Duct Tape Man says: Duct Tape can fix ANYTHING!
Posted on 02/23/2003 1:16:43 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
As we poise to attack Iraq, our military leaders worry that our forces will have to survive and function on the "dirty battlefield" of chemical and biological contaminants. They are preparing for that worst-case scenario, which is the best thing to do.
Here at home, on the other hand, I'm afraid that too many of us are expecting the best-case scenario -- that we will be untouched -- which is the worst thing to do. We are negligent in our civil defense.
Take the duct tape squabble as an example. Earlier this month, the Bush administration heightened the nation's alert status, and gave the specific advice that citizens have emergency supplies, including duct tape and plastic sheeting, in the event of possible chemical or biological attacks on American soil.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, more concerned with the war for the presidency in 2004 than the war for Iraq in 2003, mocked the administration's ineptitude, saying that it would have to do better than duct tape to protect the American people.
Daschle is wrong. One of the first tricks of survival in a contaminated environment is to seal up a room with duct tape and plastic, breathing the ample inside air until the wind-borne contaminants outside have dissipated.
Dismissing Daschle's argument, I went down to a local hardware store to get supplies a few days ago, only to learn that he had already influenced many shoppers. Duct tape and plastic sheets in hand, I asked the checkout clerk how many people were stocking up on the items. "Not many," she replied. "Duct tape won't work."
From the back of the checkout line I explained why duct tape would work. To most of the shoppers in earshot, this seemed to be welcome news. Several of them went back to the shelves for their supplies. The hardware store made a handful of dollars in profit, and a handful of people made purchases that could save their lives.
Now is the time for all wise people to come to the aid of themselves. Civil defense, like all forms of self-defense, is an unpleasant concept. It demands that we accept our own stated reason for going to war: There are evil people in the world who hate and seek to harm us with weapons of mass destruction. We are in a war with terrorists -- and terrorists are in a war with us. Not just with our service personnel, intelligence agencies and police forces; not just with citizens of our political and financial capitals, but with all of us. Terrorists deal in terrifying deeds. They know that a thousand civilian casualties in America are more devastating to the nation's morale than a thousand U.S. military casualties in Iraq, and may well be easier to inflict.
The Houston area is unquestionably among the top homeland targets for agents of evil. Consider:
·We are the nation's fourth most populous city.
·We're the home of the Johnson Space Center.
·Several members of the Bush family, hated throughout the Middle East, live here.
· Our petrochemicals/refinery complex is the nation's largest.
·Our climate is conducive to maximizing the effects of a chemical attack.
When I was a general staff officer we routinely envisioned worst-case scenarios to test our preparedness. Let's use one for ourselves:
Early one morning there is a massive explosion in the petrochemical belt along our Ship Channel. Lethal gases, similar to the ones released in the catastrophe of Bhopal, India, erupt into the atmosphere. An early morning inversion temperature gradient -- our climatic norm -- keeps the toxic clouds on the ground, while gentle southeasterly breezes blow it northwest into the area inside Loop 610, where our population is most dense. It may reach beyond that. In any case, the toxins would not dissipate until the afternoon, when our atmospheric conditions usually cause ground air to rise.
If anyone thinks that my scenario may give the bad guys ideas they haven't already had, think again. Terrorists like the ones who simultaneously hijacked four planes and turned them into missiles are smart enough to think of blowing up toxic factories in populous areas.
They are constantly thinking of the bad things they can do to us, and we'd better start thinking about them ourselves. Oh, and don't snicker about duct tape. It could save your life.
May, a Houston-based writer, is a former Army Chemical Corps instructor of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
Other programs have been developed to educate the public about sheltering, which, in some circumstances, if undertaken too late or carried out improperly, may actually increase the exposure of those in the shelter. The "Wally Wise Guy" program, developed in Texas and now used in several other states, educates children about sheltering in place. Communities in Oregon and Washington near a chemical weapons stockpile have jointly developed an educational video on sheltering in place. *** - National Academies Press - hemical and Biological Terrorism: Research and Development to Improve Civilian Medical Response (1999)
We had tons of the stuff on hand due to a recent hard freeze, which necessitated wrapping the underside of our house. The Israelis are experts at living under terrorist threats all the time; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
Duct Tape Man says: Duct Tape can fix ANYTHING!
BUMP!
We had a line of thunderstorms pass through yesterday, and my usual ISP has been dead ever since, so I finally decided even bad access was better than none at all, and took advantage of AOL's "free 700 hours" offer...
And to my disgust, something AOL did during its screwing around with my files wiped out my dial-up-network-service shortcut... ah, well!
They have good reason for this. I don't know if you followed last week's story about the large model airplane that Hamas sent out over Israeli territory. They were obviously just testing it and it exploded when it returned to Hamas'home base. But it seemed that they intended to put some sort of toxic substance in it and fly it over a city or into a given area.
Duct tape and plastic are cheap and it certainly never hurts to have them on hand. As other people have pointed out, they're also useful supplies for emergency repairs of various sorts and even for first aid.
The ladies I was talking to are not very up on politics, except for my sister, who is a democrat and thinks that no one in the administration except Powell knows what's going on.
It is unconscionable for the democrats to mock the sealed room concept. The administration is probably going to have to get PSA's aired in order to get the point across, when a simple statement from the news people would save a lot of lives.
Duct tape, super glue and WD 40 .... standard survival items in my emergency kit since I discovered them, many years ago.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
