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Watched this abortion that lived of an aerial flood rescue on TV yesterday. Couldn’t help thinking that a simple rope harness would have made life so much easier for everyone…

Quoted from ASRC Seat Harness

This is the webbing seat harness used by the ASRC. If you have a Commercial harness, by all means use it. The harness shown here is the best tied harness that we know of and works very well on all vertical and Semi-technical rescue.

Rescue Swimmer,RSS,SAR,flood,swiftwater rescue,climbing,knots

Disaster Readiness and Backpacking

I remember watching the first prep stages of Hurricane Katrina, oh, about +30 hours before landfall and seeing, among the people carrying small suitcases, a college age girl with a full-on backpack. Right there at the stadium. I was thinking to myself, well, she’s certainly prepared for the stay.

Why Backpacking? | Hiking / Camping Relevance To Disaster Preparedness

After my good friends for nearly 18 years moved to Florida as part of an Aircrew Instructor tour duty station change several large hurricanes (Ivan and Katrina, to mention two) rolled through their area.

Seeing pictures of the devastating effects these storms had on just about everything in sight along with the catastrophic tsunami that hit Indonesia have made me realize that even when everything is simply peachy in the world, bad things can happen at any time.

My friends were always prepared for any emergency, therefore Ivan and Katrina just added to their repetoire of excellent Beer Stories.In fact, Katrina forced the move of a retired Aircrew Marine’s family as they were displaced from their home on the coastline of Mississippi, so my friend took them in for a short time. Yes, we take care of our own.

My philosophy is that most Americans are doing just fine as long as food comes in trucks to restock supermarkets, roads are relatively clear of traffic, and gas stations stay resupplied with no interruptions.

When there are problems, the worst in human nature tends to come to the surface. Luckily in some areas with Hurricane Katrina there were a few who chose to keep watch, in California I’m not so certain that would be an option.

Best bet, have your own food and water, plus the means to keep it.

Earthquake Kits - Not Just For California

Every California native has heard of Northridge and the Bay Area has made it a point that they are expecting a 7.0+ quake at any time. Public awareness in school age kids starts before kindergarten. See |

As part of the ‘Earthquake Kit’ that no Aircrewman has failed to assemble at some point in their lives, I would add some skills and training that would easily fit into the next family camping trip. The standard cupboard fare that we keep at home works quite well to meet the ‘Minimum 3 Day’ rule, but if there’s a mandatory evacuation you might well have to shoulder the load and trek out on foot. If you’re lucky then someone’s secured public transportation.

That means person-portable items to keep ready for an indeterminate period of time, and as the Katrina survivors found out, this meant food, clothing, bedding AND clean water or a means to filter dirty water.

Backup Plan For Carrying Water? Make Everything Else ULTRAlight

Planning on taking the kids and water enough for the entire family means that you’re going to be left with very little room before your own personal Delta-V for walking burns too much energy to carry everything.

From Lightweight Backpacking with Young Children at Backpacking Light: 

Infants can’t walk, and letting them crawl to your destination is neither timely nor hygenic. So that means that Mom’s going to carry the baby in a backpack and Dad’s going to shoulder the rest of the gear. Dad may be shocked at the realization that he’s not going to get to carry the same sub-twenty pound pack that he gets to carry on a summer trip with his buddies, but rules are rules!

The bottom line: you’re both going to be shouldering some weight, so slow down, take it easy, and lower your mileage expectations. A great gear list for cold / snowy trips with kids can be downloaded here.

Clearly the same goes for prepping your lightweight version of your Earthquake Kit / Bugout Bag.

Building Camping and Backpacking Skills | Backpacking with Young Children

Backpacking and lightweight camping is a great way to build important skills, along with building your skills in distributing a family’s load properly with all members shouldering their fair share.

If your kids know how to use their gear, should they ever need to use the mandatory Earthquake Kit at school, it becomes more of a ‘Cool, this is just like camping with Mom and Dad’ experience rather than a traumatizing situation. PMA - positive mental attitude.

As we remember the key to everything is being aware of the tools at hand and survivability programs stressed the value of keeping a level head in a crisis situation. That comes with experience, so get outside and enjoy the outdoors as much as possible while building your family’s knowledge base and confidence.

Camping Safety - No Getting Lost Here!

Kids Hiking Safety - this site has a great philosophy to teach your kids about getting lost/separated. The signal devices every kid should carry while hiking are a whistle and a mirror, add that to a folded up Hefty bag and you’re on it. I recommend putting those three items within the ‘Earthquake Kit’ that most SoCal childcare and preschools have as a mandatory piece of gear.

My son’s preschool asked for specific items within a one gallon Ziploc bag. This had plenty of room for a small flat whistle, non-shatter mirror, and a Hefty bag along with some Neosporin and bandages.

From Hiking With Children:

This is the time to give them a safety whistle, and the beginnings of the essentials in their pack: a snack, some water and a spare layer. Some things that may have been taken for granted now need to be reconsidered: The campsite by the lake, a fire, or the camp spot on the ledge with the great view may now be a safety issue.
In areas where mountain lions and other stalking predators are a concern, simple rules are good. For example, “no running, have a whistle at the ready and always keep in sight of me” might be a good place to start.

Other areas to consider are altitude, sunburns, bee stings. just be aware and prepared. Especially for new parents: the built-in awareness that the baby in your backpack is getting sunburned/cold/ bit by bugs may take time to develop, so you need to be extra aware and diligent.

All in all, it’s best to have a good supply of camping gear that you’re familiar with, and to have your kids adapted to camping and hiking.

Disaster Readiness,earthquake kit,backpacking,lightweight backpacking,camping,bugout bag,hurricane Katrina,hurricane Ivan,hurricane kit,hiking,children,disaster preparedness

The Big List — Contents: “The BIG List”

Basically this is meant for your do it yourself BugoutBag. You know, the earthquake kit that every aircrewman keeps…

LAFD EARTHQUAKE HANDBOOK: PORTABLE AUTO SURVIVAL KIT:

“PORTABLE AUTO SURVIVAL KIT - FROM THE LOS ANGELES CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT’S EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS HANDBOOK”

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program » Preparedness & Response “How the Smart Family Survived a Tsunami (PDF)
Written especially for kids.”

Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country—Your Handbook for the San Francisco Bay Region: “There is a 62% probability that at least one earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater will occur on a known or unknown San Francisco Bay region fault before 2032. After a century of study by geologists, many faults have been mapped in the region, but not all faults are apparent at the surface—some quakes occur on previously unknown faults.”

[Outdoors-Magazine.com] All Kitted Out:

“Modules is the best way to describe how my survival kits are constructed, each one is a self contained module that is complete enough to be used on its own or be used with another module, if the situation warrants it. There are five modules, taking me from the “everyday pocket kit”, up to the “72 hour grab & go bag”.”

Joe’s Ultralight Backpacking / Gear List:

“ON THE BOD

Hiking Shoes (Lowa Tempest Lo) Watch

Nylon T-Shirt 2 pair ‘SmartWool’ Socks

Nylon Hiking Pants Sunglasses

Nylon running shorts Hiking poles (duct tape wrapped around)

Hat (O.R. Sonoran Sombrero)

THE PACK

NOTE: Sleeping pad is inside the pack, providing some form.

CORE CLOTHES

—- ——-

Backpack (GoLite Breeze, 3000+ ci) Nylon Anorak (pockets cut away)

Feathered Friends Swallow (20F, 800-fill) Long Underwear Top (lighweight)

6′x8′ Siltarp knockoff (Campmor) Long Underwear Top (Expedition-wt.)

A16 Bug Bivy Long Underwear Bottoms (lightweight)

50′ Nylon guy line (cut in pieces) Balaclava (O.R. Windstopper fleece)

Seven Kelty Nobendium stakes Gloves, Fleece (cutout fingertips)

3/4-length Sleeping Pad (RidgeRest) GoLite Dome Umbrella

Tyvek groundsheet (6′x3′) Bandana

SURVIVAL

——– HOUSEKEEPING/KITCHEN

——————–

1st Aid Kit

Leatherman ‘Micra’ Titanium pot w/ lid (1.3 liter)

Compass, Orienteering Esbit Pocket Stove

‘Hurricane’ matches Base Stove Reflector (aluminum foil)

Whistle (plastic) Windscreen (folded aluminum foil)

Iodine/Neutra”

Recent Earthquakes in California and Nevada - Index Map: Just in case you’d like to see how strong an earthquake you felt was…

Not wanting to take any word from sites I’m not able to verify content for, I decided to research and establish the potential link between Soviet seismic weaponry and the supercult Aum Shinrikyo. Here’s the link.

Aum Shinrikyo: Once and Future Threat?:

“Millennial visions and apocalyptic scenarios dominate the group’s doctrine, evidenced by the prominent role of Nostradamus as a prophet in Aum Shinrikyo teaching. Ashahara has, on many occasions, claimed to be the reincarnated Jesus Christ, as well as the first “enlightened one” since the Buddha. He has frequently preached about a coming Armageddon, which he describes as a global conflict that would, among other things, destroy Japan with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. According to Ashahara, only the followers of Aum Shinrikyo will survive this conflagration…

…At the time of the Tokyo subway attack, the cult’s principle venture in Russia was the Moscow-Japan University, with headquarters in offices across the street from the Bolshoi Ballet. Their senior Russian partner in the university was a man by the name of Oleg Lobov, at that time also chairman of Russia’s National Security Council and a close confidant of Boris Yeltsin.“

The link would then be Oleg Lobov. Whether or not the Soviet/Russian scientists had perfected an earthquake or seismic weapon is still undetermined except for a single source.

Here’s a little more information about Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Case Study on the Aum Shinrikyo Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations October 31, 1995 Staff Statement

The Truth Seeker - Did Diego Garcia Suffer Heavy Tsunami Damage?

Now, the paranoid among us would wonder why Colin Powell would state yesterday to a reporter that he ‘had no information concerning Diego Garcia’.

I’m not even going into details about the ‘Ring of Fire’ zone around the Pacific just yet. Let’s look at the Atlantic. From early 2004 New York Daily News:

• Killer wave lying in wait:

“A tsunami triggered by a volcanic eruption on an island off the coast of Africa could result in mountainous waves up to 75 feet high crashing into New York and other East Coast cities, scientists are warning.”

This is referring to the Cumbre Vieja Volcano — Potential collapse and tsunami at La Palma, Canary Islands due to a volcanic eruption and lavaslide into the ocean.

• Freak waves, rogue waves, extreme waves and ocean wave climate explains some of the dynamics of the waves.
• Dangerous Phenomena - a maritime site with nice maps and diagrams:

“An ocean-going vessel almost never notices a tsunami, since its amplitude in the deep ocean is no more than 2 metres. However, when approaching the shallow waters of island or continental coastlines, it sharply decreases its speed, and a deformed, large wall of water as high as 16-20 m and more, contacts the shore. Damage to buildings installations and especially, people can be enormous. In the last 1,000 years, Pacific Ocean tsunamis have been observed and recorded over 1,000 times. All of these were major catastrophic events, since smaller events often go unrecorded. “

• BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon - Supervolcanoes: Transcript of a BBC show on supervolcanoes - like what would happen if the entire Yellowstone area went up at once.