AzEIN

'Remember that big storm a couple or 35 years ago...?'

2012-01-26T15:56:00.009-07:00

One of the more interesting stories I covered back in the day as a newspaper reporter was about the weather. I still remember the headline: “What’s With the Wacky Winter Weather?”

I’ve always been a sucker for alliteration.

That ran in my college newspaper one year when Flagstaff was hit by La Niña, which was 1995 or so. Winter that year was extremely mild, so much so that it was a frequent topic of conversation. I remember the temperature that whole season seemed to hover at 50, day and night, for months. I’m sure the temps varied but it barely snowed if at all, and there was a constant layer of thin clouds overhead, just enough to make everything look washed out.

La Niña is a weather phenomenon characterized by cool, dry weather conditions in this part of the world. It sure was sedate circa 1995. Maybe saying we were “hit” by La Niña is a little like saying we were swamped by a vacuum.

The heavy hitting actually comes from El Niño, the cranky brother of La Niña that brings untoward weather in the form of heavy precipitation.

Two years ago, we were seeing just how headstrong El Niño could be. From Jan. 18 through Jan. 23, several feet of snow and many inches of rain – up to 10 inches of rain in some areas – fell in Arizona, causing devastation to life and property. The Navajo Nation was buried under snow, requiring aerial relief for residents in remote areas. Flooding washed out homes in Black Canyon City in Yavapai County, along Tonto Creek in Gila County, and in Wenden in La Paz County. (Left: The entrance to Gisela, one of the Gila County communities affected by flooding during the winter storms in 2010.)

The National Weather Service has published an assessment encapsulating this storm. It's perfect for fans of weather data and can be found here.

This weather event was the biggest disaster I encountered since joining the Arizona Division of Emergency Management in March 2006. Besides being deployed for the first time with the state all-hazard incident management team to Wenden in response to flooding there, I became very familiar with other parts of my home state I’d never visited before, like Punkin Center and Gisela. (Left: Centennial Wash flooding Wenden in January 2010. Photo courtesy La Paz County.)

Growing up in Flagstaff meant knowing about (or, in my case, living through) the Great Snowstorm of 1967. This benchmark snowstorm was actually a couple of storms that basically ran into each other over Arizona. Flagstaff recorded 86 inches of snow; that’s more than 7 feet, although local lore would have that snowstorm dumping 12 feet of snow on us. I was a little kid, so 7 feet might as well have been 20 feet. (Right: Northern Arizona as seen from the air on Jan. 25, 2010.)

I was surprised to find out that even Gila Bend and Wickenburg got a few inches of snow from that storm.

Two years ago the third biggest winter storm hit Arizona, and my memories of it are becoming as blurry as the one that I saw firsthand when I was 4. The biggest difference is I can’t say I don’t know how to handle the next one that comes.

For winter preparedness tips, check out the links below as found on the Arizona Emergency Information Network:

Personal Preparedness

Severe Weather Forecast

Preparedness Comes in Many Forms

2011-12-28T09:43:00.008-07:00

I recently hiked the Grand Canyon with family and friends. Even though we planned this trip well in advance (13 months in order to reserve cabins at Phantom Ranch), it turns out preparedness was the key to our success.

Our Grand Canyon hike preparedness came in 2 forms; training hikes to ensure our ability to handle the South Kaibab and Bright Angel trails and shopping to ensure we had the right gear to endure adverse weather.

All that preparedness paid off.

We were well versed on the weather conditions. I checked the weather forecast for the Grand Canyon a couple times a day . . .hoping the cute little snowflakes would disappear. Since they showed no sign of disappearing, I was prepared with water resistant pants, jacket and gloves. Thankfully, I did not need to put this apparel to the test . . .but better warm than a soggy mess.

The trails that we traversed 2 miles below the rim of the Grand Canyon were covered with snow and ice. Luckily we were prepared with cramp-ons that attached to the bottom of our shoes and gave us a Spiderman-like grip of the icy trail. Ok, that may be an exaggeration . . .but they really did help and certainly improved my confidence as we walked on the slippery trail.

Other preparedness items we carried are similar to what you might find in your personal preparedness kit in your car or at home; duct tape, first aid kit, food, water, flashlight and Swiss army knife. We put all of these to use on the trek.

(Note photo of my brother with duct tape holding together his lunch bag)

While I look back on this adventure with fondness, perhaps the next vacation should involve less preparedness and more relaxation.

In Which I Wave to Winter From Afar

2011-12-13T14:25:00.012-07:00

I recently came off a splendid 10-day holiday. It was really a stay-cation spent mostly near Bethany Home Road in central Phoenix, but stay-cation sounds more elegant if I refer to it as being on holiday.

I don’t like to plan lots of things for my holidays, like long trips to the beach, preferring instead to be spontaneous and cheap. I do enjoy going out to local eateries I usually don’t have the chance to visit for lunch during a regular work week, and this means I can take my time and splash my food with abandon.

(I’m not really exaggerating. I went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on the last day of my holiday, and I’m pretty sure the fact that I splashed a lime wedge in my pho twice, leaving puddles on my communal table and spots on my shirt, is the reason the guy facing me on the other side of the dining room left abruptly.)

I was on the tail end of a sickness, too. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad. It lasted the whole month of November and through my holiday but the worst part of it were the first few days when it started. I was worried that it was the flu, since it is flu season. In fact, last week was National Influenza Vaccination Week. I tend to get my shots as early as they are offered but this year was different and I am lagging. Even as I wrote this I thought I was too late, but apparently this is the time of year to get one if you haven’t already. I suppose it could've been RSV. I've never had that before (that I'm aware.)

I contemplated going to Flagstaff for a day or two during my holiday to see and feel winter up close, but honestly, one of the reasons I left Flag in the first place almost 13 years ago is because of this:

And this:

Sure, snow is gorgeous to watch when it’s fluttering down and forcing you to hum “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” (I’m partial to the original Andy Williams version.) Snowfall can be surreal, especially at night, when the sound of everything outside is muffled yet you can hear when a big, wet snowflake hits your ear.

Watching snow coat the countryside and flirting with a heart attack while shoveling said snow are mutually exclusive, though, at least in my humble opinion. The exact moment I decided I’d had enough snow came during one of the last winter storms I would endure in Flagstaff:

I was in my upstairs apartment, likely drinking hot apple cider. It had been snowing all day long, those big flakes that look like dandelion seeds. My apartment faced a small, quiet residential street just north of the Northern Arizona University campus, so the sound of a high-revving engine stuck out conspicuously. I suspected some poor college kid from Phoenix got a Honda Accord high-centered in the snow on that side street, not unusual since those were the last streets that got plowed.

Not one to turn my back on a chance to build some karma, I threw on my heavy coat and gloves, and went outside to help someone push a car over a snow bank. This is what I saw stuck outside:

“I hope they have someone to call,” I muttered to myself as I took off my heavy coat and gloves while heading back inside to my hot cider.

Is there a moral to this story? Maybe. It might be something like be prepared. Or check the National Weather Service before driving places where it might snow. Or be aware of the effect freezing temps can have on your water pipes.

My own moral: You don’t have to shovel sunshine.

The Trouble with Turkeys

2011-11-22T16:51:00.012-07:00

Thursday is Thanksgiving, an opportunity to give thanks, gather with family and friends, and if you’re not careful start a cooking fire.

According to one news report, firefighters respond to something like 1,000 house fires every Turkey Day. Unattended cooking is the top cause of fires in the home.

Entranced by stories of a moist, flavorful turkey in a fraction of the time, frying the Thanksgiving turkey is becoming increasing popular; unfortunately, it’s a dangerous cooking method if not practiced with caution.

You don’t have to take my word for it, but maybe you’ll heed the warning of America’s favorite Starfleet captain and turkey-fry survivor William Shatner, star of a new State Farm video, “Eat, Fry, Love,” about the dangers of Tribble ... I mean turkey frying. Watch the video below.

“Fire, metal, oil and turkey are glorious when in harmony,” an enlightened Shatner intones. “But their power are unrelenting in careless hands.”

Admittedly, I know nothing about frying a turkey. I’ve never tried it; it sounds like too much clean-up.. The top safety tips, reports NBC News, for deep turkey fryers

* Thaw the turkey before you put it in the oil. A frozen turkey can cause hot, bubbling oil to flash over. The National Turkey Federation recommends refrigerator thawing and allowing approximately 24 hours for every five pounds of bird thawed in the refrigerator.

* Don't over-fill the pot with oil before putting the turkey in. Determine the amount of oil you’ll need before putting the turkey in the fryer.

* Turn the flame off before you put the turkey in the fryer.

* Use the fryer outside, away from the house, the garage, and wooden decks and porches.

* Keep an all-purpose fire extinguisher at the ready. Don’t use water to put out a grease fire. If the fire is too big, call 9-1-1.

* Never ever leave the fryer unattended.

I hear a deep-fried bird is tasty, but I’ll stick to making filling balls (you heard me right, filling in ball form. It’s a Pennsylvania Dutch thing) and letting someone else cook the turkey in the oven.

For cooking tips or additional information on turkey fryer safety, visit the Scottsdale Fire Department’s website at http://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/fire/turkeyfryersafety

So if you’re in charge of cooking the turkey this Thanksgiving and are thinking about frying that bad boy, we ask that you be safe about it. In the sage words of Bill Shatner, “How do you plan to keep yourself, your family and me safe from turkey fryer fire?”

Cooler Weather Brings Joy in Many Ways

2011-11-09T09:23:00.012-07:00

I am loving this time of year. It is not so much about the weather . . . although I am elated to have a fire in my fireplace. It is really about breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Last week was the culmination of 18 months of planning . . . the largest exercise in state history. This exercise, also known as Vigilant Guard, involved more than 8,000 participants representing over 250 agencies from every level of government.

Now that I can look back on it . . . there were some cool things achieved. Here are my top five favorite things about the exercise:

5) Statewide participation. Every county public health department and almost every hospital in the state participated. That is huge. From Kingman to Sells to Whiteriver and just about every place in between. They tested decon, communication systems, patient tracking and much more. Very cool to see the medical community come together in this way.

4) I got to know my neighbors. The AZ Division of Emergency Management (a small but mighty force of 60 full-timers) is collocated with the Arizona National Guard. Although many of us work in the same building, our missions and responsibilities are different … so our paths don’t always cross. Over the last few months we shared an exhaustive meeting schedule.

3) Cool photos. Generally when we do exercises at the state level it does not involve the “boots on the ground” movement of personnel and equipment . . you know the stuff that looks cool. This exercise integrated first responders with military resources.
(photo courtesty of Todd Tamcsin, American Red Cross)

2) Rubble pile. A rubble pile that simulated a collapsed building was constructed at the old Phoenix Fire Training Academy. This pile was designed to allow first responders to train in a realistic environment, but designed by engineers to ensure first responder safety. The rubble pile will remain and become part of future first responder training.

1) Relationships. I maintain a list of about 700+ of my peers . . .and last week I got to meet a few more or at least put a face with a name. It is often said that you don’t want to be exchanging business cards at a disaster. This exercise allowed many of us to work together and get a feel for our strengths and capabilities.

There actually were a few more cool things about the exercise but I must admit, with this exercise behind me . . . I am looking forward to some much needed vacation time and some relaxation by the fireplace.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

2011-10-04T10:20:00.007-07:00

(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) I am feeling something between nostalgia and déjà vu.

You see, it seems the floods in the Schulz Fire area northeast of Flagstaff are occurring again. This isn’t breaking news, per se; there were accurately predicted to occur last summer following the Schultz Fire, which scorched more than 15,000 acres in the mountains bordering Flagstaff. They are expected to occur primarily during monsoon season each year for at least a few more years.

That fire itself was extremely reminiscent of the Radio Fire in 1977, which began on the southern base of Mount Elden and ran up and over that Flagstaff landmark, destroying radio dishes and tower equipment at the top of the mountain, thus the moniker.

My neighborhood chums and I who lived on lower Alta Vista Drive watched the fire start and grow; at first, we thought it was a massive barbecue in Bushmaster Park or perhaps a Babbitt family reunion. And the smoke didn’t abate. And the slurry bombers arrived, and the carpet of coals that were burning trees glowed through the night, a sight familiar again when the Schultz Fire burned last year.

It might seem that rain would be the perfect antidote for a forest fire – and in some cases, it’s certainly welcome – but when it rains on a forest area that has been denuded by fire, especially on a slope, like a mountainside, flooding becomes the hazard. A forest floor burned free of vegetation cannot effectively absorb water, and like a barren moonscape baked by the sun, that forest floor becomes a smooth tabletop that transports water quickly. The result: flooding.

And flooding is exactly what residents in the Schultz area are contending with this week, and this is becoming the monsoon season that wouldn’t die. I recently returned from a multi-month deployment to Coconino County where I worked as the public information officer there during the crucial summer monsoon months. Without having historical data at my fingertips, I’m relying solely on memory as a Flag native when I say this past monsoon season didn’t seem particularly heavy. But it doesn’t take rain of biblical proportions to cause damaging floods in those fire-affected areas near Flagstaff. (Note: This picture was taken at the Bellemont National Weather Service near Flagstaff in August. Their set-up is pretty impressive.)

The forecast for Flagstaff this week calls for chances of rain from 10 percent, which is next to no chance, and 80 percent, which is a veritable certainty. In the middle of that is the chance of rain and snow on Thursday night and Friday.

I used to love the monsoon rains, but peering out the window of my office in the Coconino County Administrative Center to look at gathering storm clouds and knowing it meant my NOAA weather radio could soon be sounding off a flood alert, not to mention people’s lives and property could be endangered, zapped a lot of allure out of those storms.

Here's to a mild autumn in Flagstaff. It can't arrive too soon.

Let's Get Cookin'

2011-09-19T14:37:00.004-07:00

September means many different things to many different people. September signals the beginning of football season (synonymous with the end of “date season” according to my girlfriend). It’s also the time of year that we in the Valley begin to talk--if only at a whisper for fear of jinxing ourselves—about cooler weather and afternoon’s with the front door open.

Here in the Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN) offices, September is better known as National Preparedness Month, an enchanting time of year when Judy, Greg and myself strive to get out in front of the public and promote our preparedness mantra of PLAN, PREPARE, INQUIRE, INSPIRE. In other words, prepare a plan , make a kit, be informed and inspire others to prepare through action and advocacy like joining a CERT team, giving blood or learning hands-only CPR.

Just as September has come to have different meanings, National Preparedness Month is celebrated with the same variety—safety fairs, preparedness presentations, fire drills, school curriculums and cooking challenges. What’s that you say? A cooking challenge?

AzEIN is observing Preparedness Month with its annual just in case arizona Poster Contest and something new for 2011—an Emergency Kit Cook-off If you’re a fan of food or preparedness or both, you’ll want to submit your own recipe based on our 72-hour "black box" of ingredients.

“The Emergency Kit Cook-off is about doing a lot with little,” said Chef Jon-Paul Hutchins of the Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale. “It’s a good challenge for creative home cooks and a hands-on way for youths to interact with the preparedness message. I hope folks take an interest in the cook-off and invent some unique but tasty dishes.”

News from the cook-off will be posted to the Emergency Kit Cook-off webpage and Facebook (www.facebook.com/ArizEIN) and tweeted (www.twitter.com/AzEIN) using the #KitCookoff hashtag. Submissions to both the Emergency Kit Cook-off and the Poster Contest will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 7.

Last year at this time I blogged about a trip I took to Yosemite National Park and the monetary cost of creativity. I included a picture of a flashlight stickered with a QR code and a promise to continue “to transcend traditional ideas … and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations.”

We believe the Emergency Kit Cook-off is an result of that promise. We look forward to tasting your 72-hour recipes!

Yard Work Brings Ultimate Payoff

2011-07-28T12:05:00.005-07:00

Sometimes I find my job challenging because I don’t always have tangible, visible results to show after a day of work.

I think this is why I like doing yard work.

Last weekend I raked four bags of those horrible carob tree pods (thanks, neighbor) and then mowed, edged, swept, etc … .after a few hours the result was a beautiful yard.

While I am always quite proud when I am done, I can only image how it would feel to know that my yard work helped save my house from a wildfire.

This week, a report came to our office “How Treatment Fuels Saved Homes from the 2011Wallow Fire.” The report identifies how the reduction in the fuels (grasses and trees), helped slow the growth rate of the Wallow Fire. By thinning the fuels, the fire was easier for the fire fighters to attack. There are some great photos (page 4) of the Alpine area where you can clearly see where the fire burned “hot” and then was slowed in treatment areas before reaching some Alpine residences.

But it not just the fine work of White Mountain Stewardship, the report also highlights how homeowners that created defensible space around their homes assisted the firefighters in structure protection.

By homeowners taking the time to do simple “yard work” chores like clear the roof, gutters and eaves of debris, removing dead trees and trim branches . . . it helped protect their homes.

While I know this weekend my yard work will not yield the dramatic result of saving my house, it will be another opportunity for me to feel the satisfaction of a job well done.

A Sticky Situation

2011-07-20T15:29:00.005-07:00

When you live in certain parts of the U.S. you assume inferred risks. It’s like how peanut butter and jelly (or for me Fluff) go together.

Some regions and states are synonymous with certain emergencies. Residents of Florida are as tacitly aware of hurricanes as Midwesterners are of tornados and Californians of earthquakes.

Still, as mindful as we are of these regional hazards, there are emergencies and disasters that blindside everyone and leave us asking “Did that really just happen?” That’s why all-h

azard preparedness—plan for the probable, prepare for possible and beware the preposterous (I’m trade marking that!), including the Zombie Apocalypse and any thought to a remake of the 1986 film Howard the Duck—is so important.

A good, real life example of a “preposterous” or unpredictable disaster would be, of course, the Great Molasses Flood. What’s that you say? You haven’t heard of the Great Molasses Flood? Well let me tell you, it was no joke.

The Great Molasses Flood happened on an unusually warm day in Boston. In those days, molasses not sugar was the prevailing sweetener, and it was fermented to make rum and ethyl alcohol and used in the production of munitions.

Just after noon on January 15, 1919, a tank 50 feet tall and 90 feet in diameter burst, unleashing, according to eyewitness accounts, an 8- to 15-foot torrent of molasses that tore through the surrounding neighborhoods at speeds of over 30 mph. The syrupy wave killed 21, injured 150 and covered some places in 2 to 3 feet of the viscous goo.

Responders from all across Boston rushed to the scene to find what The Boston Post described as a “scene almost indescribable in words. Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and

swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form—whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly paper.”

Afterwards there was rampant speculation as to the cause of the tank rupture. The company that owned the tank said anarchists had sabotaged the container; however, it was later learned that the tank had been leaking molasses since its construction four years early. Even more damning were reports of strange sounds and vibrations coming from the tank. Ultimately, the company was found culpable and ordered to pay $1,000,000 to the victims.

The point in all this is that some emergencies and disasters are unpredictable. We can track a hurricane

on weather radar and you may get away without ever making any preparedness arrangements. But remember that there are events (natural and man-made) for which there are no advance alert and warning systems, and it is in those moments that you may have to skedaddle and do it quickly.

So when we suggest you plan for the probable, prepare for possible and arrange for the preposterous, you might consider writing and rehearsing family communication and preparedness plans, and packing an emergency “go kit “with food, water and all the important things (e.g., medications, important documents, etc.) you might need. It’s unlikely there will ever be another Great Molasses Flood, but you won’t catch me saying “never.”

No Respite for the Emergency Weary

2011-06-28T11:57:00.017-07:00

This is the first workday I’ve spent at my desk since Friday, June 3. My desk calendar – a daily cartoon from The New Yorker – is still on that date. I had a three-day weekend on June 4-6, and when I came back into the office on June 7, the State Emergency Operations Center was activated in support of efforts to combat what would become the largest wildfire in state history.

The previous weekend, Memorial Day weekend, I was on call and covered the beginnings of that fire, which would be named the Wallow Fire. That was a busy weekend for me, but Ethan had me beat when he went on call and essentially worked all the June 4-5 weekend. By June 7, we were all stationed in the SEOC where we watched the footprint of the Wallow Fire grow larger and larger; during one phase of the disaster, the footprint of the fire looked like an actual footprint of a bear or a particularly heavy T-Rex. I thought it ironically fitting that this behemoth of a blaze would mark its territory in such a way.

Above: T-Rex footprint.

Above: Wallow Fire footprint on June 9, 2011

Sometimes I wonder how I would explain something like this to small kids. My own children are adults now, and our watershed emergency moment was on Sept. 11, 2001. In a way, that explanation was easy because the tragedy could easily be pinned on “bad people who want to hurt us.”

But something like a fire, even when caused by humans, is still a force of nature in many ways and thus can be uncontrollable. The Wallow Fire might not have been a conflagration if fuel moisture wasn’t depleted, and the humidity wasn’t in single digits, and the wind didn’t drive the flames from treetop to treetop. Any one of those factors could make a bad fire worse; all of them combined, plus the terrain, would logically lead to the disaster that the Wallow Fire became.

Photo courtesy Jayson Coil, Sedona Fire District

Some Twitter friends of mine who are active in the emergency management and fire world have created a nifty website aimed directly at spreading the emergency preparedness message. It is a volunteer effort. The creators and contributors mostly have some public safety experience or a deep interest in the topic of preparedness, but they’re also just people who like to be prepared.

My buddy, Gina, blogged today about dealing with small children in the aftermath of a disaster. She relays the bittersweet image of a little girl literally picking up the pieces of her house in the days after tornadoes tore apart Joplin, Mo. last month. It could just as easily be the aftermath of an earthquake, or a tsunami, or a wildfire.

While Gina, Gary, Chris and the other folks I follow on Twitter don’t speak for a governmental emergency management agency as far as I can tell, their page proves that citizens can play an active part in their own preparedness, which really is at the core of every preparedness message put out by us here at AzEIN. In other words, we might not be able to vouch for the site itself but we sure love seeing folks take the message to heart.

The fire season isn’t over yet, not by a long shot. We will likely be tired of hearing the phrase “fire restrictions” before we hear the phrase “monsoon storms.” I think I can say that I’d be perfectly happy spending the next holiday weekend – July 4 – inside rather than watching fireworks. I’ve seen enough sparks for one summer.

Besides, we still have monsoon season – and likely floods – to prepare for.

Captain's Log June 11th; My First Day in the JIC

2011-06-18T13:59:00.001-07:00

JIC inductee Nichole Fortson

I appreciate Judy, Ethan and Greg for allowing me to be featured on their BLOG. This is such an honor!

Saturday, June 11, was my first day working in the Joint Information Center (JIC) during a real-world event.

I wanted to do my best to support them because they do such a terrific job trying to get out fundamental and accurate information to the public. I definitely felt the pressure being the rookie, but Judy and Ethan made me feel at ease and after a couple of hours of taking calls and answering emails and updating a media monitoring document in support of the Wallow Fire that feeling disappeared.

This was such an eye-opener and learning experience for me. I witnessed with my own eyes the challenges that Judy, Ethan and Greg face working in a Joint Information Center (JIC) during a disaster. They have to keep up with social, local, national media. I have never heard of half the news and social media websites before.

You were done with the trail mix, right?

They are constantly coordinating with public information officers in the field, county public information officers, news channels, emergency managers and working issues with internal co-workers. I can’t express enough how much I admire what they do and their remarkable accomplishments. They get out helpful, accurate, efficient and effective information as quick as they possibly can.

Ok, enough about my admiration and envy for them, let’s talk about how I witnessed Ethan eating a whole bag of delicious chocolate trail mix. I didn’t realize he had an amazing hidden talent--catching trail mix in his mouth while I threw it from across the room, he never missed!

"Officer" Riley

It was funny hearing Ethan state that he was receiving emails referring to him as “Officer Riley”. So… the next time you see him, please refer to him as Officer Riley…J

Towards the end of the day, I felt that in stressful situations it is wonderful when you can enjoy the company of your co-workers, work well together as a team, and work towards a common goal to assist and support the community in need. It was a pleasure working with Judy in the JIC…..Oh and with Ethan too! These two are truly great at what they do!

Contributed to AzEIN by guest blogger Nichole Fortson

Preparedness By the Pound

2011-05-12T13:11:00.009-07:00

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure--Ben Franklin

During summers in Arizona it can sometimes feel like the entire state is burning. Sometimes it actually is…

Over the past few weeks, we’ve become familiar with the names Bull, Greaterville, Inception, Locust, Picket and Horseshoe Two—all wildland fires that collectively caused road and trail closures, the opening of Red Cross shelters, evacuations and re-evacuations.

Most Arizonans are strangely accustomed to wildfire. They don’t wig out when they see a story about a fire in the news. That is not to say people don't care. Unfortunately, it's usually not their first exposure to images of thrashing flames and smoke plumes.

There have had some bona fide conflagrations in the Grand Canyon State’s history. Remember the Rodeo-Chediski Fire of June 2002? It burned over 460,000 acres, forced the evacuation of Northern Arizona communities, and cost something like $43 million.

But, again, that was in June. Historically, June is when Arizona sees most of its big fires—the Brins Fire (2006), the Cave Creek Complex (2005) and the original Horseshoe Fire (2010). (see Judy’s 2010 blog entry, A Few Anniversaries We Don’t Want to Repeat)

Granted we usually see a few fires in early to mid-May, but it’s been extraordinarily busy for this time of year for AzEIN; that’s to say nothing of the labors of the crews doing the actual firefighting day in, day out. What’s disconcerting is that fire season goes for another couple months.

What’s the deal?!

Like it or not (put me in the “Not Like” category), it’s getting warmer outside, the winds are picking up (i.e., Red Flag warnings) and the desert is parched, which means the grasses and shrubbery that make the Sonoran Desert a desert are dried out. Add low humidity to the mix and you’ve got a perfect storm conditions for wildfire.

By Memorial Day most of the state, including state trust and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) lands, national forests and parks, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings and national wildlife refuges, will be under some degree of fire restrictions. In most cases, fire restrictions mean no fires outside of developed campgrounds, limitations on smoking and absolutely no fireworks. If you’ve got questions, call 877-864-6985.

And if you do build a campfire in one of those designated areas, knowing how to put it out is a must:

Consequently, we beg…we plead…we implore that you mind the fire danger where you live and when you visit public lands, heed legislated fire restrictions, and practice good fire sense. A good place to start is http://www.azein.gov

How did I Survive Without a Smartphone?

2011-04-27T11:58:00.006-07:00

I love my iPhone.

When the iPhone debuted a few years ago I tried not to be impressed. But secretly I really wanted one. I am a practical girl . . .my old cell phone without all the bells and whistles was working just fine.

I finally broke down and two years ago purchased an iPhone. This phone has changed my life. Ok, a little melodramatic . . .but it really has made a difference.

You might be part of the iPhone fan club or have another make of smartphone . . .whichever, you can’t deny that the information at your finger tips is fabulous.

I am amazed at the variety of apps. Of course there are games, social networking, sports, travel, news, music, etc. . . .but here is a shout out to those emergency management related apps.

Emergency Response Guide is used by Police, Fire and EMS who may be first on scene to a hazardous material incident. The guide helps responders indentify the classification of materials.

ICE (In Case of Emergency) helps you keep track of emergency contacts and medical history. If you are involved in an accident and are unconscious, the first responders can have access to this key information.

OCFL Alert (soon to be released) is an app for the Orange County Florida residents that will help them learn about hazards on the horizon, resources to help citizens prepare for a disaster as well as where to go following its impact.

About a year ago we had a debate in the office about the need for an Arizona Emergency Information Network App . . . . we sort of tabled that discussion. What do you think . . .do we need an app?

This is a Drill, This is a Drill...Until it's Real

2011-04-14T14:19:00.031-07:00

I met a friend for wings and beer one night a couple of years ago. I hadn’t seen him since our first years together in J-school, but back then we weren’t exactly buddy-buddy. He was one of my editors and I was an underling, a newbie to the newsroom. I wanted to catch up with him since he was integral to my professional development even though he was younger than me and something of a loose cannon back in school.

He was out of journalism when we met up. Well, that’s an oversimplification. He was working in a less glamorous sector of publishing, but he was trying his hardest to introduce his particular editorial viewpoints in a publication known more for pictures than words.

We hadn’t spoken since he left college prematurely to chase his newspaper muse. Catching up with each other entailed reciting our respective résumés, and mine of course leads to emergency management. I’m getting more and more used to giving people the elevator speech when they ask, “What is emergency management?”

But my friend leapfrogged that whole line of questioning and went straight for the jugular.

“Why do you guys do exercises? What’s the point of a drill? It’s not like a disaster goes according to script,” he said, maybe a little too indignantly for my taste.

I didn’t know enough then to tell him that “drills” and “exercises” are two different things, though closely related. (A “drill” tests a specific function or operation, like we public information officers might conduct a drill to activate our call center. An “exercise,” of which there are various levels of involvement and complexity, essentially tests an entire system to include plans, procedures, and such.)

My own experience in exercises and drills, dating back to my Navy days lo these many years ago and on up to today, taught me that drills and exercises aren't intended to create a stock answer to an emergency. The disaster rarely complies with our wishes and expectations, so that would be a fruitless endeavor.

Besides the benefit of finding weaknesses and strengths in a procedure, I personally believe an exercise’s greatest long-term value is in creating a sort of mental muscle memory. Just like a competition shooter on the range practices trigger discipline so that it becomes habit, or a runner becomes more efficient with time and distance, an exercise that tests a group’s response to an emergency can ingrain in those participants the steps necessary to answer the first critical minutes.

The emergencies I’ve seen and responded to in my five years at the Arizona Division of Emergency Management have usually given us some advance warning: the great winter weather event of 2010, for example, was predicted by every weather forecaster on TV in the days leading up to it. The Schultz Fire north of Flagstaff last June couldn’t have been predicted but the flooding the following month was expected, and the folks in that area planned as best they could to mitigate the effects of the expected monsoon runoff.

Aside from the fact that this division spends every spare moment preparing to respond to disasters – and respond it does with élan – we are still people with very human reactions to stress and danger, and how we individually process this information is unique.

That’s where mental muscle memory comes in handy, especially when confronted with the emergencies that come out of nowhere.

Over three days the first week of March, this division and its many partners had exercised our response to a disaster at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. It was pretty intensive. Many of our plans and protocols got a workout, and we applied our experience and knowledge to create solutions for the problems thrown at us by Mother Nature…and her government partners.

A week later – March 11 – the earthquake and resultant tsunami struck Japan. The news about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the harrowing stories to stabilize the reactors is perhaps the most recognizable and far-reaching story to come from that disaster.

This was a bona fide case of déjà vu. For me, anyways.

For the rest of March, I and the other PIOs here combed news stories for days afterward to compile a resource for our office. We talked to citizens who called us concerned about radioactive fallout. We worked hard with our counterparts in other state agencies to publish the growing levels of iodine-131, and to warn the public of how ill-advised it would be to ingest potassium iodide as a preventative measure. My short-term memory tussled with my long-term memory.

At the crux of that mental argument was that this was Japan’s disaster. It was their earthquake, their tsunami, their reactor failure. How did it become our response?

That last question, of course, is beside the point. It didn’t matter that the emergency took place more than 8,000 miles away (although I don’t understand how a trip to Tokyo involves going through Seattle. I think the curvature of the earth had something to do with it. Maybe my Navy buddies who did navigation can clarify that for me.) It only mattered that our residents wanted answers about how it affected them, even if the effect was so insignificant as to be negligible. And they came to us, for which we are glad.

That’s why we drill and exercise. The next large disaster on the news could involve flooding in a nearby county, a volcano in New Guinea, or a new species of beetle that’s ravaging the world’s coffee bean crops. Some disasters may strike close to home, and some cut close to the bone. Thanks to our consistent exercise and drill schedule, I can lean on my mental muscle memory to help guide me through my response.

Practice Like You Play

2011-03-10T10:15:00.006-07:00

My high school basketball coach liked to say “practice like you play,” a pearl of wisdom usually supplemented with yelling and a dozen wind sprints. The adage’s worldliness was, not surprisingly, lost on a 17-year-old kid saddled with a hatchback and sick with Senioritis.

“X” number of years later, the Senioritis has subsided and the notion of “practice like you play” has a professional implication. (Oh, how adult.) Last week our jobs got in the way of work. We had a rather large and involved federally-evaluated exercise to test our (the State’s) ability to respond to and recover from a notional emergency. It was a big to-do, involving three days of simulation and plenary discussion with our local, state, federal, and non-governmental partners.

Exercises are typical around here—by “here” I mean the Arizona Division of Emergency Management. We “play” in a few of varying sizes and scaling complexity every year. And despite the supposing of different scenarios, the end objective is the always the same–improve preparedness so that we can better protect the public safety. It’s a deceptively simple aspiration that requires public participation.

National Preparedness Month is held once a year in September, but getting and staying prepared takes a year-round effort. I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this "call to action," and I rest assured it won’t be the last. We want you to “practice like you [would] play”…to be active participants in your preparedness by planning home evacuation drills, testing smoke detectors, and volunteering in your community.

Here are just a few recommendations to help you and your community get #Prepared365:

• The Southern Arizona and Grand Canyon chapters of the American Red Cross are hosting Save-a-Life Saturday events at various locations across the state on Saturday, March 19. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://bit.ly/ep6MfP or http://ht.ly/4ba2d

• Be a volunteer driver in the Point of Dispensing exercise on Saturday, April 2, at Mesquite High School in Gilbert. You can find more information on the Maricopa County Department of Public Health website, http://www.maricopa.gov/Public_Health/podexercise/

• Get involved with your local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. You’ll find a listing of and contact information for 23 Arizona chapters at http://1.usa.gov/fpVvHr

• Follow the Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN) on Twitter at www.twitter.com/azein or “Like” AzEIN on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ArizEIN. Get Emergency Bulletin System (EBS) updates delivered to your phone by texting "Follow @AzEIN_EBS" to 40404.

The Cries of a Cold Weather Wimp

2011-02-03T17:53:00.007-07:00

I am a Phoenix native . . . which explains why I am a cold weather wimp.

Growing up . . . I don’t think I ever had a real coat. Ok, maybe not the best in personal preparedness, but you will have to take that up with my mom.

As an adult, I spent a few years living in Santa Fe, New Mexico . . . which was my first exposure to a real winter. I had to learn different winter preparedness tips including how to drive in snow, what to do when you hit black ice and the importance of sandbags in your car trunk.

I enjoyed the occasional snow and even volunteered to shovel the snow for my neighbors or the walkway at work. Everyone thought I was crazy, but snow was such a novelty I enjoyed it.

Now that I am living back in Arizona . . . my blood has thinned again. When the temperature goes below 60, I am starting to wear a sweatshirt. My winter preparedness routine is less about driving in the snow and more about a freeze warning for my herb and flower gardens.

What does winter preparedness mean to you?

Do you have enough food at home if you can’t drive to the store?

What if the freezing weather triggers a power outage or as in southern Arizona, a lack of natural gas leaves you without heat?

Is your family in danger of carbon monoxide poisoning?

Looks like the nation will be working to recover from this storm for a few days. I hope you are safe and warm. As for my friends in Santa Fe . . . you will have find someone else to shovel your driveway.

No, Really, I Feel Perfectly Fine!

2011-01-26T16:37:00.010-07:00

I broke a serious rule today. And I might have to be sent home because of it.

I came into work with a cough. I didn’t even try to hide it. In fact, I strode into the building holding high a bottle of cold and flu medicine, the DayGlo orange stuff. You know, the stuff that tastes like a nurse’s station.

People who know me well know I have absolutely no guilt using my sick days. That’s what they’re there for: If you're sick, stay home and be sick. In fact, I’ve been rather pointed, even virulent, on the topic of people who go to work sick. They expose their coworkers to illness. They are less productive than if they simply didn’t show up at all. When taken into account others they infect, they cost more in lost production than if they simply stayed home for several days.

So why did I feel the need to be a hero?

That’s overstating it because honestly, I didn’t feel sick. All weekend I felt fine. I had an itchy throat since Friday but I figured it was an early appearance of my March allergy, which often feels like a chest cold. All I needed to do was clear my throat occasionally – you know, a conspicuous ahem like when you’re embarrassed after discovering you have cookie crumbs all over your shirt after giving a presentation.

Sure, I sounded like Don LaFontaine after a weekend of rooting for the Bears to cover the spread but I didn’t feel sick in the classic way: nausea, achy joints, fever. I admit feeling a bit lethargic but if you were to poll me at random times on any given day, there’s probably a 50 percent chance that I’d complain of feeling sluggish.

On Sunday, I started hammering back the fluorescent orange stuff, and then switched to cool, icy blue stuff at night. I was going to sleep my way through this itchy throat if I had to drink my weight in primary-colored dextromethorphan.¹

By the time I got to work on Tuesday,² the tickle in my throat had bloomed to a full-fledged cough. Now I am getting suspicious looks from coworkers, including one assistant director who said, “Go home! No one will notice anyway!” I’m sure he or she meant it in the nicest way possible.

I was convinced that my lack of symptoms ruled out influenza. Then I remembered I hadn’t gone to medical or nursing school this month, so maybe I should consult a professional.

People have stopped putting on their brave face and coming into work sick, and have started giving the stink-eye to their coworkers for coming into the office with a cough or complaint, and I’m glad. I’m usually the one chasing someone away from me with a glare for coughing in my vicinity while they fiddle with a tissue in one hand, and now I know how it feels.

I thought I did my due diligence by being aware of the signs to stay home. I’m beginning to think the next sick day I take might be worth it more to other people just to put their minds at ease. Either way, it benefits me. And it's the right thing to do.

^{************************************************************************************************}

¹ Do not rink your own weight in cough suppressants. That would be silly. Almost as silly as me feeling the need to write a disclaimer saying, “Do not rink your own weight in cough suppressants.”

² I don’t work on Monday but that day is lost to me in a fog anyways. The gist of it is I was feeling a bit sick.

An Emergency Car Kit? Did You Get a Gift Receipt?

2011-01-05T11:19:00.004-07:00

Journey back with me to Christmas 2000. That year my paternal grandparents gifted me an emergency car kit--a hard yellow plastic container packed with work gloves, jumper cables, road flares, etc. As a broke 20-year-old student with a Plymouth Horizon parked out front, I was thrilled … as you can only imagine. Did you happen to get a gift receipt?

In hindsight, I should be thankful; I could have gotten pink bunny pajamas. That same year, my cousin unwrapped 10 packs of crew socks (a conservative estimate to be sure) and an almost comparable number of two-sizes-too-big packages of underwear all because he made a chance remark that he was “running low” on both.

Ten years later and a decade wiser, Christmas gift-giving has become less about getting “good stuff” and more practical. For instance, I wanted a dry erase board for Christmas. I’ll say it for you… NERD!

If you’re anything like me—someone who is “hard to shop for” (or so I’m told)—you have a wallet or purse fat with gift cards. Understandably, much of that money will go toward something you want or need—perhaps some snazzy New Year’s resolution workout stuff.

But what do you do with those few leftover dollars? The store won’t give you cash; they’ll hand back the gift card with $5.07 on it. Here are just a few suggestions on what to do with what’s left.

1. A manual can opener: Because when the electricity goes out, you’ll still want to eat even if it means cold beans straight from a can.

2.Duct tape: Let’s be honest, what can’t be fixed with the MacGyver-esque use of a roll or two. I’ve seen automobiles held together with nothing but.

3. A flashlight: Being able to see in the dark is overrated, right? Wrong. If you haven’t spent enough this holiday season, get one powered by a hand crank.

4. A first aid kit: A good thing to have no matter what. It just makes good sense to have a stocked first aid kit.

5. A pack of batteries: These are for the emergency kit not your “dying” Xbox controller or the kids’ toys that came “batteries not included.”

6. A Fast Follow membership to AzEIN. Alright, alright. So, this is free. You can’t blame a guy for trying. (http://www.azein.gov/azein/AzEIN%20PIO/Fast%20Follow.aspx)

And by the way, only 50 shopping weeks till Christmas.

Questions Are Easier Than Answers

2010-12-09T07:34:00.004-07:00

I want to have all the answers.

I am not looking at profiting from having the answers . . . I just want it to make my job easier.

You are probably thinking, “this girl is a Public Information Officer . . .all she deals with is communication . . .how tough can her job be?”

Ok, point taken.

What I do is not rocket science, but I will argue that my job has its challenges.

At least in rocket science there is a more obvious explanation for an outcome based on input.

I spend much of my time working on plans to ensure a cohesive method for working together and networking to make sure other public information officers know what our office does. The main jest of my job is to ensure coordinated, accurate communication to the public should a disaster occur.

Webster defines communication as “an act of transmitting or an exchange of information.” Sure sounds easy, but lately I keep discovering the obstacles.

How do I overcome the white noise that will cloud the public from “hearing” what I am saying? What about language barriers? What about the challenge of changing information? How do I reach the public that may not be plugged in, tuned in or connected technologically? How do I train people that are disinterested in the process?

This week I have attended a bazillion meetings (ok, 5 in the last 2 days) that relate to aspects of the grab bag known as communication. . . .and I am not any closer to having the answers.

You Can Still Go Home For The Holidays

2010-11-30T15:45:00.006-07:00

Faithful readers of this blog may recall how I nearly exterminated my family with my home-cooked Thanksgiving meal last year. I know my family still remembers.

I managed to hold the food-poisoning blues at bay this year thanks largely to my sister doing all the cooking. I offered to help, but all I got to cook was bread. Crescent rolls, to be exact, just like my mom used to make.

Not exactly like mom’s, actually, inasmuch as mom’s tasted like they were cleaved from a rising harvest moon and massaged with butter churned that morning. Mine tasted like pizza dough from a tube, the kind that explodes when you leave it near the stove, only not as light and airy. They were still pretty all right.

I am becoming more and more aware of foodborne illnesses; having loved ones who work in the health field tend to make one cognizant of things lurking behind every slice of deli meat that might make you wish you were a vegetarian (until you hear about things in the green onions that will make you wish you ate a bacon-cheeseburger at lunch instead of a health-promoting salad.)

It’s not as if I walked a tightrope between salmonella and listeria all these years until now. Or did I? Would I ever really be aware of how close I am to leaving this vale of tears at any given moment?

I don’t intend to let fears – be they reasonable ones regarding being careful with our food or bigger ones involving the world at large – make my holidays less enjoyable, fun, and filled with the love of our families and friends. But it isn’t necessary to walk a tightrope when there’s some perfectly good flat ground within easy reach.

Have You Seen My Sandwich Come Through Here?

2010-11-09T15:46:00.007-07:00

It’s my week to blog and my first thought was “I haven’t an idea what to write about.” That’s not to say things around the office aren’t moving at their normal “get it done yesterday” pace; they are.

From there I started thinking how I wanted a turkey sandwich like the ones I used to get at the diners back in Pennsylvania – one with turkey oven-roasted that day, lettuce, heirloom tomato and real mayo on fresh bread. And then … WHAMMO … REALITY CHECK! I live in Arizona and have leftover whole wheat spaghetti packed for lunch today.

Devastated, racked my brain for a silver lining – you get turkey on Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving is in November. Comforted by inductive reasoning, my mind turned to last November and how we (the ADEM PIOs) spent all of it downtown at the Department of Health Services (ADHS) helping with the H1N1 response. “I could write about that,” I said. I actually said it out loud. I sometimes talk to myself.

Coincidently, my morning sweep of the “Tech” page on CNN.com revealed an article about some cool needless injector that uses a “high-velocity liquid stream to deliver meds” in like 1/3 of a second. The article said that the devices were used to give seasonal and H1N1 shots at a smattering of clinics in New Jersey last year. Needle-free injectors aren’t new, but this one is plastic and priced for commercial use. Read the article at http://bit.ly/cZoJm5.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Getting a flu shot is one of the best ways to prevent … What? You say you have?

But do you know where to get a flu shot? Google and the Flu Vaccine Finder do. Plug in your ZIP and you’re redirected to a Google map dotted with nearby locations offering flu shots and/or nasal spray.

Flu prevention is also about good hygiene, which means washing your hands and doing the “Vampire Cough” (did you see last week's episode of The Office? … capital “C” Classic!). There’s lot of fine flu preparedness and prevention information on the ADHS and Flu.gov websites.

Flu.gov includes an extensive frequently asked questions section with information on everything from vaccine to bird flu, which brings me back to my original observation. Anyone have a suggestion on where to find a proper turkey sandwich?

More Than Just Hot Air

2010-10-28T08:07:00.012-07:00

It was meant to be a quick trip to my local Costco . . . but the emergency management geek in me was distracted by an “activity/game” in the food court.

The Hurricane Simulator

For a $2 fee, you can stand in a capsule while electric fans simulate gusting winds (up to 78 mph) that accompany a category 1 hurricane. I didn’t have the change on me otherwise I would have embarrassed myself and tried it out.

I imagine the folks in Florida laughing at this.

The next time I was in the office, I googled Hurricane Simulator and found videos of people testing it out. They stood in the capsule as the simulated wind ruffled their clothes and hair. As you can imagine, these videos provided some good laughs.

However, the coolest part of the search was to uncover the GIANT hurricane simulator created by the University of Florida. This GIANT simulator is designed to test the impact of strong winds and rain on a house; powered by 4 diesel engines and 6 industrial fans . . .this can simulate winds from a category 3 hurricane (125 mph). The kind of power that can level a house in minutes.

By recreating the extreme winds, researchers can learn more about how hurricanes damage real homes and how to modify homes, building codes and products to best prevent that damage.
The researchers even use rocket launchers to understand the damage caused by flying debris.

How cool is that!

Little did I know when I saw the Hurricane Simulator at the mall it would lead me further down the path of emergency management geekdom.

What I Did on Summer Break

2010-10-15T16:52:00.007-07:00

I last blogged in mid-July. A few days later, I was deployed with the state incident management team for two weeks to a flood, and I didn’t get a full night’s sleep until early August.

Naturally, I was just trying to save the state from more calamity. I figured you could thank me later.

My tactic appeared flawed, though. Since I returned to the office in August, a strong storm battered Yuma that caused flooding; the Hobble Fire continued to lazily burn into October as if it’s still on summer break; my best fantasy quarterback and wide receiver were suspended for the first four games of the National Football league season (you’re on your own to search for them) and just last week hail the size of large hail amazed Phoenix commuters and made my day just a pinch longer than it needed to be.

If you’re playing at home, you will also remember that was the same storm system that caused a tornado outbreak in the northern Arizona community of Bellemont. That’s right; the National Weather Service is calling it a “tornado outbreak.” I thought the term "outbreak" seemed a little Hollywood but it turns out it is the correct word.

It also turns out it was a record. As if having a tornado touch down in Arizona isn’t record-breaking enough, eight of those suckers were confirmed by the NWS.

Go to the linked page above for a weather-centric explanation of how the tornadoes developed. I’m not going to lie; every weather map with color looks like a conflagration of flaming hailstone to me.

When I was a reporter in Flagstaff lo these many years ago, we had a photographer who was from New York, a real city kid at that. He was out in the field looking for enterprise art to fill the newshole. (I crack myself up over how much of the journo lingo I still remember. Basically, the photog was taking pictures that would be used to take up space.)

So the photog was dispatched to a local park that had a duck pond with the intention of getting Norman Rockwell shots of kids doing sweet and innocent things. Since it was Flagstaff in the spring, there was wind. There’s typically wind 340 our 365 days in Flag. (I exaggerate, but not much.)

Along comes this dust devil, which I’m guessing was like every other dust devil I saw growing up in Flagstaff: about 6 feet high and lasting all of 10 seconds. As kids, we chased them and never caught them because they dissipated so quickly.

The photog who grew up on the gritty streets of New York did not have the benefit of my misspent youth in Flagstaff chasing vertically oriented rotating columns of air. He did, however, have the heart of a lion, for he dropped his doubtlessly expensive Nikon with what I’m sure was at least a 300mm telephoto Nikkor lens, and threw himself upon two or three kids playing sweetly and innocently at pond’s edge in order to save them from the tornado.

I’m not sure if the kids or their parents disabused him of his need to throw children out of the way of dust devils, but at least the rest of the newsroom and the publisher got a huge kick out of the story. I sure know I did.

Needless to say, I’m not suggesting people should be anything less than painfully aware of their surroundings in different weather situations, and children should most definitely not chase dust devils, especially if newspaper staffers are nowhere in the vicinity.

Now that I've blogged and mentioned at least in passing several signs of the apocalypse, I should be good for another three-month absence, but honestly, I don't want that because that would probably mean we are responding in some fashion to more disasters. And the only disaster I'm mentally prepared for is running out of candy on Halloween.

What Wasn't Learned in Yosemite

2010-09-15T09:11:00.008-07:00

I returned to the office yesterday after three days in Yosemite National Park, Calif., thinking I'd blog about some great emergency preparedness epiphany that I had had while hiking and biking among the Giant Sequoias. I bellied up to the keyboard and nothing. I sat there for a few minutes, the blinking cursor staring back.

And do you know why the page remained blank? It’s because I had had no epiphany about emergency preparedness. I was one of the most beautiful spots in the country. Why would I be thinking about work?!

Instead, let’s talk about another kind of epiphany. Let’s talk about invention and innovation and how they apply to the everyday.

Those of you who follow AzEIN on Twitter or Facebook or were good enough to add AzEIN.gov to your Internet bookmarks likely know that September is National Preparedness Month. In Arizona we celebrate with a poster contest, a Governor’s proclamation and some outreach events. We do some other things too, but that’s not really the point. The point is that we do all of this on a budget; that’s to say with $0.0 and our own creativity.

Creativity. Now there’s an interesting term. Dictionary.com says it’s the “ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. ” Nowhere does it mention an associated price per pound or square inch. That’s of course because the ability to transcend is free. The cost is how much thought and action you yourself put into the idea.

Part of being creative is finding uses for free, Do-It-Yourself innovations. Take our flashlights for example. We didn’t invent Quick Response (QR) codes, but we’re using them to brand flashlights that we give away at public and corporate outreach events.

A QR Code is a homemade two-dimensional barcode that can be embedded with a link to just about anything - a website, a video or a business card. You can “read” QR Codes with a mobile application downloaded to your newer model camera phone.(You’ll find a list of some of the more popular QR Code readers at http://bit.ly/3XuYuc)

Naturally, the end objective is not to promote a make or model of a particular cell phone. Happy to say, our motives are more altruistic. We want you to easily find and use the information we have to share. And we do that by leveraging every available opportunity and technology.

While we come up with a good idea every so often, we know that our followers and fans are a creative bunch, and so we welcome your input. If you’ve got a clever and inexpensive idea how to promote emergency preparedness, we want to hear it. Post your ideas here or send them to azein@azdema.gov.

What I learned on my summer vacation

2010-08-19T11:41:00.005-07:00

I just returned from a luscious week in San Diego. What a perfect escape from the Arizona heat and the world of emergency management. Well, almost . . . .

The first day in San Diego, I saw a “Tsunami Evacuation Zone” sign. This is where the emergency management geek in me comes out . . ..I thought the sign was sort of cool.

Of course I don’t wish a disaster on any community, but I thought the sign was a good way to raise awareness to those residents along the beach that they are in a high risk zone.

But it got me thinking . . .there are signs in my Arizona community... .”Don’t cross when flooded” that are also meant to raise awareness.

Even though I pass by these signs on a regular basis, I have come to overlook their existence.

I am not sure what the bottom line is . . .

I need to look at my community with a fresh perspective to see existing hazards or identify new ones . . .

I just need to go on more vacations . . .or

I need to be less of an emergency management geek.

Drip ... Drip ... Downpour

2010-08-11T17:20:00.009-07:00

Fact. The light from a star is years old by the time it reaches us on Earth. The Sun excluded.

More on how this applies to preparedness later.

On a less ambiguous note, you probably heard how The Monsoon was causing flooding in Flagstaff. The communities of Timberline and Doney Park and others saw the “worst” of it on July 20 when flooding and debris flows damaged homes and roads and closed Hwy 89.

I went north to help film and photograph the damage, the recovery and mitigation efforts.

Click … a home encircled by battlements of stacked sandbags.

Click … volunteer firefighters filling and stacking sandbags on pallets.

Click … a plastic chair stuck in three feet of mud.

That last photo got me in trouble. In the time it took to snap the picture, a gentle drizzle turned to rain. And at that moment, I thought about the stars and light.

The same rule that applies to stars also goes for flash flooding.

It's raining where you stand? Who cares. It’s about where that rain was before and how long ago.

Sooner or later it dawned on me to get outta there, and I hurried to get out ahead of flow coming down the mountainside. I lost the race.

Can’t go that way.

That direction’s no good either.

I think maybe I stayed too long.

I sat sandwiched between two flows of rushing water for the better part of an hour and thought I know better. And I did.

I was fine in the end, but the take home lesson is to know better too. Know how disasters like floods start. Know the signs and the basic “science” why something happens the way it does.

Equal parts common sense, instinct and being informed can keep you out of an emergency predicament. It’ll keep you safe, and would have kept me dry.

Lost in the City Without Lights

2010-07-15T14:51:00.015-07:00

I’m an Arizona native, a son of Flagstaff and a lifelong resident of the Nation’s Valentine, but people who know me know of my soft spot for New York.

We’re not talking about sports teams here. As a kid I rooted for teams from Los Angeles and San Diego, not New York, and the anti-East Coast sentiment* stayed with me after Arizona got baseball and football teams of its own (although it did take an extended courtship for the Cardinals to win me over.)

My attachment to NY began in 1982 just moments after my taxi rounded the southern shore of Brooklyn and headed up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and the Manhattan skyline came into view. I was being delivered from John F. Kennedy International Airport to my ship, which was in drydock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, for an extended stay courtesy Uncle Sam and his U.S. Navy.

New York wasn’t my first choice of duty stations. Or second or third. I was hoping for San Francisco or San Diego because it was close to home (despite the fact that I joined the Navy to leave Flagstaff.) New York was too far. It was too dirty. New York was too dangerous.

The memory was still fresh of the great power blackout that struck New York City in 1977, and the national newscasts that showed the looters, the vandals, the people scurrying out of subways stops looking for relief after being trapped for hours.

What stayed with me were the news reports and images of people who seemed so utterly helpless and lost in their own community when the lights went out.

My taxi continued up the B-QE along the East River and past the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. The haze that saturated the air muddied the view of the famous Manhattan skyscrapers, like they were layered in yellow-gray gauze. This was the famous New York City I’d heard about: polluted, muggy and forbidding.

But the Empire State Building has a way of standing like it’s about to regain its record as the world’s tallest building and that reminded me why it was the one thing in New York I wanted to see in person.

This was June 1982, and New York was enduring a record-setting heat wave that began in April and didn’t let up, if my memory serves, until sometime well after mid-July. Horses were perishing in Central Park from the heat, not to mention the impact it had on the elderly and other people not used to consecutive days of triple digits.

(Could you imagine what summer days without power would be like in the Valley? It's 111 degrees as I write this, and we appear to have missed the 117 some forecasters were predicting for this afternoon. A Twitter friend is teasing me because an expected monsoon storm apparently veered around Phoenix and is heading to her town instead!)

In July 1982, an overnight rainstorm cooled down the city and washed the air. An unbearable season of heat that was national news became just another sticky summer in the city. And the thick drape disappeared and my ship in Brooklyn had a front-row seat with an unfiltered view of a nightly show of lights from every building in the great city.

I couldn’t conceive then how New York could ever go dark.

July 13 – this past Tuesday – is the 33rd anniversary of that great blackout. Temperatures in New York again reached triple digits two weeks ago, which I wouldn’t expect anyone in Phoenix to notice without snickering.

It did, however, remind me to recharge my home lantern, restock some of my non-perishable food, and make me hope a little personal history doesn’t repeat itself.

I wonder: If my city went dark, would I be lost?

I give Times Square its familiar glow.

*****************************************************************

* Like Yogi Berra, I too put aside my rancor for the Yankees in order to pay my respects to Yankee Stadium during a pilgrimage in 2008, the year of its swan song. I'm grateful, too, for I was able to hear the prerecorded voice of stadium announcer Bob Sheppard call Derek Jeter's name in a way that made me almost applaud. Almost. In Sheppard's voice I could hear distant sounds of what baseball sounded like in the time of Babe Ruth, I'm sure of it. I guess I can thank George Steinbrenner for making that possible. May he and Sheppard rest in peace.

Neptune v. Ethan (or Something Sounds Fishy)

2010-07-06T16:08:00.011-07:00

Two weeks ago I was vacationing in San Diego. We went for good eats, shoreline breezes and surf. We came back with a story equal to the epic poems of antiquity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday afternoon. The sea was fearful angry with swells stories high if they were a foot.(1)

I was blissfully adrift in the pull of the tide, tearin’ up tasty waves on a loaner boogie board. And then … “Ooch!!” It was like stepping on a wood screw. I plunged my open hands into the water, desperate to snare the offending sea creature.(2) Nothing.

Even so there was no doubt. Whatever the species, I knew for certain it was the meanest, most beatly thing to ever haunt the Pacific, with terrific teeth like daggers. A true man-eatting, colossus of the open ocean.(3)

Back on the beach, my right foot throbbed with pain. I staggered to the lifeguard stand, seemingly miles away.

"Sounds like you stepped on a stingray," said the lifeguard after having heard my tale and a quick survey of my injury.

I replied in a booming baritone. “Not a shark or that dinosaur people say lives in the Loch Ness in Scotland?” He stared a blank stare.

“Kidding … obviously,” I said, giving a disingenuous smile. “Of course it was a stingray. Some sort of super stingray, an aberration of nature to be sure.”

“Probably a normal stingray. Probably a baby one. Did the stinger break off?”

I kicked my foot back, eyeing it over my right shoulder. No protruding stinger.(4)

“You need to soak your foot in the hottest water you can stand. Heat neutralizes the venom.(5) We can do it here, or we can give you a heat pack."

“Just give me the pack.”(6)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a lesson to be learned here. Yes, some lifeguards are humorless,(7) but that’s not it.

Rather, in big and small emergencies being informed is about knowing who to contact and where to find information or advice that you can trust.

So when you hear “be informed” as a part of getting all-hazard prepared, it means identify neighborhood hazards, know local evacuation options and bookmark www.azein.gov as an Internet favorite. It could save your valuable time later.

(1) - The surf report for the most of week forecasted "poor" surf conditions. We saw nothing over 6 feet all week. Lousy waves.

(2) - In truth, I wasn't sticking around. I swam from that spot and hopped around on one foot before scurrying to shore.

(3) - Research (i.e. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_stingray) shows that the diamond stingray (Dasyatis dipterura) is common to San Diego beaches. The ones I had seen in the days prior were juveniles maybe 12" across .... MAYBE.

(4) - The "wound" was the size of a paper cut. It must have been super deep though, right?

(5) - Forget the heat pack; it didn't help. On the other hand, that hot water bath worked wonders.

(6) - This whole conversation is fabricated. The ENTIRE thing. I was parked in a beach chair. My girlfriend also got "stung" and walked over to the lifeguards. I haven't a clue what was said. She returned with a heat pack.

(7) - Obviously a joke. I'm sure some are funny, hilarious even.

A Few Anniversaries We Don't Want to Repeat

2010-06-18T11:55:00.005-07:00

When I was growing up, summertime meant swim meets and banana popsicles . . .but working in emergency management has changed all that.

This is the time of year that I hold my breath . . .wildland fire season. A spark from someone welding, an abandoned campfire or a dry lightning strike coupled with some strong winds could change my weekend plans.

There are some out there that may argue we don’t really have a season since we are at risk year round. OK, that is true. But what I am thinking about how many of the big Arizona fires of the last 10 years that have occurred mid-June through early-July.

The Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002 (Arizona’s largest wildland fire burning almost 500,000 acres) and the Brins fire (2006) both had an ignition date of June 18th. The Aspen fire (2003) started on June 19th and the Cave Creek Complex of 2005 (Arizona’s second largest wildland fire burning almost 250,000 acres) began on June 21st.

We have a several fires burning in the State now, the Eagle Rock fire burning north of Williams and the Horseshoe fire in the southeastern part of the State.

Here is hoping we make it through the next couple weeks without a LARGE scale fire . . . and I can get back to what summer really means . . . banana popsicles and hanging out by the pool.

Now in Repose, the Storm Withers

2010-05-19T17:23:00.016-07:00

Who’s thinking snow now?

“Think snow” was a phrase frequently repeated when I was growing up in Flagstaff. It’s one part ski-bum mantra, one part solemn invocation to the great Chamber of Commerce in the Sky, and – in healthy winters – 100-percent self-fulfilling prophesy.

We were all thinking snow four months ago: One of the heaviest winter storms in Arizona history was inundating the state with the white stuff or, in lower elevations, rain.

No one is thinking snow these days, and that topic is off limits for at least five or six more months. We Phoenicians and other lowlanders don’t torture ourselves with such thoughts when it’s in triple digits, and folks on the rim have had their fill of winter talk. Trust me.

Yet it’s impossible to ignore the effects that linger. The administrative aspect of the storm continues as the personal aspect remains painful for some.

For me, there’s that moment of fine definition when disaster gives way to serenity, when things that burdened and buried us literally washes away.

I'm no rockhound or even much of an outdoorsman, but I'm struck at how a river's edge can be so clearly defined. One step forward and you're one with a river that has a hand in carving the mighty Grand Canyon. One step back and you're standing on ground that wouldn't harbor an earthworm.

The water is brown but not dirty, at least to me. How can water that started as snow in the White Mountains four months ago be considered unclean?

Especially when it churns and turns white again...

It's also ironic how this aftermath of a winter disaster, this river on the Rim, can be coursing through a part of the state that is currently bone dry. This river is the Little Colorado River, and the water in it is snowmelt from higher elevations in eastern Arizona. It travels mostly upon the plateau, passing through the Painted Desert and the Navajo Reservation before it joins with the Colorado River.

Quietly, the river runs its course, making at least one noisy leap for joy.

Grand Falls is reportedly higher than Niagara Falls. It's not as accessible: The main road is a dirt "highway" that may not be passable in bad weather. Or with bad shocks.

Despite not having visited it since the fifth grade, it was familiar to me upon a recent visit. That could be because there are next to no physical improvements to the site save for a couple of shaded lookout platforms. There are no rails to keep you from walking off the edge, no signs warning you to be careful, no ingress or egress directions.

Nothing separates you from it. Nothing even identifies it for you. It's just you, your senses and the eerie beauty of a torrid storm's aftermath.

It's kind of like real life, in that sense.

"Say Cheese!"

2010-05-10T14:01:00.012-07:00

Since the start of this blog many months ago, I’ve had one real lament and one enduring complaint. The lament is that we haven’t seen a whole lot of reader comments … throw us a bone here people! :)

The problem is my profile picture. It’s plain bad.

At the risk of sounding vain, it’s not what I’d call a fair or flattering depiction. Listen, Brad Pitt I am not, but I’ve had greater photogenic moments.

This objection does have something to do with emergency preparedness. It has to do with an item you that may not think belongs in an emergency “go kit” – family pictures.

Photos are powerful investigative tools that can help reunite families and reconnect lost relatives. Law enforcement has used images to track and apprehend lawbreakers on the lamb since before photography.

Conversely, today’s Internet, smartphones and Social Media are connecting people and leaching into many aspects of emergency management and education.

Sites like Facebook and Twitter are proving their metal when it comes to public information and incident reconnaissance. As well, the "social" act of snapping, uploading and tagging a photo with keywords and GPS coordinates from a smartphone or computer could also hasten family reunification.

In terms of disaster preparedness, recent and accurate family photos (keep those of Dad costumed as the Phoenix Sun’s Gorilla for Halloween tucked away) are important pieces of an evacuation kit and a family communication plan. Good examples of photos to use might include this year’s school picture(s) or a team snapshot.

Keep your photos in a watertight pouch or portfolio along with dittos of your driver’s license and/or social security card, banking and home ownership documents, birth and marriage certificates, and insurance paperwork.

Pet owners. It’s good to pull snapshots of Fluffy or Fido for the same reasons. That Christmas card with the picture of the dog wearing reindeer antlers will do.

While we continue to marvel at new and unexpected uses of all things wired, I too will have to let go of the past, or maybe I'll just get off my keister and take a new profile picture.

TEOTWAWKI vs. Do Nothing

2010-04-08T18:29:00.002-07:00

I have a confession to make: I’m not a survivalist.

I preach the preparedness message, have a go-bag at home and work, and almost always keep three days of food and water standing by in case that freak Arizona hurricane that everyone says is impossible finally makes landfall.

But if the bad stuff hit the fan – I mean, really, really hit the fan to the point that societal breakdown is imminent – and I was forced to live off the land, well, let’s just say the zombies better be satisfied with pork butt roasts because the only thing my land offers me is an awesome smoker. And it’s ready for The End Of The World As We Know It.

I hope the readers who are in the same boat as me share some sense of self-recognition. I further hope the die-hard survivalists who know which wild roots can be harvested for protein and which ones have paralyzing venom have already crossed my address off their lists of places to pillage. Nothing to see here.

These are obviously two extremes, if being prepared can have extremes: There’s me and others like me who grasp the basics necessary to get through three days. Then there are those who might rule the world with how well they are prepared.

I don’t say that last line in jest. Knowledge is power, and the knowledge necessary to live free from all the conveniences we enjoy, like electricity, instant cash, stocked grocery stores, and filled gas stations to name a few, has disappeared from our collective skill set. It’s saved by a few who rightfully call themselves survivalists.

Worse yet, we don’t seem to encourage learning those skills anymore. Sure, my contemporaries and I can recite the three steps to being better prepared for an emergency but I’m the last person to talk to if you want to learn how to live like Johnny Rambo in one of our neighboring national forests.

(The scene in "First Blood" where Rambo jumps out of a tree and ambushes a javelin always elicits cries of, “We’re having ham hocks tonight!” in my house. Believe me, it was funny the first time someone yelled it during movie night on my ship on Mediterranean Cruise 1983.)

I’m not sure what inspired this spurt of survivalist confessionalism. The quake that bounced me around a bit in my car on Sunday might have something to do with it. Then I came across one of many Web pages that list the 100 items to disappear first during a national emergency, and it occurred to me that being prepared is an investment.

More sobering, the biggest investment would be the time it takes to recover after a disaster. If I survived one.

Spring Flowers; Danger Ahead

2010-03-26T11:25:00.004-07:00

I remember the days before I worked in emergency management. When I would look at the green hills in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve and get excited about what a great wildflower season it would be.

But now I am tainted.

While I will still enjoy the beauty of hikes through the Preserve, now I worry about what is left after those lovely flowers dry up . . . the fuel for fast moving fires.

You can already see the stories popping up in the news . . . our winter rain showers resulted in desert growth that could lead to a busy wildland fire season. If you are thinking you are safe living in the city, think again. Wildfires don’t happen only where there are trees.

A fire that occurs in the desert, or on that mountain behind your house, can spread quickly by burning through those dead wildflowers and dry desert shrubs. If you haven’t done your part to clear the dead brush from your landscape, the fire can quickly start burning on your land too. As they say in my business, disasters don’t know boundaries, property lines, county lines, state lines, etc.

The good news is there are things you can do to minimize your risk. Remove dead bushes, leaves, wildflowers to clear a defensible space around your house. When you see the photos of neighborhoods that were impacted by fires, many times the houses that were spared had taken steps to minimize their risk.

It is sort of funny how whatever job you currently have raises your awareness for different things. Back in my retails days, I was quite a handbag snob. I could tell you if it was an expensive bag from twenty paces away. But alas, those days have gone and now worry about my neighbor and the excessive weeds in the alley that run along his wooden fence.

I’ll Have Flood Preparedness, Á la Mode

2010-03-16T13:56:00.008-07:00

March 14 is celebrated by TI-82 calculators, compass makers, Archimedes’ devotees alike as “Pi Day.” That’s Pi (π) as in 3.14159265, as in the reason for high-school night terrors and cold sweats.

The significance, never mind the existence, of Pi Day would be lost on a past English major like I were it not for the curious custom of eating actual pie, a tradition that catapulted Pi Day to among my favorite quasi “holidays” right after End of the Middle Ages Day on May 29.

Comparatively, Flood Safety Awareness Week (March 15 to 21) is decidedly less delicious. It’s unfortunate, but Flood Safety Awareness Week shares no titular likeness with anything in the dessert case. Rather, Flood Safety Awareness Week centers on the risks of and truths about flooding.

What Flood Safety Awareness Week does serve is actionable information on flood preparedness and identifying neighborhood flood hazards, the value of flood insurance, and tips for safe and responsible driving.

This year, the National Flood Insurance Program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collaborated on an interactive website, www.floodsmart.gov/noaa, with information about the financial costs of flooding, how to get a policy and how to best recover after a flood.

Per usual, the all-hazard readiness messages of “Prepare a Plan,” “Make a Kit” and “Be Informed” are also applicable when talking flood preparedness.

As it relates to floods, part of emergency planning is having the insurance to cover losses caused by flooding. Because most homeowners’ insurance policies don’t cover flood damage, FEMA recommends looking into flood insurance for your home and belongings.

There’s plenty more information available on what it means to be ready for flooding. You can start with visits to the Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN) at www.azein.gov and FloodSmart at www.floodsmart.gov/noaa.

Preparedness information doesn’t dazzle the taste buds like a slice of coconut cream pie, but, when applied, it can make a big difference in the event of a flood.

So, let’s give Flood Safety Awareness Week its due, and hope against hope that someone, somewhere, sometime thinks of a baked good accompaniment.

A day in the life

2010-03-04T14:51:00.002-07:00

I am not sure why, but I always struggle when it is my turn to write a blog. It is not like there is a lack of things to write about. Within the last day, I have been encountered all four stages of an emergency: mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery. . ..and there really are some good stories to share.

Mitigation

I just learned today, our mitigation department is developing a website that will enable residents to plug in their address and search a database to identify all hazards in the area. What a great idea to take the comprehensive State mitigation plan and enable the public quick and easy access to that information. But not just what the hazards are, how to mitigate against the hazards or how to be prepared to respond if they happen.

Preparedness

The Marciopa County Public Health Department has the daunting task of ensuring they can distribute medication to the residents should a large scale incident occur. The cool thing is they are planning to do this by people driving through distribution points. I love anything I can drive through. Volunteers are needed for April, check out the video.

Response

Ok, this really happened in January, but we were discussing it in a meeting earlier today. . . .during the January floods, an interstate mutual aid compact allowed us to reach out to our neighbors in Nevada to share 3 helicopters with us. These helicopters helped us drop resources to the snowbound residents in northern Arizona.

Recovery

The winter storms in January triggered some severe flooding in several parts of the State. We have requested a major disaster declaration from the President to provide funding to assist in relief efforts. While we wait to hear the outcome of our request, long term recovery organizations have formed to help leverage the scarce resources that are out there to help individuals that were impacted. I am so impressed with the Black Canyon City community. They have rallied together to raise funds, food, clothing, bedding, trailers, etc. for their neighbors. Talk about taking care of their own.

An Altered Perspective

2010-02-18T16:14:00.001-07:00

It’s likely that I’ve before revealed that I’m a Lancastrian from Pennsylvania; it’s a fact I'm becoming strangely and inexplicably proud of. That said, it stands to reason that I know the slightest something about snow, sleet, rain and the problems that too much of it can cause.

Since joining the emergency management field, I’ve gained a new and, for sure, wide-angle appreciation for the scope of work it takes to recover a community or a household for that matter. It’s an obvious but overlooked fact – the “disaster” doesn’t end when the skies clear.

We’re four weeks removed from the big January storm that dropped masses of snow and rain across a wide, latitudinal band of Arizona. Heavy rains caused landslides and flooding in several Arizona communities, and, at higher elevations, there were power outages and roof collapses.

Excluding a morning field trip aboard a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter (coolest thing ever!), I was cooped up in the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) writing releases, flyers and fact sheets, answering media calls and supervising the Arizona Emergency Information Network social networks.

Flood waters have since receded and once impassible roads have reopened, but there remains a long road ahead for those who saw their home or business damaged or destroyed. Disaster recovery takes time, sometimes years.

I once heard someone in the Arizona Division of Emergency Management Recovery Office put it this way, “It could take five years to recover from an event that lasts five days.”

In college, I never really thought about blizzards or floods or fires in terms any greater than how it affected me. I wanted to know whether classes were cancelled. That was the extent of my interest.
What it comes down to is that this current career field has given me perspective. I get that a flash flood can have repercussions that last for a year. Honestly, I might have known these things all along; ultimately, it took a move Phoenix for me to pay any mind.

Preparedness Potpourri

2010-01-14T18:18:00.003-07:00

This is a tactic any of my old editors would use when they had to write a column but only had snippets of info to work with, not full-blown ideas. They would write several disjointed paragraphs that had next to nothing to do with each other, then call it something witty like “Random Thoughts” or “Deep Musings.”

(Maybe “witty” is more appropriate.)

Such titles were supposed to suggest hours of deep thought and intense navel-gazing.

In the words of my once-teenage kids, “Whatever.”

There’s no business like snow business…. Apparently, those “Think Snow” bumper stickers really work. Communities in the higher elevations of Arizona – notably Flagstaff, Show Low, the White Mountains, and pretty much the whole Mogollon Rim – are getting their fill of the white stuff. No sooner did the Wing Mountain snow play area near Flagstaff close due to dwindling snow inventory than Mother Nature went and replenished stock. Nice, if you’re into that type of thing. As for me, there’s a saying: “You don’t have to shovel sunshine.”

If there’s a moral or a point, it’s this: Be prepared for winter.

Do you hear what I hear? Did you enjoy your holidays? I had the whole family over to my house for Thanksgiving and whupped up a holiday dinner, replete with homemade gravy, ham and turkey. Good thing I had the foresight to make ham because the turkey was undercooked. Like pink juice squirting out of the leg joint undercooked. I said, “Eww.” Well, maybe I said something stronger. And louder. Maybe that’s why my sister all but yelped when the topic of hosting Christmas dinner came up. I don’t know why she was so antsy; I planned to smoke a pork butt roast.

If there’s a moral or a point, it’s this: Try not to poison your relatives. They take that kind of thing pretty personally.

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Face it: You like playing games. Maybe you play them at work. Maybe you play them while flying. You’re a regular player-participator, you are.

Then why haven’t you played this game?

No Need to Answer in the Form of a Question

2010-01-07T16:50:00.002-07:00

Last week I got to talking with office-mate PIO Greg about his native Flagstaff. I, myself, am from Pennsylvania. Lancaster County, Pa., to be exact. So, it stands to good reason that I do not know too much – really anything – about the local history or legend of Flagstaff.

Ultimately, our conversation evolved (or maybe deteriorated) into a flippant contest of wits. The sort of thing you do to test someone’s supposed genius on a subject. Despite throwing my best Wikipedia-inspired questions at him, Greg proved himself a true Flagstaff-ian … or is it Flagstaff-an? Whatever it is, the point is that Greg gets to keep his Flagstaff membership card.

In the same spirit of fun and self-edification, I thought I’d pose the readers of this blog – all five or you –a similar challenge. I want to know what you know about emergency preparedness … about what it means to be ready for the effects of and recovery from an emergency or disaster.

So let’s get down to it. Below are six (10) questions taken from the wellspring of information that is www.justincasearizona.com. The questions are divided equally into three (3) categories based on their subject.

Without further a due, let’s get started.

Prepare a Plan
1. A friend or relative who lives somewhere other than Arizona is be a good candidate for an emergency ______ contact. You should “check in” with this person if you are separated from your family during an emergency or disaster.
2. It’s important to plan and practice _______ routes in case you need to get out of the house in a hurry.
3. In an emergency or disaster it’s important to identify a place where family can reunite. How many reunion places should you identify and where should they be?

Make a Kit
4. An emergency kit should include enough food, water and supplies to last a minimum of how long? (You can answer in days or hours)
5. Pack a _____ in case you get separated from your pet and need to describe his/her appearance.
6. Potable (drinkable) water is an important part of a kit. As a general rule, pack ___ gallon(s)/per ___/per ___.

Be Informed
7. What website is “the state’s online source for real-time emergency updates, preparedness information and multimedia resources?” (This one's a softball!)
8. A flood warning means flooding is occurring or will soon occur (True/False)
9. If you are in a moving vehicle when a dust storm hits, the driver should take three (3) steps. List them.
10. One (1) foot of water is enough to float most vehicles (True/False)

BONUS (+2): In 75 words or less tell us what emergency preparedness means to you and your family.

Answers can be emailed to azein@azdema.gov. We’ll wait a week or two before combing through the answers. Depending on the level of participation, maybe we can make this a monthly thing. I’ll even see if I can’t wrangle up some prizes should we see some enthusiasm.

Oh, and if you’ve got some good trivia questions of your own, shoot them are way. See if you can stump the AzEIN PIOs ... we "Triple-Dog Dare" 'ya!

Resolve to be Ready

2009-12-29T12:16:00.003-07:00

It is that time of year again. While you might be thinking holiday activities and the merriment, I am thinking about New Year’s resolutions.

I am a bit of a list junkie. I have a list of projects at work, a list of things I want to buy, a list of projects around the house, a list of fun activities to do. New Year’s resolutions fall right in with the other lists.

A couple weeks ago, I started thinking about my next year’s resolutions. The top of the list is generally lose weight and exercise more. . . . then I received an email about FEMA’s “Resolve to be Ready” campaign. What a great way to capitalize on all of us list makers!

Working in emergency management, I am constantly exposed to what it takes to be ready for the unexpected; make a plan, build a kit and stay informed. Adding preparedness to my resolutions should be a slam dunk.

I would give myself about an 85% in my level of preparedness. There are a few things that I can easily complete to bring me closer to 100%:

1) Update my communications plan (yes, I have one, but in doesn’t reflect the changes in work numbers or some of my new doctors).
2) Add current rabies vaccination information and information about new veterinarian (I have got to watch out for my dogs).
3) Add work gloves back to my kit (they got repurposed to gardening gloves when I put in a winter lawn).

I might be taking an easy way out . . . choosing a resolution that I am already 85% there. But hey, maybe that will give me the momentum to do as well on my other resolutions.

And it doesn’t hurt to be ready.

A Little Gift from Us to You

2009-12-22T14:26:00.004-07:00

One of the glories of Twitter is you never seem more than a few minutes removed from news as it happens.

One of its downfalls is sometimes you never seem removed from it at all.

Occasionally I shut off my TweetDeck, with its parade of pop-up windows accompanied by sonar pings, and give that one connection to the outside world a few hours of down time. This is particularly handy when the news of the day is, shall we say, a bit fluffy.

Today, though, it was impossible to ignore the steady stream of tweets about bad things happening on Arizona highways: A multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 10 south of Phoenix, possibly caused by blowing dust, resulting in fatalities; another collision on Interstate 40 near Williams in snowy, white-out conditions; warnings of severe winds between Phoenix and California, also on I-10.

The info was flying so fast, some folks – including me – were confusing old events for new ones, the classic newsroom pitfall when emergencies seem to surface in staccato bursts.

While this highway melee has less impact on me personally since I won’t be traveling on I-10 today, nor attempting to drive in snow this Christmas, it still leaves me a bit apprehensive. It’s also hard for me to grasp and process the personal tragedies that these accidents beget during what is supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year.”

How easy is it for me to repeat our mantra to be vigilant, be prepared, have a plan?

How easy could it have been me or one of my kids in one of those accidents?

How easy is it to enjoy the weather without being harmed in it?

It can start with this little gift: Remember how to drive safely in bad conditions, and check out the always-popular winter driving safety primer.

The rest depends on you. And me. It should be so easy.

Showers With a Chance for Preparedness

2009-12-14T12:44:00.020-07:00

Last Monday (Dec. 7) it stormed something awful at my house. Not surprising, the same system that barreled through my neighborhood with thunder and lightning and fierce winds also dumped significant snow at higher elevations. More than likely, you saw some weather outside your place.

I woke the next morning to a backyard scattered with debris and a tattered bougainvillea bush (see photo). In retrospect, the shrub was of little consequence compared to damage (e.g., toppled mature trees) done to homes down the block.

When you consider what might have been, what was didn't seem so bad. The bottom line is that you can't control which way or with what intensity the wind blows. All you can do is know and respect the local hazards and prepare for them.

In some areas knowing the hazards is easy. You only have to look outside or take a lap around the neighborhood. And once you identify a hazard, you need to prepare.

For example, if you live near a wash or riverbed then worry over flash flooding is justified and reason enough to make a family evacuation plan, to learn to turn off the gas and power, and to store important papers and keepsakes in a high, overhead cabinet.

If you own a home in the mountains or in an area dense with trees then wildfires would be an appropriate incident to mitigate against. You do this by clearing defensible space around your house, clearing clogged gutters of debris and landscaping with native plants that require little water.

If you live in Northern Arizona or at higher elevations then blizzards, ice storms and extreme winter cold would give cause to pack a family emergency kit complete with considerations for the cold like blankets, jackets, hats and gloves.

Ultimately, the point is ready yourself, your family and your home for any and all hazards. The basics of comprehensive preparedness are easy to remember, simple to follow and never change.

Prepare a Plan - write and rehearse family communication and preparedness plans that identify a family meeting place and include local emergency numbers and an "out-of-town" contact.

Make a Kit - gather enough food, water and provisions for 72 hours. Suggested items include first aid supplies, non-perishable food, drinking water, a flashlight and a radio.

Be Informed - learn about hazards in your community by listening to and/or watching local news. You can also contact your local emergency management office to learn about readiness planning and preparations.

Had It Up To Here With High Water

2009-09-29T14:15:00.015-07:00

By now it’s safe to assume that most know about the not-so-long-ago troubles reeked on the City of Sedona courtesy of Mother Nature.

On the afternoon of Sept. 10, Sedona took a metaphorical stiff right jab to the chin. In under an hour, a system of thunderstorms dumped between .5 and 3 inches of rain on Sedona, causing flash flooding, the worst of which struck West Sedona, and Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Village.

Photos and video shot by “Johnny-on-the-spot” citizen journalist provided the first dramatic images of racing water, parking lots turned marshes, and stacked cars. (Photo Credit: Christopher Fox Graham)

About a week ago, I hitched a ride with folks from the Arizona Division of Emergency Management (ADEM) Recovery Office to tour areas impacted by flood waters and debris for a Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA).

Two weeks after the fact, much of Tlaquepaque and West Sedona appeared back to normal; however, appearances aren't always the truest litmus test as it will take time before things are like they were. The good news is that there was no loss of life and that those I met are resolved to returning to equilibrium come drizzle, shower or deluge.

So here’s the part where I delicately bludgeon the reader with a not-so-veiled emergency preparedness message; this time we’re talking flood.

Now, I come from Lancaster County, Pa. In Pennsylvania, all good grade-schoolers learn about the "Great Flood" and fire of 1889 that resulted from the collapse of the South Fork Dam and killed over 2,000 in Johnstown, Pa. It's kind of a big deal. Visit the Johnstown Flood Museum if you ever find yourself passing through Western Pennsylvania.

I digress. Here comes that aforementioned "bludgeoning."

What HOMEOWNERS need to know about FLOODING:
· Floods are the most common hazard in Arizona.
· Make a Plan, Build a Kit and Be Informed so ready to go in at a moment’s notice.
· Rate your risk and buy flood insurance accordingly.

What DRIVERS need to know about FLOODING:
· Six (6) inches of rushing water is enough to …
o sweep a person off their feet, and
o reach the bottom of most passenger cars, causing loss of control and possible stalling.
· One (1) foot of water is enough to disable and float many vehicles
· Two (2) feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles, including sport utility vehicles (SUV’s) and pick-ups.

Putting it Plain: If there’s water where there isn’t normally water, and you’re neither Aquaman nor driving a James Bond sportscar/submarine combo, don’t attempt to drive through it … turn around.

(Source: just in case arizona, Federal Emergency Management Agency)

Things to Remember in September

2009-09-21T19:01:00.009-07:00

The one thing I miss most about living in Flagstaff is the change of seasons. You didn’t need a calendar. You just needed to step outside, look around, and feel what time of year it was.

I’ve always been partial to autumn. The aspens change colors, the air gets nippy in the evening, and wood smoke from previously dormant fireplaces foretells of holidays fast approaching. It doesn’t hurt that my birthday is in October, making autumn my own.

The changes of seasons in Phoenix are, shall we say, more subtle. Summer eventually loosens its death grip on us and the only way we recognize autumn is that it seems vaguely pleasant in the morning. Then we brag about the weather to out-of-town friends and relatives for seven months until summer begins again. That's our change of seasons in the Valley.

It was a shock to the system when I moved to Phoenix 10 years ago and realized there would be no colorful leaves on the ground, or bright green buds of grass in April. I’m not sure why this was a surprise, because I was quite familiar with the climate in the Valley having grown up 142 miles north of it. It made me miss and appreciate the obvious signs of the different seasons.

We find ourselves on the verge of autumn, which this year starts Sept. 22. The colors of the leaves in my old hometown and elsewhere will bear watching, and if my desktop weather gadget is at all accurate – and it has been so far – nighttime above the rim is already in the upper 40s. And that’s at 9 or 10 p.m.

Before long, we here in Preparednessville will begin posting messages about driving in winter conditions, staying safe in cold weather, and ensuring your house is not a holiday death trap. It all seems simultaneously far away and just around the corner.

What better way to help summer relax the vise it has us in and prepare for a new season by remembering one thing today, Sept. 21: Take five minutes to check the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

Emergency Preparedness Jeopardy and Other Reindeer Games

2009-09-09T12:25:00.002-07:00

When I got my first car, my dad trained me to make sure I always had some emergency supplies in my trunk in case I needed them. My emergency box included things like water, oil, gloves, tire gauge, duct tape, towels, flashlight, etc. Looking back on this now, I think this was my first lesson in how to be prepared.

This is a busy month around our office. Governor Brewer declared September “Arizona Preparedness Month” in coordination with nationwide preparedness month. An opportune time to sing the preparedness tenets . . . .make a plan, build a kit and stay informed. What does that mean for our office . . . a bunch of outreach events.

I am kicking off our festivities this year with Emergency Preparedness Jeopardy at an event for state employees. This is my chance to wear the emergency preparedness lab coat and see if state employees are smart enough to get the “daily double”.

I like doing outreach events. . . it makes for some great people watching. I will admit that our booth is not usually the most exciting, we don’t offer fun freebies. We can provide some handouts with preparedness games (word wrangle, pictograms, etc) and we are disaster junkies that like a good story.

Funny how when you hear disaster, you immediately think of the big ones . . . .but it is really the small ones that we are more likely to encounter and can wreak havoc. I had a power outage last week and had to go out to my car to get the flashlight from that trusty box of emergency supplies in my trunk . . .too bad I didn’t have a battery operated fan.

And They Say You Don’t Have to Worry About Hurricanes in Arizona....

2009-09-02T12:29:00.011-07:00

The first clue that a surprise rain storm would materialize Monday night came in the form of a tweet from @jessharter, the dining critic and restaurant blogger at the East Valley Tribune.

I follow Jess on Twitter because he was very enthusiastic about a pumpkin roll I made for a Tribune newsroom potluck in 2000. I figure his excellent taste in food has only gotten better with time.

“Wow, lots of huge lightning flashes just to east of Chandler-Gilbert. Maybe a surprise T-storm on the way?” he said economically, with 34 characters to spare.

Glancing outside, I saw the storm was already about to cross into Phoenix. I put my fantasy football league draft into “auto-pick” mode and raced home.

Not only was I anxious to avoid being on the road during a haboob or a dust storm, but I had a brand new dining room table in the back of my truck that I hadn’t gotten around to unloading. The idea of a violent rainstorm soaking my new table was just slightly more bothersome than the thought of spending another two days roaming throughout IKEA looking for a table again. IKEA shoppers know what I’m talking about.

Here it is, a couple of days later, and the only rainstorm on my mind isn’t even in this country, much less the state. Hurricane Jimena has been twirling on the tip of Baja California but her impact is already being felt here – without so much as a drop of water falling from her clouds.

There were a number of scenarios that would have Hurricane Jimena either dumping untold amounts of moisture somewhere on or around the state, or withering into nothing before the weekend gets here. Or something in between.

Any one of those scenarios would go far in deciding whether our Labor Day weekend is spent in front of a new smoker mastering the art of creating pulled pork sandwiches from Boston butt roasts, or answering the duty phone and responding to flooding issues.

Worse yet, chronic flooding in Nogales occurs whenever the Mexico side gets pelted with rain. Hurricane Jimena wasn’t allaying any fears of that.

However, Hurricane Jimena’s latest track has her skirting the gulf and jetting up the west coast of Baja California, likely lessening the amount of weather rolling into Arizona this weekend as had been previously forecast. The Valley will probably remain devoid of hurricane nastiness, although heavy rain isn't ruled out here -- or anywhere else in the state.

While this development is sure to disappoint the folks who are anxious for a stormy weekend to take the edge off the summer heat, it also means the chance of floods has also decreased.

Works for me. Swap one disaster for another, I say. Now, I can concentrate on the disaster that is a fantasy football team with seven wide receivers and no kickers, thanks to the auto-picker.

A Messaging Makeover

2009-08-19T12:41:00.015-07:00

Print journalism students and greenhorn writers learn pretty early that the right “angle” is frequently as important to the newsworthiness and appeal of a story as the polish of the prose.

Since retiring my notebook and No. 2, I’ve learned the same is true of outreach. It isn’t easy to make emergency preparedness messaging captivating. I mean, we’re not talking sensationalized tabloid fodder or Hollywood rumor.

People have short attention spans. They lose interest in recycled language and can grow apathetic to too often used buzzwords and catchphrases. Perhaps more likely, actionable adages like “Make a Plan,” “Build a Kit” and “Be Informed,” get lost in the torrent of information that people are exposed to daily via texting, social networking, etc.

The clear challenge is to find ways of rejuvenating stock and standard messages. It’s the difference in having a slice of apple pie or apple pie ala mode; the former is no slouch, but the latter is far more tantalizing and tasty.

An example of success in this endeavor is the American Red Cross – Bay Area Chapter, which has given routine and topical emergency preparedness messages a renaissance with a six-part animated series titled The Roommates.

A touch off-beat (I mean that in the best way possible) and delightfully tongue-in-cheek, think of The Roommates as an animated reality show starring wonderfully unusual characters like a business-casual robot named Nathaniel, a bungling wizard and a ninja called Alec.

Whereas the characters are eccentric, the essence of underlying messages is pulled straight from the disaster readiness playbook. Each short tackles a topic wholly linked to all-hazard individual and family emergency preparedness. Most conclude with an interactive question and answer session and the electronic receipt of additional preparedness information.

At the end of the “Make a Plan” sketch, viewers are asked to provide the name and phone number of an out-of-area and local contact, and identify immediate and nearby family meeting places. The responses are then collated into a wallet card that can be sent to your email.

The packaging and delivery of emergency preparedness messages like the taglines of your favorite brands will change, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. What's important, is that the the information be simple, actionable and accurate.

So let’s appreciate the imagination and gusto that goes into creating something original that champions emergency preparedness and raises the bar for the rest of us.

Preparedness is Only Part of the Game

2009-08-04T16:52:00.009-07:00

We here at the AzEIN sweatshop have been diligently endeavoring to bring you the latest in future news.

It’s a tricky business, predicting the future. The truth is neither I, nor Judy nor Ethan are psychic. In fact, a TV weatherman will likely be more accurate at telling the future considering all the high technology at his disposal.

But a big slice of our work pie involves delivering information on being prepared: Know what you should do in the event of a fire, or a flood, or if a wall of dust appears before you on the Beeline Highway. Be sure to have three days worth of food and water in your disaster supplies kit. There’s more. Lots more.

All good information that bears repeating, even for those of us who regularly wade through these particular waters (but not in a flash flood, since even a car will begin to lose control in only 6 inches of water.)

Since the weather generally doesn’t take special requests, we’re at the whim of Mother Nature to ply our trade, although she often treats us to the exact opposite of what we expect from her. We waited breathlessly for a robust fire season this summer, and instead got an early monsoon season. Now that the monsoon season is officially here, we are being treated to extreme heat.

And just when we think we have a message on the tip of our tongue for whatever season we think is coming down the pike, she throws an earthquake at us.

We handle these curve balls the best we can. No one here ever hopes for a disaster to take place; our training and preparation will be tested enough in due time. But I can sure appreciate how someone might be itching to get off the bench and put their skills to use.

Take my nephew, Glenn. After joining the Army about a year ago and going through endless training in preparation for deployment to the sandbox, he got stationed at Fort Lewis near Seattle. His unit, a Stryker Unit of the 3rd Brigade in the 2nd Infantry Division, got word that it would be sent to Iraq in early August (not the first time he’d heard that, I think.) He got so antsy, he volunteered to go early and arrived last week.

As an old Navy guy, I hope I rendered the description of his Army unit accurately. In any case, I have no doubt the U.S. Army is sending one of its best-prepared soldiers to a place where the unexpected has been known to happen, a place no one wants to go – unless, of course, you’re young and want to get off the bench and get in the game.

Take A Sick Day, You've Earned It

2009-07-30T12:14:00.005-07:00

I hardly ever take a sick day. I am not sure why, I guess I was just raised that if you don’t feel good, just tough it out. But that is all changing. . . or at least it should.

I had a headache on Monday morning. It could have been from the overload of Monday emails or the lack of caffeine . . .but I took some aspirin and tried to ignore it. Then I started to feel hot and nauseous. As I am sitting at my desk thinking I can tough it out, I had a flashback to a presentation from the previous week regarding the H1N1 flu virus . . . if you are sick, go home and stay home. . . .stay away from others.

So I quickly left the office to retreat to the comfort of my couch. I started to feel better early that evening, so thankfully I did not have the flu. This little health blip made me realize I don’t have everything I need if I have to stay home for an extended period. Those cans of black beans and enchilada sauce are not enough to get me on the road to better health.

The Center for Disease Control offers a flu checklist that includes non-perishable grocery items (granola, soup, crackers) and medical needs (thermometer, ibuprofen, stomach remedies). This checklist will make sure I have the stuff on hand that I will need to start feeling better. More importantly, I won’t have to take a trip to the store when I am feeling sick and could be infecting others.

So listen up Lou (my supervisor), I am going to be fighting the urge to tough it out and will likely be using up some of my sick days this year.

On a related note, check out the aerial spray effect of a sneeze (thanks Maricopa County Public Health).

They Say It's a Dry Heat

2009-07-21T09:38:00.012-07:00

We have a saying in Phoenix: Don’t talk about the heat in the summertime; no one wants to hear about it and it doesn’t do any good.

By “we,” I guess I just mean me and a few members of my family. No one in my family talks about how hot it is when it’s 112 degrees outside. We know it’s hot outside. This is not breaking news.

They taught us in journalism school that the news value of a story varies with the audience, and I saw that theory borne out firsthand: A 200-acre subdivision is top-fold news in Flagstaff. In Phoenix, that subdivision is a blurb on the community pages or a mention in the real estate section. News can be what most impacts the community.

So it is in emergency management, too. We have a saying that disasters are local. In other words, they start out small before becoming a city disaster, then a county disaster, and on up to the federal level.

When I give outreach presentations, I ask people if it’s a disaster when the power goes out on their street. Our stance? You bet! The food in your fridge might start going bad, the aquarium can’t aerate water for your tropical fish, and the air conditioner is a distant memory. All those things are enough to put a good dent in your quality of life. In the summertime, it can be downright dangerous.

The air conditioner went out in my new house last weekend sometime Saturday afternoon. I discovered I and the house-warranty people have disparate views on what constitutes an emergency. To them, it must be medical in nature. To me, it’s whether or not I can get any sleep without drowning in my own sweat.

My own personal disaster threshold dropped a notch when I spent the better part of last Monday working from home from 10 a.m. – During the heat of the day. Without air conditioning. – until about 5:15 p.m when it finally got fixed.

Yet there are people on the streets who depend on organizations like the Salvation Army to deploy hydration stations in Phoenix. And I am nothing less than disturbed and saddened when I read stories about hikers on a local mountain who succumb to the heat. Stories like this should be so rare that they definitely fall under the category of "Unusual Occurrences."

But they're not unusual. They're becoming everyday news. In this case, maybe it’s best that we keep on talking about the heat no matter how old the message seems to get. It just might help someone stay safe and actually do some good.

The Rocky Mountains: A View From the Fourth-Floor

2009-07-07T12:18:00.004-07:00

It’s settled. John Denver was neither lying, joking nor exaggerating. Colorado is everything he said it would be, and that’s based solely on what I saw from my hotel room and the shuttle trip to and from Denver International.

Unfortunately (maybe fortunately in retrospect), this recent trip to the Centennial State wasn’t at all about snow-capped peaks or backpacking; instead, it centered on an invitational external affairs conference in Broomfield, Colo. (Pause for reader “oohs and aahs” here).

Okay, okay … so maybe a work conference isn’t your (or really anybody’s) idea of rollicking good times, but it had its moments. The conference was two days of panel discussions, slide presentations, case studies and breakout sessions; but before you jump ship on me, understand these are just the sort of things that help communicators grow as professionals and better perform their jobs in service of the public.

A personal favorite among the presentations was a working lunch address by Kathleen J. Tierney, Director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Natural Hazards Center exists to “advance and communicate knowledge on hazard mitigation and disaster preparedness, response and recovery” through “information sharing and integration of activities among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.”

Tierney’s talk on risk communication research, specifically prevailing “truths” and misconceptions concerning how people acquire, interpret and apply messages in periods of crisis and emergency, raised eyebrows, questions and plenty of conversation.

It’s worth mentioning that besides being a spectator, I also participated in a four-person panel on social/new media in emergency management, during which I highlighted the new Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN) and our latest ventures into Web 2.0 sphere (e.g., Youtube, Twitter and Blogger). If you haven’t already, check us out at http://www.azein.gov/.

It would have been nice to sightsee in Boulder and to hike some of the over 350 miles of trail that wind through Rocky Mountain National Park*, but I’m not complaining. Occasions like this conference afford the almost invaluable opportunity to meet counterparts, build interpersonal and interstate relationships, and learn new strategies and tactics in public information and communication.

*BTW, if you are the outdoorsy type, have the slightest interest in nature or, like me, dug “Wild America” hosted by Marty Stouffer as a kid, effort to get to Rocky Mountain National Park in autumn for the elk, aspen and arresting vistas.

It's Not Earth-shattering, Just Earth-shaking

2009-06-22T19:05:00.006-07:00

If you’ve spent hours soldered to your computer while monitoring the Twitterverse for breaking news like me, then you’ve scrolled past dozens of headlines about things you would not think impact you. I know I have.

Only so many hours in the day, right? Staying informed can be a full-time job in itself. And when it comes to poring over a Web page, my attention gravitates to flashy and fun, not serious.

Then I tripped across a page by the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management: QuakeQuizSF. It’s the online equivalent of Life cereal—fun to play and good for you, too! The graphic representations of San Fran folk show you what to do if you feel the earth move under your feet at home, on your way to work, while dining out, and other places. (Check out the sewer rat in the subway.)

This isn’t wasted time. I live in Phoenix (#phx) and I haven’t visited the Bay area since my Navy days long ago, but Arizona is hardly immune to earthquakes. According to the Arizona Earthquake Information Center Web site at Northern Arizona University, high-intensity quakes have occurred as recently as the early 1990s, and the whole state has hosted some level of earth-shaking activity.

(When I attended NAU years ago, I would occasionally kill time between classes in the geography building staring at a working seismograph on display there. A paper-bound cylinder recorded seismic activity from a site somewhere in northern Arizona and the occasional chem student jumping up and down in front of the display case.)

I took all the quizzes on the San Francisco site and was a little surprised to not ace the test. I won’t spoil it for you, but the question I missed truly surprised me. It made me wonder if I would survive a 6-plus Richter Scale event, much less get out unscathed, like the one that hit my hometown less than 20 years ago.

Staying informed can indeed be a full-time job in itself.

Tornado Experiment Causes A Swirl Of Interest

2009-06-15T15:34:00.007-07:00

So … for my first blog I weighed a few potential topics, amongst them being tornadoes. “You live in Arizona,” you say, “why write about tornadoes?”

The “why” (make that “why’s”) are many. There’s my personal interest with severe weather, Arizona’s modest, but relatively tame, tornado history and the recent conclusion of the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX2) spring tour through the Central Plains.

VORTEX2 is a field study project sponsored through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) intended to further scientific understanding of “tornadogenesis” and increase warning times.

Apart from measurements and readings, VORTEX2 earned national publicity and yielded some striking stills and on-scene footage, including video of a June 5, 2009, tornado near La Grange, Wyo.

In Arizona, tornadoes aren’t what you’d call a major threat, but they happen on occasion. A query of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) produces 214 reported tornadoes between January 1, 1950, and February 28, 2009. All but a dozen measured F1 (weak), F0 (gale) or lower on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EFS).

The most severe and rarest of tornadoes are F5s. It was an F5 with winds up to 205 mph and measuring over a mile wide that destroyed over 90 percent of the city and killed 11 people in Greensburg, Kan., in early May 2007. Check out the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Photo Library for more photos from Greensburg and other disaster.

Should you be interested, tornado preparedness and safety information is readily available on the Web, including on just in case arizona and sites administered by the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), Ready.gov and the FEMA.

Good things come to those that wait

2009-06-12T12:46:00.003-07:00

I am very excited we are finally launching the Arizona Emergency Information Network (AzEIN) website!!

If some of you remember Arizona 2-1-1 . . . AzEIN is the new and improved version. We are focused on providing information about what hazards there are in Arizona (yes, there are hazards )and what we can do to prepare for them. We ask public information officers throughout the state to share information about ongoing emergencies . . . .so we can post that information too.

While the web is a helpful tool to relay information, the television is probably the #1 information source for many. I am concerned about the number of households that have not converted from analog to digital television . . . it is likely those folks don’t access the internet for their news.

I only have one friend that falls into the analog category, my 80 year-old friend Franny. I have confirmed she has the converter box so she can continue to watch television . . .the news or Entertainment Tonight.