. The SAME people that want to bring government spending under control will not fund for disaster preparedness.
I believe the prevailing opinion is that everyone just needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Sorry for any inconvenience.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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It depends, Jack. If it's government-sponsored aid (like the DART USAR teams) compared to public fire and EMS agencies, then you're right - it's a double standard.
If you're talking about NGOs like the Red Cross/Red Crescent or Medicins Sans Frontieres or faith-based relief groups that do a lot of the international disaster relief, then it's a different story. There's a big difference between charity and taxation.
In the bigger picture, local FD expenses are exponentially greater than the relatively minor costs of the federal government fielding two - count 'em - two DART USAR teams for occasional overseas work and a few radiation experts.
There's also a big difference between spending local tax dollars on public safety and some of the other spending that could reasonably be reduced or eliminated.
The first job of any government is to protect its citizens.
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Permalink Reply by JOSEPH MONTONDO on
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Everyone on here should e-mail there representatives and let them know that the fire service needs more money. Put it on facebook that the country needs more money for fire depts and emergency services and they need to contact there representatives and tell them to up the money for fire act and other grants for fire depts. Were being cut every where and we are the ones that are always first on scnen and most of the time the only ones on scene.
No one will ever be prepared for everything even if you could where would you store all the equipment. Not to mention the money it would take to buy the equipment and the personell.
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That's going to be a tough sell with tax revenues decreasing due to the continued economic slump, high unemployment, and record national deficit.
How do you convince people to spend more money on public safety when most state and lots of local governments are experiencing an economic crisis and the federal deficit is 14 plus trillion dollars?
It's difficult to get people to spend money on what amounts to insurance for something that they believe will never happen to them than to spend those shrinking budgets what they see as everyday quality of life issues like parks, roads/bridges, libraries, and even the arts.
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Doesn't seem like we have to learn from disasters and mistakes to make things better or to correct a problem created by Mother Nature or by man.
Then we hope that what we have will be enough to help or stop what is happening.
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Permalink Reply by David Earl Gregory on
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Well folks, no, we're not ready. What I'm seeing here is a distinct move towards dependence on "what is the govt. going to do for me" type of mentality like we saw during Katrina. How many of you, being as all of us here are supposed to be the "emergency remediation" type, have done anything towards insuring your OWN survival as well as that of your families? Do you have food, medical supplies, means of self defense, adequate shelter, etc.? Have you given any thought to what you'd do or where you'd go in the event the situation where you live becomes untenable? How far can you and your family travel on foot, carrying everything you may need to survive on your own for say, three weeks? Lot to think about. Americans used to be self-sufficient. Now, we just sit on our asses and die while waiting for the Feds to come fix it for us.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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The type of earthquake that hit Japan was in a subduction zone, no different than the San Andreas faultline in California... Additionally, the tsunami surge damage was minimized because it occurred during low tide. We were lucky this time...
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Somethings you just can't prepare for... but we should try our best and learn from others experiences mitigating large incidents, like Japan and New Zealand for example.
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