Since September is National Prepardedness month
Emergency Essentials is have a "sale"

www.bepreparded.com

I've got the 72 hour MRE kits w/water and the food isn't too bad, Ican say "if" worst comes to worst we won't starve

Mike

That link should be

http://beprepared.com

You're right my bad

Mike

They have a good selection but always price to me.

On three days' worth of food, remember those stranded after Katrina were there longer than three days. Most people evacuated for Ike, but I'll be interested in how long it takes to get power, water, and gas back on around Galveston.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we won't have warning to evacuate. My worst case scenario is that here on the Peninsula, all the roads will be cut by falling overpasses and evacuation will not be possible. There are always fires after earthquakes, so it's possible devastation in my area will be similar to Katrina's effects on New Orleans. Three days of food won't be enough for us to live on till FEMA can get in here with any relief, if worse comes to worse.

Your mileage will vary, of course, but I'd ask you if three days is really enough in your circumstances, geographically and disaster-wise.

Much the same problem here, Philip, and I would expect the same problems. Depending on the I-5 corridor with collapsed overpasses is not a pretty picture.

But three days is better than what most of America has.

Gotta start somewhere. He's HERE, which is a step in the right direction!

Sue

Before, during, & after Gustave,,,,FEMA dropped the ball again. Our Lousy-anna governor has publicly stated that he no longer believes anything FEMA tells them until he has sent our National Guard unit(s) to visually confirm that promised supplies are actually enroute.

The State of Louisiana took 7.5 million MRE's out of LANG supplies to feed people. The state contracted for and had delivered the generators, ice, water, food, etc; that FEMA promised but failed to deliver.

FEMA has shown up in Erath, La but I don't know what functions they are performing or if they have brought any supplies in.

A Katrina problem that has not been addressed yet, to my knowledge. FEMA arrives in a disaster stricken area and does not bring the means to support themselves. They pre-empt motel/hotel rooms, kicking paying evacuees out of their rooms.

FEMA needs to enter an area with the campers, equipment, and supplies to sustain themselves, not by grabbing up what little remaining resources that the refugees/evacuees are depending on & utilizing! They need their own self sustaining capability as the military has and uses.

Galveston should be weeks, or months, according to the reports I've heard.

IMHO, 3 days is not enough. 7 days better. My "House" supplies are several months worth.

That problem has not been raised AFAIK. At least I've never heard it. Why isn't the news media all over this? Or was this a Katrina problem that has since been resolved?

"...They need their own self sustaining capability as the military has and uses..."

Yup. But, I suspect that would require more tax dollars than the public will want to spend. Seems to me that FEMA would have to have equipment stockpiled all over the place, some rarely if ever used. Kinda like having another National Guard Armory in every city/town. Maybe the NG could just have extra stuff earmarked for FEMA? Kicking folks out of their rooms stinks...

Maybe FEMA could have an Eastern, Central, and Western storage/base of operations. They could then deploy the assets from those staging bases to the affected areas.

That would not require much of an investment.

Why couldn't FEMA work with the National Guard?

Sue

I wonder how many people in the hurricane stricken areas were actually prepared but lost all of their gear and supplies when their home was wiped out. I often ponder this situation since my home could be wiped out by a tornado (the most likely natural disaster to occur in our area). I guess I need to find a secondary location where I can store a decent cache of supplies and gear.

That's why my 96 hr kit is in the truck. In a bug-out situation the kit gets much bigger. For me a bug-out would be caused by a wildfire that gets into our canyon. The truck gets packed while the fire is still in the eastern part of the county, days ahead of a possible bug-out.

The trickything is finding a place that is close enough to be of benefit. Too close and it can be destroyed by the disaster, too far and its too much to get to your supplies. I'm storing food in large rubbermaid tubs that can be quickly slid in the back of the truck to go with me if needed.

My problem is that I work 13 hour shifts. If I'm at home when the disaster is impending, I can load up my truck with months worth of supplies and bug out. If I'm at work, particularly in the middle of a shift, all bets are off.

Biggest problem I would see is that FEMA is federal, the NG is state. Apples and oranges...

OBG, My knowledge of the military is almost nil, but... National Guard is Army National Guard, isn't it? If the NG is state-operated and can't work with FEMA, why are the NG guys being sent repeatedly to the Federally-sponsored event in Iraq?

Better idea yet: Give all the tax money earmarked for FEMA and give it to the Salvation Army?

Too logical, huh?

Sue

Sue,

The nature of the separation of the various entities that comprise our national defense system is a bit complicated. I will not pretend to be an expert and try to tell you the nuances between state government's rights/powers and jurisdictions and the Federal rights/powers and jurisdictions. Even in light of my 26 years of Air Force service (now retired) I still do not fully understand it. There are fine lines involved. That said, I am sure there are partnerships which can be formed to better serve the American people. Streamlining/making efficient any government/business enterprise will always be a challenge. Hopefully, there will be some progress made in the coming years.

I suspect the main issue is more cultural than monetary. The US military (well most branches ) are prepared to go somewhere (nearly anywhere) and not only survive the local environment but conduct various military operations. By and large that also includes a lot of practice at getting out in the weather and being uncomfortable while setting up a base of operations in a largely unprepared site.

FEMA on the other hand is basically a part of civil government (not military) and not to put too fine a point on it a major Bureaucracy. Now I am sure there are some real go getters in the organization but culturally they are not prepared, trained or practiced (in the same sense as the military) to go somewhere with absolutely no infrastructure and bring their own logistics and planning tail/capabilities with them. So they descend on some unlucky disaster area and in order to perform their mission, they need to establish comms, shelter, provisioning etc. for themselves. Since this is a disaster and the people in charge must be at their best this means getting the appropriate sleeping, eating and meeting accommodations (planned by and for people who are essentially bureaucrats). So you take over the local hotels etc. (since that is how your travel is typically done).

Maybe FEMA should have a larger emphasis on field training/exercises and generally roughing it / making do with mobile/temporary camps like the military. I won't get started on the byzantine rules involving who does what when for disasters (at least not this time )

- Eric

I suspect that Eric is correct. It's what they know and how they function. They aren't military.

I agree also. FEMA has a habit of NOT hiring those people who are experienced in Proper Planning. It's similar to hiring Phd's without any common sense.

My limited experience with FEMA indicates that they focus more on chain of command issues than actual boots on the ground. I give you NIMS (National Incident Management System) as an example. I'm not saying that NIMS is a bad thing because it has its place, but they place a great deal of emphasis on this system and, based on the FEMA responses that I have witnessed, it has failed miserably at actually accomplishing much in terms of an adequate response. It sure makes for some interesting seating arrangements, though!

Last I was a aware, the President of the United States can activate National Guard units. However, the idea with disasters is the lowest political subdivision handles the emergency. If they cannot handle it, the next highest takes the load. If they cannot, it repeats until it hits FEMA.

A lot of changes need to be made, and until every politician realizes that disaster response ( just like military actions ) is not an area that politics should be involved in the decision making. Let the people who know what to do, do what they need to do.

Again, everyone needs to look to Florida for how to handle hurricanes. When I saw the response ( on the news, didn't get a lot of the small details ) to Gustav and Ike, I saw a lot of the things Florida did. Well, except those expensive pre-storm airlifts of people that just don't know how to follow instructions. The big thing that worries me about that is they haven't learned to be self-sufficient. The government came and saved their ass. A lot of people are going to have to die for failing to evacuate before people get the message.

This is how DMATs operate. We arrive with 3 days of essentials in our personal kit.

We also used to have our own caches consisting of all the equipment necessary to set up our field hospital as well as additional sustainment equipment like MREs and water purifiers, that we brought with us in trucks. However, the Feds, in their infinite wisdom, has removed our team caches and turned them over to private contractors to maintain and deliver to us (in theory)once we are on site. This did not work well in our most recent experience.

Among other problems, supplies were disorganized, missing, expired or otherwise incorrect. Also, it seems no one gave any thought as to how we were supposed to unload giant metal containers weighing several hundred pounds each from the back of commercial trucks without a lift-gate, forklift or anything other than muscle power, in a vacant lot in the middle of a disaster area. We adapted and overcame, but we weren't happy, and spent untold worker-hours sorting out the mess. Its a good thing we weren't met by hundreds of patients needing immediate care.

Jeff

Florida is doing good job in disaster preparedness. They have also recognized that the capacity of the federal government to respond to disasters is deteriorating and they are actively stepping up to fill in the gaps. For example, they are creating and equipping their own state versions of DMATs (Disaster Medical Assistance Teams), called State Medical Response Teams. I believe California is doing the same.

Jeff

First, FEMA is not an operational, boots on the ground, type of agency. They are more of a management, oversight, tasseled loafers under desks sort of agency.

Second, they aren't the only element of the federal bureaucracy directly involved in federal emergency response. Nor do they exercise oversight, much less coordination and control, over other federal players.

Third, local and state authority is not pre-empted once the feds get involved. The state and local guys and gals still call the shots in their respective jurisdictions and areas of responsibility. For example, I hear that the Texas authorities told the Feds "um, no thanks, we'll handle it" to at least some aspects of the proposed federal response to H. Ike. It's a matter of cooperation.

FEMA works best as a resource and funding agency to underwrite local, state and federal operations. It doesn't seem to do too well when it tries to actually run operations. This was a main reason why Congress removed the National Disaster Medical System from FEMA and DHS and moved it back to DHHS.

As for FEMA setting up a system of regional "storage/base of operations," my recent experience with this was not reassuring, to say the least. I think it would be best if they simply contracted with the already robust and efficient commercial system for acquiring needed relief supplies, from the same folks who keep your grocery shelves stocked nationwide on a daily basis.

Terminal delivery logistics may require governmental assets like the NG, but could also be contracted. I trust Wal Mart and General Foods to deliver what's needed on time and on site a lot more than I trust FEMA's ability to do so.

On the other hand, I am in favor of a widely distributed system for "Strategic foodstuffs Reserves" along the lines of the National Petroleum Reserve" for national emergencies involving the food supply.

Jeff

The Federal law seems rather specific about what situations National Guard can be pressed into Federal service. Congressional legislation in 2002 did allow the President to activate National Guard units to send to the Middle East, but that is a special case.

I don't think most weather-related disasters would fall under Title 10.

Of course, as you know, the Governor can also call his or her state's National Guard into service for state and local disasters, as well. I also think they can do so for service in another state at that state's request.

Jeff

P.S. Check out the "Brigade homeland tour" thread for an interesting related development.

Pretty much anything could happen with a given state's National Guard, if the governor consents. A state's National Guard could be federalized in situations outside of Title 10 if the governor consents.

Remember that Gov. Kathleen Blanco was asked--not ordered--by the President to federalize the Louisiana National Guard but she refused the request, as is her perogative as governor. The situation didn't fit the Title 10 provisions so the President didn't have any authority to simply take over the Guard.

If you wan to know how to do hurricane preparations right you might want to look at what Cuba does. They are a poor nation but consistently the fare better, considering the strength and duration of the storms that hit, than we do.

Their system is national, provincial and community based. The national organization provides information on best practices, guidelines and organization. The provincial governments provide coordination and enforce standards.

The majority of the job gets done at the community level. Every man, woman and child is assigned a place in a shelter. Every block has an organizer that makes it their business to make sure that every person gets whatever assistance is needed to get them to the shelter and take care of them there.

The combination of neighborhood shelters numerous and large enough to hold everyone in the neighborhood and a community that actively makes sure everyone is covered and safe has gone a long way to make Cuba a model of safety during a hurricane.

It is a shame that while the poor nation of Cuba had very few casualties during Katrina our rich nation was in complete disarray. Cuba took care of its own while America stood by and watched people drown on national TV.

Presumably we are doing better now. But the question remains: Why can't we do as well as the impoverished nation of Cuba?

Many people who have studied such situations have stated that the first problem with our response is that we depend on evacuation. Cuba, partly because they are a small nation and so have no place to flee to, selected to have those not in a storm surge area shelter in local shelters.

The USA, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to focus on mass evacuation. An impossibility when one looks at large population centers which are forced to try to get their populations through transportation choke points. The classic example of this is Key West. Where a complete evacuation is a mathematical impossibility in less than a week. And this assumes no cars break down on the one highway out.

Shelter in place makes a lot of sense. Not only when a hurricane threatens but in many other cases. A case of a pandemic or a radiological disaster, accidental or on purpose, are much better handled if everyone shelters in place until the problem can be surveyed and countermeasures taken. Sheltering in place buy everyone time.

Art_in_FL:

Florida does encourage people to evacuate locally to higher ground ( which isn't as scarce as you might think ). You can also evacuate vertically. Some hazards you can go up in a building, others you can go down.