The lesssons I have learned from the Hurricane Katrina disaster and tragedy

JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | September 5, 2005 | Jeff Head

[SevenDaysInMay]

I may post my own thread on this bugout bag business after I pull some old list plans which I broke out into budget levels having fun with FR Y2K games. I have thought about this topic since I started studying the (Central Europe's)30 Years War in 1967 and Leningrad's 900 Days during my first semester of Russian in 1976. Common sense made hungry focuses one's mind.

Folks, SURVIVING FOOLISHNESS IS THE PRIME DIRECTIVE of LIBERTY.

After reflection today, I would also advise each of us when SHTF to write our names and next of kin info in black Sharpie should our deaths go reported.

In times of plenty, we must plan ahead so that one may NEVER NEED BE A BURDEN ON OTHERS, but a safe harbour to others. One year of good canned goods per person is about 400 tins = 400# = $400, plus ~1/2 cup each of dried beans and rice/day/person on average which roughly works out to 100# of each. Dried beans keep up to 2 years while white rice keeps upto 5 years; use quality ice chests to minimize temp and humidity variations. Canning with SS drums in a 95% nitrogen atmosphere is for high dollar long-term storage.

It can be a bad idea to gain weight during a famine. Keep low profiles if eating well, and never throw out the cans as trash. Cut off both ends of food tin cans and crush then burn and bury. If the cans' goo is not burned up, it shall always attract unwanted bugs, rats, and dogs & cats which may attract unwanted people. Starving people will kill for far less than your food stores, Folks.

Please, Folks, consider 6 qt. pressure cookers (SS or Al)to positively and economically sterilize water (just begin rocking the topper as opposed to boiling for 15 minutes AT SEA LEVEL) and cook a meal in ~<5 minutes. They are amazingly efrficient.

Plan on one large roll of TP and one roll of paper towels every week - KEEP THEM DRY at all costs.

Jeff, please keep up your good contributions.

[Jeff Head]

Listen, you clearly have your own opinion (and perhaps agenda) of the matter and I have mine. We disagree fundamentally rgearding the federal response. Fine...that's the way it is.

If you think it is some cake walk to put together the logistics to safely and efficiently bring in masses of food and water to people like what existed in the Superdome and elsewhere in New Orleans and at other places impacted by the disaster within 48 hours of the storm having exited the area...then you are kidding yourself.

Air dropping it, as you suggest, could have easily destroyed the food supplies or dropped them into the water. Bringing in too little could have caused stampedes and riots that would kill more than getting it there a day or two later in sufficient quantities and in a controlled and effective manner...despite the intervening losses.

Tough decisions, but ones that must be made in the hard cold light of day and reality of the circumstances...and not made emotionally.

You are responding very emotionally IMHO...and perhaps that is understandable. But it does not save the maximum number of people or get the job done.

The fact is...the local governments failed in placing those people in a facility at ground zero in the first place, in leaving them there without adequate provisions, and in not protecting them adequately. The federal government, responding on a large scale to people in need throughoput the region got resource and organization there as quickly as could reasonable be expected...perhaps not as quickly as we emotionally would have liked to have seen...but there in the most reasonable and efficient time given the circumtances.

In a perfect world, no one would have been hurt in the intervening time between when we would have liked to have seen and when it could reasonably get there in a fashion so as to preserve the most life. But we do not live in a perfect world and danger, hardship, and even tragic loss is going to occur in such disasters.

No one likes that...but we work to mitigate it and improve it as best we can.

That is what this thread is about...the lessons to be learned. In my experience and based on my observations, the most effective lessons could be learned by the individuals and the local and state leaders to preserve the most life.

Does that mean that the federal response cannot be improved? Of course not. It just means that the greatest area for improvement lies in those areas I described. Sorry if that does not meet up to your emotional standards.

The most effective help will come from the greatest numbers of individuals, communities, and agencies effectively learning and apllying these lessons IMHO.

[Jeff Head]

Amen.

[Jeff Head]

More great advise. Thanks.

Summed it up very well with this...

Folks, SURVIVING FOOLISHNESS IS THE PRIME DIRECTIVE of LIBERTY.

A double amen to that.

[GeorgiaYankee]

Add to the list portable radio, flashlight, batteries, candles, matches. Walkie talkies in case phones are knocked out(a lot of people have the new FRS/GMRS radios with 2-8 mile range).

[mother22wife21]

preparation ping.

[Jeff Head]

I could not update this posting, but on my own site, I have already updated the essay to contain most all of what you have mentioned...HERE.

Including a much needed seventh lesson.

Thanks!

[Tolik]

Nailed It!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[Jeff Head]

Thanks. If you get the opportunity, please see my update at my site, where I include some of the emergency preparedness suggestions recommended here, and a critical seventh lesson...HERE.

[Tolik]

Already, and its very good.

I pinged before reading down the thread, otherwise, I'd include your link in the ping itself.

Thanks

[wita]

With professional training your fear will disappear, and compare that with your potential fear of a mob that regards you as meat and you left to protect yourself and family with what?

[wita]

Just got your ping, thanks. Info everyone should take to heart. It is our responsibilty, our privilege, our duty, to be prepared just as the Boy Scout Motto says. If the Golden rule applies in normal conditions, it must apply in spades in time of trouble and turmoil. Just imagine if everyone was able to be minimally prepared as you have outlined, the outcome of the recent disaster that was George W's fault couldn't be blamed on anything but nature.

[wita]

A roll of TP in disaster circumstances, is like gold in the bank, or cigarettes to those who do but don't have them. Who bothers to think about cleaning yourself with tree leaves, if it happens to be summer. What you gonna do in winter?

[.cnI redruM]

Pretty accurate. You won't see it in any Civil Defense manual, but I buy about 99% of it.

[Jeff Head]

Thanks. I added some more necessities in the 96 hour kit, cleaned up some typos, and added a very critical lesson number seven on my own web page ...HERE.

[Jeff Head]

Thank you.

It is our responsibilty, our privilege, our duty, to be prepared just as the Boy Scout Motto says. If the Golden rule applies in normal conditions, it must apply in spades in time of trouble and turmoil.

Amen to every bit of that my friend. I pray more people and communities will learn the lessons of katrina and be better prepared themselves in furutre disasters. They will preserve themselves in the process and be in a position to help preserve others too.

[I'm ALL Right!]

I want a gun, but I'm afraid to have them in the house with my kids.

[SevenDaysInMay]

What you gonna do in winter?

Actually, snow balls work quite well, the drier the better, AND the quicker the better or you'll get snow balls! {8^/

Folks, pack along at least 3 ziplocks of 20 latex gloves each in size large, unless one has small hands such as children - if so, have them carry their own zipped glove packs, with 2 zips of 25 nitril (4,5,8 mil usually blue or purple) gloves one zip in your size and the other in large, if not you size.

Never ever cross-contaminate! Meaning scratching, hugging, kissing, leaning on trees and walls if flooded. (I pack VSOP cognac and 15 y.o. scotch for my industrial-strength mouthwash.) We are dirty and buggy animals; one biology professor told me that humans, as disease/parasite vectors to others as well as ourselves, get more dangerous at a geometric rate for every day that we don't throughly bathe under the best possible circumstances. First and second Aid kits, anyone? Lots of handiwipes and shampoo at the bedet, everyone. Humans poop ~1.5-2# daily (~ half by volume is bacteria), if you're lucky. Butt-ugly kills.

Eat with one latex glove, two if preparing a meal. Latex doubled is good for most nursing most sick folks, dry or wet. IF IT IS WET AND NOT YOURS, DON'T TOUCH IT. Nitril is much much stronger and more durable THAN LATEX, even if only 4 mil., and is better used to protect choring hands - especially handling the wounded and dead or game and rats - when for dinner, as rats have all those sharp little bones, better saved as toothpicks.

[Countyline]

Thank you, for this important addition to the list of necessary preparedness.

[Countyline]

Jeff, you are a steady light, a heart dedicated to assisting his fellowman, a strong example of how a man is to behave in this world and before his God.

Your sons have seen it demonstrated before their very eyes during their growing up years. May God bless you, Jeff, and your family.