Emergency Preparedness

Local Living Communities

A Circle of Trust
EUGENE, Oregon, Summer 2003 (Charles Gray, YES Magazine) - I’ve always hated the idea that the only ways to protect against emergencies are to build up a big pot of money or to deal with faceless insurance companies that don’t really care about individuals and the challenges they face. So 15 years ago, I launched a mutual security fund experiment with about a dozen friends. We dubbed the fund FIN, for Friend in Need. Fin is an old slang expression for a five dollar bill. All of us had modest incomes, so pooling our money made it possible to deal with emergencies we might not otherwise have been able to handle. http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=603

DIY Health

Honey the Best Medicine
WISCONSIN, USA, Oct, 11, 2006 (Brandon Keim, Wired Magazine) - When Jennifer Eddy first saw an ulcer on the left foot of her patient, an elderly diabetic man, it was pink and quarter-sized. Fourteen months later, drug-resistant bacteria had made it an unrecognizable black mess. Doctors tried everything they knew -- and failed. After five hospitalizations, four surgeries and regimens of antibiotics, the man had lost two toes. Doctors wanted to remove his entire foot. With standard techniques exhausted, Eddy turned to a treatment used by ancient Sumerian physicians, touted in the Talmud and praised by Hippocrates: honey. Eddy dressed the wounds in honey-soaked gauze. In just two weeks, her patient's ulcers started to heal. Pink flesh replaced black. A year later, he could walk again. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,71925-0.html

Emergency Preparedness / Science and Technology

A $3 Water Purifier That Could Save Lives
DENMARK,10 October 2006 (Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times) - In very poor countries, the family that has to walk miles to fetch drinking water from a well or a stream may be the lucky one. In many villages, the water source is a filthy pond trod by animals and people, or a mud puddle out next to the yam field. As a result, about 6,000 people a day - most of them children - die from water-borne diseases. Vestergaard Frandsen, a Danish textile company that supplies water filters to the Carter Center guinea worm eradication program and mosquito-killing plastic tarps to refugee camps, has come up with a new invention meant to render dangerous water drinkable. The invention is called Lifestraw, a plastic tube with seven filters: graduated meshes with holes as fine as 6 microns (a human hair is 50 to 100 microns), followed by resin impregnated with iodine and another of activated carbon. It can be worn around the neck and lasts a year. http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101206HA.shtml

Self-Guided Learning and Open Space Technology

Environmental Radio and News Direct to your Computer
WEB Reference, August 2006, (Michael Kalmanovitch, Activist Agenda) – There are some good environmental radio shows out there and with the internet you can connect with this information quite easily. Check out some of the following:
• BBC Radio www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml
• The EnviroMinute - http://www.environminute.com/
• Good Dirt Radio - http://www.gooddirtradio.org/
• The Watt Radio - a source of information about alternative energy sources - www.thewatt.com
• Radio Ecoshock – www.ecoshock.org
• Beyond Organic – www.beyondorganic.com
• EV World – information about hybrid cars - www.evworld.com
• Democracy Now! - http://www.democracynow.org/
• LIME - http://www.lime.com/more/Radio_Program_Guide/index.html

Exemplary Resources / Off the Grid Living

Entrep"rain"eurial spirit
TEXAS, USA, June 23, 2006 (Bob Swanson and Doyle Rice, USA Today) – Richard Heinichen, the mayor of Tank Town in Dripping Springs, Texas, who has made a business out of installing rainwater collection systems and distributing bottled water (http://rainwater.org/). He has also recently published Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged, an invaluable resource for someone who is seriously considering replacing or supplementing an existing well or public water supply. It does a nice job in helping one assess current water usage and estimating water requirements if one does decide to go "off the grid." It details the pros and cons of different types of rainwater collection, filtration and purification systems and gives cost comparisons for each. http://blogs.usatoday.com/weather/2006/06/entrepraineuria.html

Emergency Preparedness

Disaster Preparation Checklist for Pet Owners
WEB Reference, (PETA) - Last year, Hurricane Katrina left thousands of companion animals homeless and hopeless. All that pain and suffering could have been avoided. PETA encourages everyone to get ahead of the storm and make arrangements for their animals’ safety. Tips include placing an emergency window sticker near your front door in case a weather emergency or fire strikes when you are not home to alert rescuers to animals in your home who need help. Also, have an animal emergency kit readily available. The kit should include a harness and leash or carrier, bottled water, food and water bowls, and dry food. If you have a cat, keep litter and a small litter tray ready to go. Click here to order a PETA Rescue Kit to keep in your car. Wild animals may also need our help during severe storms. Following severe weather, be sure to search carefully through debris and nearby creeks and streams for animals who have been displaced from their homes. These animals may need help right away.
http://www.helpinganimals.com/f-disasterchecklist.asp

Science & Technology / EQ Expertise

'Quincha' Earthquake-resistant Housing
WEB Reference, Mar. 2006 (Practical Action) - Following a devastating earthquake in the Alto Mayo region of Peru in 1990 ITDGPractical Action's Shelter Programme became involved in a major reconstruction project to build earthquake resistant housing using 'improved quincha' – a timber and lattice frame design with an earth infill – based on traditional technologies. http://www.itdg.org/?id=earthquake_resistant_housing.
Technical brief, download, pdf: http://www.itdg.org/docs/technical_information_service/earthquake-resistant-housing.pdf.

Emergency Checklist / Pandemic Preparedness

It Doesn’t Hurt to Be Prepared
EMAIL Reference, Mar. 21, 2006 (CIP Reader, Mary S.) - Reality check; If you have been trying to ignore the avian flu and pretending that it will not happen, you are rolling the dice. Your life and those around you could be at risk. You just need to check out the map listing the progress of the disease and realize this could be very serious and could affect us all. Face reality and prepare now...in the event of an outbreak in your area this could save lives. (taken from http://www.iflu.org/?page_id=1109http://www.iflu.org/?page_id=1109) Monitor progress of wild bird flu outbreaks on this constantly updated map at: http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_Map_2005_QinghaiL.html.

NFPs / NGO / Grassroots Relief

New Orleans Follow-up
ELIST, Apr. 24, 2006 (Nonprofit Online News) - If you're interested in tracking what's happening on the ground in New Orleans these days, the Common Ground Collective is a good place to start. They are a grassroots relief organization with a strong emphasis on empowerment and their website is chock full of news, video, audio, and other local resources. http://news.gilbert.org/clickthru/redir/6021/54657/rms.

Neighbourhood Preparedness / Training

Cowichan Valley’s Local Emergency Response Neighbourhoods (LERN) Program COWICHAN, BC, Feb. 2006 (CVRD) - http://www.cvrdep.bc.ca/getting_ready/lern.htm - The Local Emergency Response Neighbourhood Program, founded in 1992, has been developed to meet our communities' needs in the event of a disaster such as Earthquake, Major Storm, Hazardous Materials Spill, Major Electrical Blackout, Aircraft Crash or Forest Fire. The LERN program is designed to be flexible so that each neighbourhood can use it to meet their own specific needs. After a major emergency, it is probable that regular Emergency Services will not be able to respond for at least 72 hours. It is vital that you and your neighbours are able to rely on one another. Experience shows that neighbourhoods naturally come together in times of crisis and that there is an abundance of talent in every neighbourhood just waiting to be volunteered. Plan with your family and neighbours NOW so that everyone knows what to do in an emergency. See the LERN Training Matrix: http://www.cvrd.bc.ca/html/pdf/LERNTrainingMatrix.pdf.

Events / Disaster Relief / Tools

Best in Disaster Relief
NANAIMO, BC, Jan. 28, 2006 (Community Involvement Project) - Ian Lethbridge of the UK organization, Free The Children, says that Rotary International’s ShelterBox is the most efficient disaster relief tool he’s seen in 20 years. The ShelterBox is a compact and fully equipped green tote that can provide up to 10 people with instant shelter, warmth and comfort in times of need. Recent photos from Kashmir where snow now covers the mountains at 8000 feet captures the first aid arriving in that area on January 8th. More than 17 million (US) dollars (half from non-Rotarians) has been donated to ship the ShelterBoxes, most since the aftermath of the Asia tsunami in Dec. 2004. Since ShelterBox began in Cornwall, England, 5 years ago, the Rotary International project has been able to house more than 90,000 people worldwide. Rotary’s current vision in Canada is to see the ShelterBox project become better known among Canada’s own relief agencies. Alan Lomax of the Rotary Club of Ladysmith, where the program is administered for Canada, will be displaying the box and it’s contents on Feb. 4 at the Home and Garden Show, from 10 – 4 pm, at the Ladysmith Agricultural Hall. To learn more about ShelterBox, see – http://www.shelterbox.org.

Resources / Self-sufficiency

Building Materials for Low-cost Housing
EMAIL Referral, Jan. 2006 (CIP, Suzanne Gregory) - I thought I'd send along some info. on the affordable construction that Phil Carson is doing with "eco-lumber" and non-toxic insulation, etc. It looks like he can do anything from a small garden shed to a full house – in square, rectangular, or octagonal form, including modules to fit in between trees, for example. He was even talking with some folks about sending shelters to the earthquake-devastated areas of Pakistan. If you'd like to check it out, here are two websites: http://seatosea.ca/sanctuary // http://seatosea.ca/sticksnstones/ There may need to be some modifications for different applications, but it might be a chance to think about some "what-ifs."

Cool Projects / Disaster Response

Winners of the "Meeting Disaster: How to Prepare and Respond" Competition
ELIST, Jan. 27, 2006 (Changemakers/Ashoka) – Changemakers Innovation Awards -The Changemakers community voted for the winners from a slate of eight finalists selected by a panel of judges. Each winner is awarded a $5,000 cash prize. The three winners are:

Building Low-Cost Disaster Resistant Housing Programs with Women (Peru) constructs housing units using the prefabricated components they produced themselves, providing disaster resistant housing to low income communities while generating livelihoods.

Building Sustained Nationwide Participation - Pre/Post Disaster (India) maintains a network of grassroot organizations that recycle goods to the needy and provide relief supplies for a wide range of disasters with greater speed and sensitivity to the needs and values of the recipients than most relief agencies.

Garifuna Disaster Response as Proactive, Holistic Development (Honduras) uses Garifuna traditions and values to acquire land for rebuilding; build and repair homes, community centers, schools and businesses; equip schools and health centers; and restore livelihoods and food security.

View the 3 winners and 8 finalists, selected from a field of competition entries on Changemakers.net.

Breaking News on Changemakers: "2005 Lessons Learned: The Power of Community Participation," a report on how the tragedies of the past year (tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes) give us surprising insights about the best ways to prepare for and respond to disasters. See http://www.changemakers.net/journal/300510/raghav.cfm