F
Fusilier
Guest
Oh!! Me too please!!
emergency preparedness
- Thread starter ZBM2
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Yeah me too please ;D
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I am an Regional Emergency Management Coordinator for St. John Ambulance. I also sit on the Ontario committee for updating St. John Ambulance Emergency Planning for Ontario which is expected to form a basis for all of Canada, for St. John Ambulance. We are just one of many organizations which play a part in response to emergencies within Canada and at times world wide. Local, provincial & federal political committees, police, fire, public utilities, Canadian Red Cross & the Canadian Forces + other groups too many to list also play important roles.
What many people could do to help themselves before an emergency occurs is to prepare a kit to at least provide food, water, first aid supplies, heat & shelter for a minimum of 3 days. During a major disaster this could be a time span before assistance will be available. A kit providing an even longer supply is better.
By visiting your local governments ( ie: city, county ect. ) web site you should be able to view their local emergency plan. This may help you be able to access how ready they are prepared to respond to an emergency within your area. Also you can express your views of these plans & possibly offer suggestions for improvements to your local representative.
What many people could do to help themselves before an emergency occurs is to prepare a kit to at least provide food, water, first aid supplies, heat & shelter for a minimum of 3 days. During a major disaster this could be a time span before assistance will be available. A kit providing an even longer supply is better.
By visiting your local governments ( ie: city, county ect. ) web site you should be able to view their local emergency plan. This may help you be able to access how ready they are prepared to respond to an emergency within your area. Also you can express your views of these plans & possibly offer suggestions for improvements to your local representative.
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X Royal said:
I find your attitude a good one, that unfortunately does not reflect reality. It is commendable if your area was prepared for disaster, but other communities across Canada are not so fortunate.
Unfortunately, many local/municipal/regional emergency plans are inadequate to modern requirements. As an example, if you look on MERX (a cross-canada RFP process) you will note dozens of companies, communites and cities advertising over the past year for consultants who are needed to provide guidance on revising and upgrading existing emergency plans. As a further example, the city I live in (about 80,000 people) has NO efficient means of informing the general public if the city water supply becomes contaminated (which did happen and they failed to deal with to the satisfaction of the general public). If they cant handle a simple problem of bad water, how can they be expected to handle an actual disaster when every person in the city will need vital information on where the gather, and where key life resources can be found?
Their emergency plan is based on saying 'keep three days water and food stored.' It takes no account of the possibility of your house being destroyed by earth fire or flood; it takes no account of the segment of the population who live below the poverty line and who cannot afford to keep food and water lying about unused because they live from paycheck to paycheck, or are simply 'unskilled' in preparing for future emergencies (most people do not even have the presence of mind to keep a first aid kit in their vehicle); and it definately does not take into account the high number of homeless / unemployed / criminal elements who cannot be bothered (or dont know how, or dont care how) to plan for emergencies, and instead will prey on those who have planned for it.
F
Fusilier
Guest
Agreed, however the three day plan that is described on various web sites (as per one of my prior posts) is a good start state. I find that most of these checklists etc give the minimum but as GreyMatter said does not take all into account. Emergency management organizations need to take a more realistic look at planning and processes to inform the public. In addition everything I've seen seems to focus on large cities, what about small towns, rural communities etc? Ultimately people must be not only be informed but educated that there needs to be more than just a three day plan. People MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES for life requirements and protection from predators, and there will be predators......
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GreyMatter said:
As for your areas lack of response to the water problem it may have been more of a execution problem than a "no efficient means of informing the general public". With a water problem all your local media sources should have been still available.
As for the plans not taking into account the possibility of loss of housing, or local poverty, the homeless ect. I suspect it should if its properly done. That is why I suggested you review your local plans and make your views known. Sometimes those not directly involved in the planning will have great insight which could be implemented if it is passed on.
GreyMatter have you thought of volunteering to serve on your local committee or at least attending one of their meetings to let your views be heard?
Best Wishes: Rick
You would think the local communities would know what assetts are at their disposal. When Toronto had their 'huge' snowstorm, their emergency people should have had a printout of every snowplough, grader and dumptruck registered in the GTA. They should have been smothering these guys with contracts from day one.
Then there is BC - thousands of forestry workers out of work during the fires of 03. Does the BC gov't call them out on fire duty? Nope. we pull our Army into BC while the locals wave from the golf course.
Fictional board meeting of a huge multi-national corporation:
VP Production: "We could locate a new plant in BC."
VP Human Resources: "We would have to import workers from out of province. They had huge forest fires in 2003, and brought in the Army rather than hire their own knowledgeable forest workers. If BC doesn't trust their own people, we shouldn't either."
Then there is BC - thousands of forestry workers out of work during the fires of 03. Does the BC gov't call them out on fire duty? Nope. we pull our Army into BC while the locals wave from the golf course.
Fictional board meeting of a huge multi-national corporation:
VP Production: "We could locate a new plant in BC."
VP Human Resources: "We would have to import workers from out of province. They had huge forest fires in 2003, and brought in the Army rather than hire their own knowledgeable forest workers. If BC doesn't trust their own people, we shouldn't either."
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TCBF said:
I suspect it may have been a situation of who will pay.
If BC called out the out of work forestry workers they would be responsible to pay them.
If the army was used who payed? Did the federal govt recover the costs from BC? Sounds like passing the buck to me.
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As the Director of Emergency Preparedness for one of Canada's largest cities, let me add some comments.
For GreyMatter, your observation on the challenges of public alerting and warning are bang-on. Certainly this is my top priority in our program and I sit on a national committee called CANALERT which is examining this on a country-wide basis. We are looking at what realistic, affordable, and more importantly effective, options exist for public warning. I wish I could suggest there is a simple solution but there isn't. Whatever we adopt will likely be a combination of media messaging, phone call-outs, public displays and even internet alerting. Text messaging was very important at Virgina Tech. I would certainly like to hear any recommendations or ideas from this forum.
The readiness across Canada varies widely. Some areas are very well prepared, some not. If you feel your area is not well prepared, exercise your democratic right and assail your local elected officials. I think I can speak for most of my colleagues and say that funding for emergency preparedness is always a challenge. Except for a short period following a disaster, locally or otherwise, emergency preparedness is not a high-profile activity and funding suffers accordingly. The more members of the public who make an issue of this, the more likely your area will be able to develop an effective emergency plan.
The three days/72 hours of self-sufficiency was picked for two reasons. First, we feel that in most cases we can provide basic services to most of the public within that time frame. Of course, in a catastrophic event, that might not be possible but its a realistic start. Second, as emergency managers we aim for what is practicable, not ideal. Most of the public puts no or little thought into emergency preparedness. Getting them to just stock 3 days of supplies is a challenge, can you imagine if we suggested everyone stocked two weeks? Possibly a good idea, but not one that is likely to be followed. If we could just get everyone to adopt a basic level of emergency preparedness and awareness, we would be in a much stronger position.
As far as the disadvantaged parts of the public goes, that too is a real concern. When you are dealing with a segment of the public that sees every day as an emergency its pretty difficult to convince them to plan for something worse. But we continue to work on it and try to identify ways we can focus on their needs during a disaster. We knew before Katrina showed it again that for the most part the middle-class (for lack of a better term) are pretty good at taking care of themselves during an emergency or disaster, its the less capable segment of our society that needs our attention.
And a final comment on country versus city preparedness. I frankly wouldn't want everyone in my city to have a generator, for example. First of all, most urban folks don't understand how to use them properly, and second, I don't think our fire department would be happy knowing hundreds of thousands of people were storing cans of gasoline (You would be surprised how many people forget that simple complication) in and around their dwellings. Our power utility also really hates it when some rube plugs a generator into their home circuit the wrong way and energizes the local area. This can be really tough on repair folks.
So I'm all for emergency preparedness (its my profession after all) but keep it in perspective. If we could just get everyone to take some simple steps for family and individual preparedness we would collectively be in much better shape. And Fusilier is exactly right - emergency preparedness is an individual responsiblity.
I am happy to field any questions or handle any comments either on this forum or by PM.
For GreyMatter, your observation on the challenges of public alerting and warning are bang-on. Certainly this is my top priority in our program and I sit on a national committee called CANALERT which is examining this on a country-wide basis. We are looking at what realistic, affordable, and more importantly effective, options exist for public warning. I wish I could suggest there is a simple solution but there isn't. Whatever we adopt will likely be a combination of media messaging, phone call-outs, public displays and even internet alerting. Text messaging was very important at Virgina Tech. I would certainly like to hear any recommendations or ideas from this forum.
The readiness across Canada varies widely. Some areas are very well prepared, some not. If you feel your area is not well prepared, exercise your democratic right and assail your local elected officials. I think I can speak for most of my colleagues and say that funding for emergency preparedness is always a challenge. Except for a short period following a disaster, locally or otherwise, emergency preparedness is not a high-profile activity and funding suffers accordingly. The more members of the public who make an issue of this, the more likely your area will be able to develop an effective emergency plan.
The three days/72 hours of self-sufficiency was picked for two reasons. First, we feel that in most cases we can provide basic services to most of the public within that time frame. Of course, in a catastrophic event, that might not be possible but its a realistic start. Second, as emergency managers we aim for what is practicable, not ideal. Most of the public puts no or little thought into emergency preparedness. Getting them to just stock 3 days of supplies is a challenge, can you imagine if we suggested everyone stocked two weeks? Possibly a good idea, but not one that is likely to be followed. If we could just get everyone to adopt a basic level of emergency preparedness and awareness, we would be in a much stronger position.
As far as the disadvantaged parts of the public goes, that too is a real concern. When you are dealing with a segment of the public that sees every day as an emergency its pretty difficult to convince them to plan for something worse. But we continue to work on it and try to identify ways we can focus on their needs during a disaster. We knew before Katrina showed it again that for the most part the middle-class (for lack of a better term) are pretty good at taking care of themselves during an emergency or disaster, its the less capable segment of our society that needs our attention.
And a final comment on country versus city preparedness. I frankly wouldn't want everyone in my city to have a generator, for example. First of all, most urban folks don't understand how to use them properly, and second, I don't think our fire department would be happy knowing hundreds of thousands of people were storing cans of gasoline (You would be surprised how many people forget that simple complication) in and around their dwellings. Our power utility also really hates it when some rube plugs a generator into their home circuit the wrong way and energizes the local area. This can be really tough on repair folks.
So I'm all for emergency preparedness (its my profession after all) but keep it in perspective. If we could just get everyone to take some simple steps for family and individual preparedness we would collectively be in much better shape. And Fusilier is exactly right - emergency preparedness is an individual responsiblity.
I am happy to field any questions or handle any comments either on this forum or by PM.
F
Fusilier
Guest
TCBF - The bill was sent to the BC government, now whether they paid or not who knows. We did work side by side with the BC forestry and many volunteer firefighters.
Frm OldTanker "And a final comment on country versus city preparedness. I frankly wouldn't want everyone in my city to have a generator, for example. First of all, most urban folks don't understand how to use them properly, and second, I don't think our fire department would be happy knowing hundreds of thousands of people were storing cans of gasoline (You would be surprised how many people forget that simple complication) in and around their dwellings. Our power utility also really hates it when some rube plugs a generator into their home circuit the wrong way and energizes the local area. This can be really tough on repair folks." You are very right, could be an explosive situation!
So I guess the key for people out there that want to go beyond the 3 day basics the point is to educate your/ourselves in various ways and means. I agree that as citizens if we are this concerned for our own families we have a responsibility to bring it up to our local gov't agencies and put the pressure on to improve prepardness. In the mean time I still would like more info on Simons battery thingy...
Frm OldTanker "And a final comment on country versus city preparedness. I frankly wouldn't want everyone in my city to have a generator, for example. First of all, most urban folks don't understand how to use them properly, and second, I don't think our fire department would be happy knowing hundreds of thousands of people were storing cans of gasoline (You would be surprised how many people forget that simple complication) in and around their dwellings. Our power utility also really hates it when some rube plugs a generator into their home circuit the wrong way and energizes the local area. This can be really tough on repair folks." You are very right, could be an explosive situation!
So I guess the key for people out there that want to go beyond the 3 day basics the point is to educate your/ourselves in various ways and means. I agree that as citizens if we are this concerned for our own families we have a responsibility to bring it up to our local gov't agencies and put the pressure on to improve prepardness. In the mean time I still would like more info on Simons battery thingy...
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X Royal said:
PM on the way...
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OldTanker said:
Glad to hear someone is being proactive on this subject, thanks for the supporting comments.
OldTanker said:
- Well, "11 Steps To Survival" is do for an overhaul. Of course, it is no longer available, the toff's telling us that nuclear war is un-survivable. My questions is: What if India and Pakistan, or Israel and Iran have a Thirty Megaton Day? Our problem in Canada is not so much surviving direct hits (unless some rusty old Russian SLBMs are still targetted against our long-closed Pinetree Line sites) but recovering from a light dusting of irradiated Iranian (or Israeli, or Indian, or Pakistani, etc) remains.
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OK, Ill do a quick basics to clarify what Im on about. Its all about watts, watts=amps*volts. this is how you will move from AC to DC and back, you need to grasp this or the rest is a waste of time.
CSA requires all appliances indicate the amps and volts clearly on the model plate. for example fridge A is 120vac and uses 2.5 amps--120 times 2.5 = 300 watts. now to convert to 12 volts DC divide the 300 by 12= 25 DC amps. This means I would draw 25 amps from the battery for each hour of fridge running time. Since a fridge would only run for say 10 minutes an hour, 25 amps may take 6 hours to comsume.
How are we doing?
For the sake of discussion, I have fridge A at 300 watts, and freezer A at 200 watts, my total load is 500 watts, both appliances cycle for 10 minutes an hour so my total watt/hours is 500watts divided by 6 = 84 watts, now at 12 volts divided by the 84 watts = 7 amps draw on the battery. put this aside for a paragraph.
The battery is rated by Ah, amp hours, this is energy for time rating, a 200 Ah battery will give 200 amps for 1 hour, 100 amps for 2 hour, s20 amps for 10 hours and 7 amps for 28 hours.you may notice ive left out any calculations of losses in efficiency, I tag it on the back end, take the 28 hours at 85% = approx 24 hours.
Do not mistake CCA, cold cranking amps for Ah, CCA is the ability of the battery to free energy, the higher the CCA the thicker the plates and links and posts in the battery construction. Ah is generally 10 to 12% of CCA.
Back to our fridge and freezer, 7 amps calculated draw on the battery, the bigger the battery bank the better, my 800Ah bank could carry this for over 5.5 days. But you will want some of this energy for making coffee ( **TIP** buy a well insulated carafe and pour the coffe into it and shut off the coffee maker as soon as the black juice from hell is made) and having a light in the kitchen, so I use 15 amps as my base survival calculation.
If I use 15 amps for 24 hours I consume 360 amps from my battery bank, Ive gotta put it back so I would run the genny for several hours each day, and that is the time to schedule, dishes, a bit of laundry, showers etc, and put a big honking charger onto the batteries to get some amps back into the battery bankto sustain you for the next 22 hour "survival period".
You will need 4- 200Ah, gel or AGM batteries, 4D or 8D are the size of choice, dont mix, get them in a group of the same vintage, gel or AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries are sealed and much safer to store and handle in a dwelling. Do not use a LA lead acid battery or a starting battery indoors, batteries emit sulphuric acid and are explosive. You will need some battery cable and terminals, one red and one black for each battery, I recommend that you have the cables terminated professionally as a poor connection under heavy load will get very hot and possibly cause fire, I even solder the terminals after they have been crimped correctly, pay attention to detail.
Next get an inverter, I use 3000 watt unit from Cantire, 3000 watts is two 1500 watt circuits, 1500 watts is required to operate the almighty coffee maker, for the love of mike dont cheap out now, on the back of this inverter are two terminals, + and -, always remember and never forget, red is positive and black is negative, do not reverse polarity ever!! Anyway terminate each red cable coming from each positive terminal of each battery to the positive terminal on the inverter, ensure that the terminals are contacting each other fully and tighten the nut onto the terminal post securely. repeat with the negative side.
You will need a float charger designed to charge and maintain gel batteries, I use the Vulcan DSP 12, I am biased. Connect the charger to the posts of one of the batteries, positive to positive, neg to neg, and plug in.
You now have the basic survival power pack, from here I installed a manual transfer switch and moved the fridge, freezer, and kitchen outlet to the manual transfer switch. It is critically important that a transfer switch be used if you are connecting your back up pack to the main panel, this prevents your measley little power pack from competing with a nuclear generating station, believe me, you wont win. Aside from fire and explosion it is also a safety issue, during a power outage the utility will have lines under repair, if you connect your genny or back up pack to the grid you could backfeed the grid and electrocute Joe lineman 2 blocks away, they will hunt you down.
The final touch is a big charger, if you wish to sustain longer periods than three days, an automotive unit will do and its handy to have around, I use a Vulcan model 49, but again, Im biased.
Your gonna drop over a $1000 on this, I got used batteries and saved a few $.
I can fire off an image of all of the above confusion for those who wish. send a PM and I can email. unless theres a place here I can post it, include instructions. I know this is a bit long but its important stuff. Any questions?
CSA requires all appliances indicate the amps and volts clearly on the model plate. for example fridge A is 120vac and uses 2.5 amps--120 times 2.5 = 300 watts. now to convert to 12 volts DC divide the 300 by 12= 25 DC amps. This means I would draw 25 amps from the battery for each hour of fridge running time. Since a fridge would only run for say 10 minutes an hour, 25 amps may take 6 hours to comsume.
How are we doing?
For the sake of discussion, I have fridge A at 300 watts, and freezer A at 200 watts, my total load is 500 watts, both appliances cycle for 10 minutes an hour so my total watt/hours is 500watts divided by 6 = 84 watts, now at 12 volts divided by the 84 watts = 7 amps draw on the battery. put this aside for a paragraph.
The battery is rated by Ah, amp hours, this is energy for time rating, a 200 Ah battery will give 200 amps for 1 hour, 100 amps for 2 hour, s20 amps for 10 hours and 7 amps for 28 hours.you may notice ive left out any calculations of losses in efficiency, I tag it on the back end, take the 28 hours at 85% = approx 24 hours.
Do not mistake CCA, cold cranking amps for Ah, CCA is the ability of the battery to free energy, the higher the CCA the thicker the plates and links and posts in the battery construction. Ah is generally 10 to 12% of CCA.
Back to our fridge and freezer, 7 amps calculated draw on the battery, the bigger the battery bank the better, my 800Ah bank could carry this for over 5.5 days. But you will want some of this energy for making coffee ( **TIP** buy a well insulated carafe and pour the coffe into it and shut off the coffee maker as soon as the black juice from hell is made) and having a light in the kitchen, so I use 15 amps as my base survival calculation.
If I use 15 amps for 24 hours I consume 360 amps from my battery bank, Ive gotta put it back so I would run the genny for several hours each day, and that is the time to schedule, dishes, a bit of laundry, showers etc, and put a big honking charger onto the batteries to get some amps back into the battery bankto sustain you for the next 22 hour "survival period".
You will need 4- 200Ah, gel or AGM batteries, 4D or 8D are the size of choice, dont mix, get them in a group of the same vintage, gel or AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries are sealed and much safer to store and handle in a dwelling. Do not use a LA lead acid battery or a starting battery indoors, batteries emit sulphuric acid and are explosive. You will need some battery cable and terminals, one red and one black for each battery, I recommend that you have the cables terminated professionally as a poor connection under heavy load will get very hot and possibly cause fire, I even solder the terminals after they have been crimped correctly, pay attention to detail.
Next get an inverter, I use 3000 watt unit from Cantire, 3000 watts is two 1500 watt circuits, 1500 watts is required to operate the almighty coffee maker, for the love of mike dont cheap out now, on the back of this inverter are two terminals, + and -, always remember and never forget, red is positive and black is negative, do not reverse polarity ever!! Anyway terminate each red cable coming from each positive terminal of each battery to the positive terminal on the inverter, ensure that the terminals are contacting each other fully and tighten the nut onto the terminal post securely. repeat with the negative side.
You will need a float charger designed to charge and maintain gel batteries, I use the Vulcan DSP 12, I am biased. Connect the charger to the posts of one of the batteries, positive to positive, neg to neg, and plug in.
You now have the basic survival power pack, from here I installed a manual transfer switch and moved the fridge, freezer, and kitchen outlet to the manual transfer switch. It is critically important that a transfer switch be used if you are connecting your back up pack to the main panel, this prevents your measley little power pack from competing with a nuclear generating station, believe me, you wont win. Aside from fire and explosion it is also a safety issue, during a power outage the utility will have lines under repair, if you connect your genny or back up pack to the grid you could backfeed the grid and electrocute Joe lineman 2 blocks away, they will hunt you down.
The final touch is a big charger, if you wish to sustain longer periods than three days, an automotive unit will do and its handy to have around, I use a Vulcan model 49, but again, Im biased.
Your gonna drop over a $1000 on this, I got used batteries and saved a few $.
I can fire off an image of all of the above confusion for those who wish. send a PM and I can email. unless theres a place here I can post it, include instructions. I know this is a bit long but its important stuff. Any questions?
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Straightforward and understood. Couple questions. You mentioned solar and wind, is that a backup for when the genny fuel is rationed or a secondary charging system( low draw AM,VHF,CB SSB transceiver possibly?)
I see you are a sawyer. Better saw, Stihl or Husqavarna?
I see you are a sawyer. Better saw, Stihl or Husqavarna?
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the solar/wind are to support the batteries 24/7. you can put low draw, parasitic loads, but be careful of leaving things on.
Im a sawyer by hobby, I designed and built this one in May. I use the Husqvarna 3120 with the 36" bar, it is used to fell, buck and it mounts on the sawmill as the cutting blade, its a monster, when I was a kid my first bike was a kawasaki KH100, this puppies 200 CC.
good times
Im a sawyer by hobby, I designed and built this one in May. I use the Husqvarna 3120 with the 36" bar, it is used to fell, buck and it mounts on the sawmill as the cutting blade, its a monster, when I was a kid my first bike was a kawasaki KH100, this puppies 200 CC.
good times
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+1 on that. I have read the "11 Steps To Survival" and for now it is nearly useless. And now, with www.getprepared.ca, the information there is not so much in depth. But on regard with that, I think there should be a much more informative version, i.e. much more descriptive and with more diagrams like in '11 Steps To Survival'.TCBF said:
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zbm2, thanks, ill check it out sounds interesting, I have gone big box on the new genny, 16Kw generac with auto transfer switch 16 circuits. The old 5kw unit is now bolted to the sawmill and resides out in the bush ready for winter cutting. We heat with geothermal which is great but the compressor needs some juice to turn over, thats why the 16Kw.
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Mike Baker
Thanks much for the link. Took a quick look at getprepared.ca and it seems VERY HELPFUL AND INFORMATIVE. I'll spend much more time browsing it in the near future. At first glance it doesnt seem to address the issue of mutual co-operation/assistance during an extended emergency which is my focus with this thread. None-the-less valuable information.
Thanks much for the link. Took a quick look at getprepared.ca and it seems VERY HELPFUL AND INFORMATIVE. I'll spend much more time browsing it in the near future. At first glance it doesnt seem to address the issue of mutual co-operation/assistance during an extended emergency which is my focus with this thread. None-the-less valuable information.
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