ARES (and survival) Lessons to be learned from Japan Earthquake

The news from Japan each day seems to get more and more devastating. Thousands without power, water, basic needs, shelter, clothing. Here in the USA, anyone who has had contact with Emergency Management in almost any way has been told time and again, Prepare yourself and your family for survival for 72 hours without assistance from ANYONE.

While most of us can not expect to be effected by a tsunami, more commonly we are hit with ice storms, heavy snowfall, tornadoes, and everyone's favorite, hurricanes.

In some fashion, if you live long enough, you WILL experience one of the aforementioned disasters. You may not be out of power for more than a day or three, but, an average of a week or more for the more larger storms is quite possible. Take todays first couple paragraphs of news from Japan from Foxnews.com:

TAGAJO, Japan -- People across a devastated swath of Japan suffered for a third day Sunday without water, electricity and proper food, as the country grappled with the enormity of a massive earthquake and tsunami that left more than 10,000 people dead in one area alone.


Japan's prime minister called the crisis the most severe challenge the nation has faced since World War II, as the grim situation worsened. Friday's disasters damaged a series of nuclear reactors, potentially sending one through a partial meltdown and adding radiation contamination to the fears of an unsettled public.


Temperatures began sinking toward freezing, compounding the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted [COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=inherit ! important]cars[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.


In Rikusentakata, a port city of over 20,000 virtually wiped out by the tsunami, Etsuko Koyama escaped the water rushing through the third flood of her home but lost her grip on her daughter's hand and has not found her.

(Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/13/japan-regions-scarce-water-power-food/#ixzz1GX3DiqW1 )

10,000 dead in one area, a town of 20,000 wiped out. Cold weather, no water, no food, no electricity, no telephones, no TV, on and on. Toss in a little nuclear radiation from 4 reactors, and you have a mess on top of a disaster.

In our general world, our homes will remain intact. Do you have enough food for a week in non-perishable form? Do you have capability to flush your toilets? Gas for your generator? Propane for your gas grill or heater? Do you have a couple days of clothes packed in a weather resistant box, along with high energy snack bars (granola, candy, and the like), a self powered AM/FM radio (hand crank style), bottled water, a list of your current medications, and over $100 in small bills (if the power is out, so are the ATM's and most cash registers/credit card machines), cables of the length needed to connect your home radio to your vehicles battery, eating utensils, sterno cans, candles in plastic bags....all enough for your family???

The list can get enormous, ranging from dog food, canned food, a weeks worth of water per person, my personal favorite-knives and other self defense items, and so on.....

I ask that each of you, as you read the headlines of the issues facing those in Japan, both at the landing site of the tsunami as well as the outlying area's without normal services, please think of what you would need to survive a week for you and your family, how would you communicate with the outside world if all you normally use were to be gone, and what you would need if you were called upon to help others.

Thanks, and stay safe

Gary Lang
K4GHL
NC EM AREA 11 ARES DEC
​

 

"While most of us can not expect to be effected by a tsunami, more commonly we are hit with ice storms, heavy snowfall, tornadoes, and everyone's favorite, hurricanes."

Those on the West coast do not see most of that....but we can get Tsunamis....and did get hit in some areas as a result of the quake in Japan....

In the event of a large quake on our coast, most of the coast from California to Alaska will see heavy damage not just from the quake, but from a Tsunami

Each area of the country has its own issues.....do not forget there is a very large part of the country West of the Mississippi that has different issues than the East coast

 

Also, there are a number of users from around the world

Bet they have issues that we will never see

 

Gary's message is very timely and important. Hams, especially ARES/RACES hams, should be some of the best "prepared" people in the country. It is not only reasonable to have your home and family prepared but, each vehicle, because it is your 'moveable home', should be at least minimally prepared. Just like all these poor people in Japan, your home can be destroyed and unusable in moments. Make sure you have the 'bare essentials' in your vehicle as well as it may have to be your home for the foreseeable future.

One simply cannot be over-prepared....

Former EC, DEC and Nevada SEC

 

Remember that 72 hours worth of food, later, meds, etc is the MINIMUM and that such provisions must be in quatities sufficient for each individual person to be supported by the cache. The poor people in the heavily impacted areas of Japan are now well beyond that 72 hour period and many are still without food, water, shelter, etc.

 

they are saying in Japanese online news paper, that lack of communications are big problem, there are no more cell phone, internet, landline.
some small villages , they are sending some of their people by foot to send message.
it appear that high power ( 50 watts or so ) VHF radio and good antenna, back up power ( a lot of them to last days ) is the key.
also Miyagi government were asking to volunteer to bring HF radio, power supply, dipole antenna , etc.
so HF capability seems to be also helpful.

 

many of the designated shelters ( usually schools there ) could not able to establish communications , in some place for 4 ,5 days ( therefore, they could not ask for help, and ask rescuer helicopters to bring more water, etc ) .

They did not had enough stored at each shelters , ( a lot of ) water bottles,foods, flash lights, batteries for lights,

it is probably good idea that HAM radio station permanently installed at designated shelters along with generator, several hundred AH batteries, HF, VHF, packet like winlink.

also, information such as finding out who is at which shelters, who is alive, who is confirm dead, who is missing were difficult to find.

may be we can develop some sort of database system work with packet radio for disaster like this, if we already don't have one yet. for example, by entering DOB or SS # , Name , address etc will bring out status of that person, at which shelters staying, etc.

 

I as a ham am always prepared. So prepared that I started my own website here for my area. Its the reason I became a ham.

http://tpshtfsc.spruz.com