Sunday, February 27, 2011

Reminder from Down Under

This week, on Tuesday, February 22, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand. So far 145 are confirmed dead, with another 200 missing. Over 30,000 have no power, 62,000 are without water and at least 100,000 have no access to sewer service.

Adding insult to injury, this is the second big quake that hit New Zealand. On September 4, an even bigger quake hit nearly this same spot with a 7.1 magnitude jolt. Fortunately, because the quake hit in the very early morning hours, most people were not at work or on the streets, so no lives were lost, but a lot of older structures fell and the damage was city-wide and extensive.

To put these numbers into perspective, consider that Christchurch has a population of 348,000, or about 1/12 of New Zealand's population of 4 million. We have nearly that many in Orange County alone (3 million), but less than half of Los Angeles County's 10 million.

What do all these numbers mean? Think of it this way...imagine that a 6.3 or 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit in either Orange or La County... Thousands, not hundreds, could be missing. A million or more would be left without water, sewer or power. Access to freeways would likely be limited, at best, and life as we know it would come to a halt. And not for a day or two, but for weeks and probably months before a real semblance of normalcy would return.

If this scares you, that is not my intent. This is just a reminder that Mother Nature shows her self randomly and with no warning. So rather than being scared, get energized. Remember that being prepared for disaster is the best way to not only survive, but to survive well. I feel saddened when I see the images of those New Zealanders digging out of the rubble, but it does harden my resolve to keep typing and reminding that we all need to be prepared.

We just need to listen to Mother's occasional reminders. Even when she is “down under.”

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Carriage Return < CR >

Chances are that if you know what a carriage return is, you are of certain age and a certain technological ability. I am quite sure that my teen-aged children do not. It occurred to me upon seeing an old typewriter, an old manual typewriter even, how technology has changed. < cr >

My children could hardly believe that that first phone we had on our farm had a "party line," which is not nearly as fun as it sounds. It meant that when you picked up the phone that it was possible and probable that another person could be talking on (and using so that you’d have to wait) that same "line." Conversely, you could be chatting and have a neighbor pick up their phone only to discover that you were on it. I guess it was a sort of precursor of wire-tapping and, depending upon the skills of the listener, you could tap into your neighbor’s business undetected with ease. < cr >

I listened with curiosity this weekend about some MIT researchers who claimed that the use of Facebook and texting and such were diminishing human interactions and were detrimental to our social well-being. HA! I laughed. He obviously does not have a teenage daughter, who is a virtual social network all by herself with her 300 Facebook friends (not sure about this number, but I bet I’m not far off...maybe a big low...) and trusty cell phone by her side. Yes, she sleeps with it and I am quite sure all of her friends do, too. She texts as fast as I can talk and can do so with hardly a glance at the keyboard. < cr >

Do I consider this new interaction “detrimental?” Hardly. This researcher may think this new technology de-humanizing, but he just fails to see outside the box. These kids can communicate faster than a speeding bullet, solve social problems easier than leaping over tall buildings and still develop into responsible, lovely, interactive people. < cr >

So, if you really want to understand technology and social networking and how well it really works, hang out with a bunch of teens for a while. And they did it all without even knowing the < cr >.

2/23/2011 Postscript: I just glanced at my Post and noticed that the "< cr >" was not there on my original post. I altered it slightly to < space CR space >, then it showed up. Well, I'll be... That ancient Carriage Return is still there after all. The computer just "recognized" this shorthand for the old Carriage Return and did just that. Next paragraph, please... ;-)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Viva RevolucĂ­on!

Wow! What a week! One of the most important events in many of our lifetimes just occurred this past week. After 30 years of inarguably a corrupt and repressive government, the Egyptian President received a strong boot in the pants by the country’s own people. And what impressed me the most was that 1) relatively few people died and 2) it happened in large part by the power of the country’s youth!

OK, Sue, this seems a LARGE stretch to emergency preparedness, right? Au contraire! The youth of Egypt and the world are a much different breed from those of us from an earlier generation. Today, they communicate FAR more than we did at that age. They text, they tweet, they Facebook, they blog. And when Mubarak’s regime decided to pull the plug on the Internet for Egyptians, that was apparently “it!”

So, the point is that communication has changed drastically and it is really up to us to use it. Many people who felt lost in New Orleans after Katrina “found” their family via Facebook. Blogs gave a voice to those who wanted to let others know that they were broken a bit, but not beaten, and gave people a reason to hope. Text messages reached places that normal voice messages could not.

Communication will probably be the thing that will mean the successful survival after a major disaster. Yes, some services will be disrupted and possibly out for a while, but when we have so many ways of communicating, one will eventually be our way to life and recovery.

So, tweet, blog or log on to that Facebook now and start your own revolution to be prepared.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Super Bowl Mania

Every year the Super Bowl and all that surrounds it amazes me. Men, women, old, young, any ethnicity, go nuts over this one event. Super Bowl game time is also the time that I choose to do some shopping. The stores are eerily empty of other shoppers. It’s as if they know something that I don’t...

Actually, the Super Bowl, for all its hype, is good for a couple things. One, it provides at least a couple of really funny commercials. Yes, I know they exist because, even though I don’t watch the game, I have my husband hollar at me when a worthy commercial comes on. Secondly, it distracts us from the sadness and strife in the rest of the world for a couple hours (several hours, if you include the pre-game stuff). However, to be fair, I believe that Call of Duty and Angry Birds take many people too often to distraction, then suddenly they have forgotten about everything else in the world -- Oh, the Sirens! -- but that is for another Blog...

I had this theory that crime during the Super Bowl would decrease since (statistically) most crime-causing people are men and that most men are parked in front of a TV with their buddies watching the game. When I tried to Google this phenomenon, I first hits I got claimed that 10,000 prostitutes converged on the Dallas area and that child sex rings were suspected and...Oh, argh! Cancel search.

OK, so much for that theory, but it does make me think of this. How much preparation does one do to “have” a Super Bowl party? I know that there are websites solely devoted to planning tips for the big event. Also, since realistic estimates of the number of viewers for a Super Bowl are around 100 million (way less than the billion number hype, presumably propagated by the NFL marketers), that is really a lot of people who KNOW how to prepare for something.

See where I’m going with this? Yes, of course! If a person can go to those extremes to prepare for a 3-hour event that occurs every year, surely that same person could prepare for an emergency, right? If those finely honed organization skills were diverted for just for a day or two every year to make a family disaster plan, or re-stock their emergencies supplies, or make their emergency car kit, wouldn’t we, as a community and a society, be so much more prepared when disaster hits?

Oh, yeah, Sue. It will happen. I just have to think of a really good half time show...