Monday, February 27, 2012

The Need for Obsession

I missed a blog post last week. I really don’t ever like to miss a week and since I have only missed a couple since the blog’s inception a year and a half ago, I shouldn’t really beat myself up over it. Still, writing this weekly blog is a bit of an obsession with me. I feel compelled to write every week to help someone think about getting prepared, and if I am really fortunate, to get them to smile or laugh a little, too.

But down to my reason/excuse for not posting last week was my recent obsession – updating our Emergency Operations Plan. It’s not a bad plan, but obviously one that has been assembled over years by committee. One person added this, another added that. Good stuff, really, but it just does not flow into something that seems cohesive and with a single voice. It was driving me crazy that each element seemed to need something else, then another... I seemed to be able to do nothing else, but work on that ever-needy Plan!

Last week, however, an event made me pause. My heart sank when I learned that one women – much, much greater than myself – paid the ultimate price for her obsession, which was one of standing up for those whose voices were lost in strangling and brutal regimes.

Maria Colvin, a native New Yorker, spent 30 years as a journalist, traveling in places where few dared to go. A grenade attack in Sri Lanka ten years ago, leaving her with shrapnel in her head and an eye patch covering the eye she lost, slowed her only momentarily. She was driven, obsessed, to do what she had always done – report what she saw.

Last Wednesday, February 22, she and a young French photographer, Remi Ochlik, died in a bomb blast that the Syrian army had intended for its own citizens. Maria and Remi had slipped into Homs to do what Maria had always been doing as a journalist – to capture in her words the human toll of war, where innocent men, women and children consistently lost their lives while governments, often from their own country, used weaponry and spilt blood to govern a nation. Now, sadly, she has fallen, too.

"She wrote about the human side of the troubles," Maureen Marron [Maria’s cousin] said. "It infuriated her that ordinary people were being killed around the world and nobody was paying attention." Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Journalist-killed-in-Syria-had-local-ties-3360247.php#ixzz1nbQ6rscK

We often use the term obsessed as a negative, but I think we need obsessions. We need those who strive for more, give more. While the obsession over my project pales enormously to what Maria lived every moment to do, it is still an inspiration of what one person can do. Yes, we may seem a little crazy at times, but, in the end, if we can help even a little, it seems worth it.

To you, Maria and your Remi – thank you for what you have done. You help us live another day a little better. R.I.P.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Friends, February 15, 2012

Occasionally you run across someone who is just downright friendly. You know the one – easy to talk to, a ready smile, has a calming effect on everyone around. I met someone today who embodied the very definition of friendly. After escorting his wife of 34 years to her chair in the waiting room, he excused himself from her to say hello to everyone. Which he did. This was not just your normal, “Hi, how are you” greeting. Oh, no. It was the, “Hello, how is your day going? [and waited for the response], what a lovely blouse and it matches that gorgeous bracelet.” It was first rate. By the time he made this way through the women’s breast center waiting room, he managed to greet and engage about two dozen women – and left us all with a smile and a feeling that we had all had a rare and exhilarating experience.

The woman sitting next to me and I must have been especially responsive to him because he seemed to take a lot of time with us explaining his life and passion. His wife was there on a checkup from a very serious diagnosis of breast cancer last year. The way he gushed over her and their life, I could only imagine what the day before must have been like for her.

As I type this, I am still smiling over that encounter and the warmth he extended to perfect strangers, whom he treated like we were long-lost friends. It reminds me, too, of the power that we all have as individuals to make a difference AS an individual. We can do things that extend our influence for the length of a smile, a few hours, or, if we are lucky, a life-time.

It is my hope today, the day after Cupid was busy slinging his arrows, that we remember that touching another person’s life is life changing for all of us. We can do something for today and tomorrow that will make a difference long after we are gone.

So, I sincerely hope that my blog can make you smile from time to time, get your prepared for those unseen events, and remind you that someone really does care...cause I do, my friend. I really do.

Monday, February 6, 2012

If only I had...

How many times have you used this phrase, and perhaps with sad regret? I still recall acutely saying that to myself after my father passed away. I simply adored my dad and welcomed the opportunity to care for him in my home for the last five years of his life. Yet, there are still times when I wish that I had taken more time to learn about his boyhood. I wish I had heard the full story of how he lost much of his hand in a giant machine when only a boy fresh from high school. If only I had paid more attention to this pickle recipe. Sigh.

I am currently the caretaker for my mother. Astonishingly strong at 92, she lives with me, too. She’s heartbroken of course from the loss of the love of her life, but still kicking – and, as she always adds – “not very high, though.” While she takes care of herself quite well every day, she still needs some help. Alzheimer’s, that cruel memory thief, is starting to visit her more frequently now, although she seems to fight back with times of surprising clarity.

My fear, however, is something happening when I am not there. Someone is with her nearly all day, but there are a few hours in which she is alone, save for our two dogs who consider sleeping on or near her a non-negotiable right. It has hit me recently that I (Ms. Emergency Management Person!) have not really “prepared” her for a large scale disaster. I haven’t given our close neighbors keys to our house, or a list of her doctors and location of her medication. I haven’t given her specific instructions on what to do in an earthquake because, honestly, I am fairly sure she will forget them. However, imagery is apparently a potential substitute for those diminishing short-term memory cells, so I could make pictures of what to do. Pictures of protecting your head, pictures of wearing shoes, pictures of hanging on to something during an earthquake – all might just save her life, or at least reduce the harm.

So, tonight I am starting on my “Prepare My Mom” campaign. I will make instructions for my neighbors and dig out spare keys for them. I will check the bookcases in all part of the house to make sure they won’t tumble on her when the ground shakes them over. I will start making pictures of things she should do during an earthquake or fire.

I just have to start and start now. I don’t want to be filled with regret and sorrow that I could have done more, sooner and better. I want to do all I can to protect her and keep her safe. And I don’t ever want to say, I wish I had...

You can do this, too! Need to get prepared? Make a list, make it happen. I’m rooting for all of us.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Train Wrecks Always Happen at An Intersection

Collisions. The intersection of two different things is rife with possibilities that something is going to go wrong. Having sloshed through regulations for more than 20 years now, I can say that digging through them is often frustrating and can push one to the point of driving straight to Sacramento with a nerf bat (really, I am not that violent) to konk some legislator on the head. What WERE you thinking?

Being away from the highly regulated world of radioactivity, I don’t need to slog through regulations nearly as much...until recently. I take great pains to become physically involved with my job and (along with my long-sung mantra, “Get Up, Get Out, Get Going”) I walked through our new housing complex. Honestly, it is beautiful. No wonder the waiting list to get in to the student residential housing (dorms) is so long. In my tour, I focused on emergency aspects, such as emergency exits, evacuation routes and signs. To my surprise, I found something I had not seen before – An Area of Refuge.

Well, that’s not quite true. The first area of refuge I encountered was a couple years ago on the Big Island of Hawaii. Pu’uhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park holds the island’s City of Refuge, an ancient place where defeated warriors and wrong-doers came to seek refuge and not be killed. A place with stunning beauty, peace and calm.

Perhaps this was the idea behind the current Areas of Refuge that are located in the stairwells of new structures, like our new student housing. The concept is quite simple. It is an area adequate to hold a wheel chair or other mobile device so that during an emergency evacuation, a person in that chair could remain safely away from the building’s smoke and fire until help came to assist them. All seemed good until I looked up. There, just above where the wheelchair would reside is the fire alarm and alarm strobe. For those of you who have not experienced the new alarms and lights, it is something that you would want to move away from as quickly as possible. Imagine living in the center of a fire station that also happens to double as a disco. That’s what it is like. So, you can imagine my thoughts (think nerf bat) when I envisioned someone who was not only unable to travel down the stairs, but also stuck with an ear-splitting siren and visually assaulting blinking lights. This just cannot be!

You’d think that NFPA (National Fire Protection folks) and ADA (Americans with Disabilities folks) would have thought about their intersection before the train crashed. But apparently not. I’m still on the hunt for someone to give me answers on how to correct this situation. I tried to look at the regulations myself, but fire codes, building codes, and compliance codes are deep and filled with language I simply cannot comprehend.

I guess my bottom line is how to avoid such train wrecks for yourself. Set up systems and things in your house that are a meet-and-greet rather than something resulting in mushroom clouds. Design, build, test. It is the best way to prepare for anything.