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For all of Berkeley's other WTF moments, disaster preparedness is one area in which they really have their act together. Apparently the city has supplied neighborhood caches of basic emergency equipment (first aid kits, gloves, hard-hats, fire extinguishers, walkie-talkies, flashlights...), provides assistance for setting up neighborhood response groups, and offers three introductory training courses for residents.
On Saturday![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kelseypinkwater and I crashed (having not pre-registered, and not being Berkeley residents) the course on light search and rescue (the other two are disaster first aid and fire suppression). The class was very basic, designed mostly to explain key principles and give a sense of how a search and rescue team should function. Besides kelseypinkwater, there was only one other person there who looked younger than 40, and most of the other attendees were over 60. Heh, while neighborhood disaster preparedness is a pretty nifty retirement hobby, most girl-children of the 40's and 50's did not get nearly enough time playing with blocks and other mechanical training toys. It showed. I don't know if this also a trait of that demographic, or just not something I encounter much given my peers, but the older residents had no idea where to acquire supplies other than at "an emergency supply store". We were the popular kids by being able to say things like "army surplus", "you can find something like that much cheaper at the local hardware store", and "REI".
Even though hurricanes and earthquakes are entirely different in nature, the firemen who did the training used several pictures from New Orleans as evidence that huge urban disasters do happen (Loma Prieta only affected a small percentage of the population, and the Berkeley/Oakland Hills fire was limited in scope with surprisingly few fatalities). Though they were good natured, there was evident bitterness about the federal response to disasters in general, but to Katrina in particular (One of them is on a national emergency response team, and had been deployed to help out, but was turned back at Texas).
My main interest was in figuring out what I need to do to get something like this set up in my neighborhood, and though I did learn something new (cribbing!), the course mostly served to let me know how fucked we will be in a severe disaster. I want to say it can't be as bad as Katrina, but I am not so sure. I look around my densely populated neighborhood, built on what used to be marsh-land, and am pretty sure that fewer than 1 out every 50 residents has any form of earthquake box. In my neighborhood, some of that is certainly due to obliviousness, but some of it is also due to income. As could be seen by how many of the folk at that class were upper-middle class, preparedness is somewhat of a luxury (I am not saying it should be, and I know a lot of people of moderate means who keep packed emergency bags by their beds, it is really not a priority for much of the living-week-to-week population).
The trainers had suggested that Berkeley residents should expect to be without help for three days, as local teams would be taking care of the most urgent stuff first (I also learned that there is a pipeline of jet-fuel from the Richmond refineries to the Oakland airport running along parts of 80/880. That kind of urgent stuff. Fun.) I have no idea how to estimate a response time for Oakland given that there is the airport as well as many more sites where industrial stuff can go horribly awry. We also have a denser population many of whom are very poor. Given how much of the population is armed, I can't imagine that the violence of New Orleans won't be repeated.
On Saturday
kelseypinkwater and I crashed (having not pre-registered, and not being Berkeley residents) the course on light search and rescue (the other two are disaster first aid and fire suppression). The class was very basic, designed mostly to explain key principles and give a sense of how a search and rescue team should function. Besides kelseypinkwater, there was only one other person there who looked younger than 40, and most of the other attendees were over 60. Heh, while neighborhood disaster preparedness is a pretty nifty retirement hobby, most girl-children of the 40's and 50's did not get nearly enough time playing with blocks and other mechanical training toys. It showed. I don't know if this also a trait of that demographic, or just not something I encounter much given my peers, but the older residents had no idea where to acquire supplies other than at "an emergency supply store". We were the popular kids by being able to say things like "army surplus", "you can find something like that much cheaper at the local hardware store", and "REI". Even though hurricanes and earthquakes are entirely different in nature, the firemen who did the training used several pictures from New Orleans as evidence that huge urban disasters do happen (Loma Prieta only affected a small percentage of the population, and the Berkeley/Oakland Hills fire was limited in scope with surprisingly few fatalities). Though they were good natured, there was evident bitterness about the federal response to disasters in general, but to Katrina in particular (One of them is on a national emergency response team, and had been deployed to help out, but was turned back at Texas).
My main interest was in figuring out what I need to do to get something like this set up in my neighborhood, and though I did learn something new (cribbing!), the course mostly served to let me know how fucked we will be in a severe disaster. I want to say it can't be as bad as Katrina, but I am not so sure. I look around my densely populated neighborhood, built on what used to be marsh-land, and am pretty sure that fewer than 1 out every 50 residents has any form of earthquake box. In my neighborhood, some of that is certainly due to obliviousness, but some of it is also due to income. As could be seen by how many of the folk at that class were upper-middle class, preparedness is somewhat of a luxury (I am not saying it should be, and I know a lot of people of moderate means who keep packed emergency bags by their beds, it is really not a priority for much of the living-week-to-week population).
The trainers had suggested that Berkeley residents should expect to be without help for three days, as local teams would be taking care of the most urgent stuff first (I also learned that there is a pipeline of jet-fuel from the Richmond refineries to the Oakland airport running along parts of 80/880. That kind of urgent stuff. Fun.) I have no idea how to estimate a response time for Oakland given that there is the airport as well as many more sites where industrial stuff can go horribly awry. We also have a denser population many of whom are very poor. Given how much of the population is armed, I can't imagine that the violence of New Orleans won't be repeated.
