EMC173 A lesson in Preparedness
To:   Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin
To:   Emergency Management Agencies via Internet and Radio
By:   Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) of the
      California Governor's Office of Emergency Services  

EMC173  A Lesson in Preparedness     Release  3/1/99 

A Lesson in Disasteer Preparedness
(original article by Bruce Miller, KC7IAY)*

     "I learned something important during the fall l995 floods
here in western Washington. After confirming the need to help
filling sandbags, I headed north from Seattle at about midnight.
On the way, I thought, 'Maybe I should stop and get a gallon of
water.' But I didn't; I couldn't imagine a work station not 
having drinking water.
     After a couple of hours of physical labor, I got thirsty.
I found cases of soda pop in a (local) building. There was 
also coffee, which I don't drink, but no drinking water. In
desperation, I grabbed a can of soda and went back to filling
sandbags.
     An hour later, a Red Cross van arrived. 'They'll have
water,' I thought. Wrong. They had coffee and hot chocolate, 
but no drinking water. I took a cup of hot water for the
chocolate and sipped on that. But that was too slow to replace
the fluid I'd lost hefting 40-pound sandbags.
     Then I got hungry. I went back to the (local) building,
where I found plenty of food - mostly meat. I'm a vegetarian. 
The lunches the Red Cross van dropped off were cold cuts on
white bread with corn chips. With lots of salt to make me
thirstier, that's not my idea of nutrition for hard work. So
I had hot chocolate.
     Around 6 a.m. I headed into a nearby town where a massive
effort was underway to build a second wall to keep the Sagit
River out of the business district. After two hours of work
by hundreds of people, fluids ran short. I informed -the- net
control and a Red Cross van eventually appeared with drinking
water. But hot coffee for those with cold feet from wading in
the flood waters came later.
     I'm not promoting vegetarianism. My point is that before
you go to help in an emergency, make sure you bring provisions
for your particular needs -- water, food, medicine, whatever.
It's not enough to be self-sufficient in radios and batteries.
It you don't provide for your own needs, you may not be able
to work effectively on behalf of others at the site.
     In his book, 'Your Body's Cries for Water', (Global Health
Solutions) F Batmanghelidj, MD, explains why soda, coffee and
similar drinks can't substitute for water, and how _most people_
don't drink enough plain water to maintain good health, even
under normal conditions. I learned my lesson. I now carry at
least one gallon of drinking water in my car at all times, in
addition to backup batteries for the handheld radios."

* Originally in March l996 "The Radiogram" of the Group Health
Cooperative of Puget Sound Emergency Communications Team, and
reprinted in the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club's "Key-Klix"
in November l996.
                           ---
To subscribe to bulletins, use the Subscription Services
web page at <http://acs.oes.ca.gov/subscribe.html>. If
you don't have web access, just send an e-mail message to
<mailto:emcomm-bulletin-sub@harthaven.com>.

   - For training assistance contact the ACS Training Officer
     at the web site or send an email to larton@garlic.com
   - Submit suggestions, topics or comments on the bulletins to
     cary.mangum@macnexus.org or cary_mangum@oes.ca.gov

Bulletins are on the ACS Web page: http://acs.oes.ca.gov  -and a
Landline BBS: 916-262-0856 (graphical & standard interface); and
a FTP Archive: ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/packet/tcpip/incoming for 
some bulletins. For earlier ones: ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/races