Posted on 05/08/2003 9:19:28 AM PDT by JudgeAmint
| Huge homeland security drills planned in Seattle, Chicago By Matthew Daly, Associated Press, 5/5/2003 17:52 WASHINGTON (AP) A few minutes before noon next Monday, hundreds of firefighters and police officers including some in bright yellow ''moon suits'' will gather near an old brewery off Interstate 5 in Seattle. It soon will seem as if a radioactive ''dirty bomb'' has exploded. Around the same time, hospital officials in and near Chicago will notice a sudden increase in people complaining of flu-like symptoms. Within minutes officials will confirm the presence of a deadly biological agent. The officials will be real, but the emergencies they are responding to will not be. The staged events are part of a weeklong drill aimed at testing the ability of local, state and federal authorities to handle a terrorist attack. Dubbed Topoff 2 (for top officials), the weeklong drills will be the first large-scale counterterrorism exercises since Sept. 11, 2001. They were created by the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge explained the drill and its purpose. ''Let me be clear: This is a simulation,'' Ridge said Monday at a news conference. ''This is a test. This is an exercise.'' Ridge repeated that several times as he and other officials tried to prepare the public particularly those in the Seattle, Chicago and Washington areas for the security drill, the most extensive of its type in U.S. history. The exercise will cost an estimated $16 million and involve more than 8,500 people from 100 federal, state and local agencies, the American Red Cross and the Canadian government. ''Our objective is to improve the nation's capacity to save lives in ... a terrorist event,'' including use of weapons of mass destruction, Ridge said. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said he was not worried that the security exercise would cause panic, noting that the event has received extensive publicity locally. Newspaper ads are planned in both Seattle and Chicago, and crews can already be seen preparing for the Seattle event, which will be centered near the former Rainier Brewery now home to Tully's Coffee just south of downtown. ''Our intent is to let people know what we're doing,'' Nickels said. Officials declined to reveal details of what will happen, but participants know the Seattle event involves a mock dirty bomb a crude combination of conventional explosives such as TNT packed with radioactive material while the Chicago event involves covert release of a deadly biological agent. A detailed, 200-page scenario has been written for the drill, which officials said will be as realistic-looking as possible. Stand-ins will portray President Bush, Vice President Cheney and even press secretary Ari Fleischer. ''There's a lot of role-playing, but I'll be playing myself,'' Ridge said. Some details have been kept from the participants in order to make the exercise more realistic, said Ted Macklin, assistant director of the Office of Domestic Preparedness. The office has been planning the event since shortly after the first Topoff drill, three years ago in Denver and New Hampshire. ''We want to keep responders guessing,'' Macklin said. Participants will range from governors, mayors, county executives and other elected officials to police officers, firefighters, hospital personnel and other emergency responders. Hundreds of evaluators will watch the exercise and report their findings for later study. Whatever lessons are learned are likely to apply to earthquakes and other natural disasters, as well as terrorist attacks, officials said. |
And we can not decide whether or not to quarantine SARS Symptomatic people, arriving in the USA via International flights? We are facing down serious plague risk. Unbelievable.
PREPARING FOR A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
1. Be prepared—keep a gas mask handy at home, at work (especially in high-rise office buildings where the mask can help you escape in smoky or dusty conditions), and in the trunk of your car. A gas mask by your bedside is your best option in a fire for escape and rescue of your family.
2. If you fear you have been exposed to biological agents (Anthrax, plague, Tularemia, Brucellosis, Q fever, smallpox, viral encephalitic, or hemorrhagic fever) do the following during the one- to six-day incubation period before symptoms arise.
NOTE: This is my own personal list for situations in which you cannot or do not wish to recur to conventional antibiotic treatment, or when such treatment is not available. Copy and implement these suggestions at your own risk. I make no medical claims or guarantees of effectiveness. Your success against these agents will vary according to exposure, the prior state of your immune system, and many other factors.
Do NOT begin antibiotic treatment until symptoms appear. Early or excessive use of antibiotics will destroy the natural bacterial flora in your intestinal tract and render your immune system less effective.
a. Stop eating your normal, cooked food diet.
b. Begin a very light diet (almost light fasting) of raw fruits and vegetables and juices (no commercial products with artificial or natural sweeteners).
c. Drink a lot of water, but do not drink water from public water supplies; avoid chlorine or fluoride. [I recommend installing a water purifying system in your home before a major biological attack occurs. Once it does, there will be a run on equipment. Have several bottles of aerobic-type oxygen liquid on hand for water purification. Oxygen-based purifiers are far safer and better than chemicals or bleach. See the J&A Specialty Products link at the bottom of my website front page to obtain some of these products at very low prices.]
d. Take the following natural and herbal anti-bacterial and anti-viral capsules:
· Natural Vitamin C with bioflavanoids—1000 mg every two hours, along with natural juice or fruit. [If diarrhea develops, cut dose in half. If symptoms of aches or fever begin, take hourly.]
· Raw garlic (crush into tomato juice)—one small clove every six hours.
· Colloidal silver solution—one dropper full of every six hours.
· Echinacea—one capsule three times a day.
· Goldenseal—one capsule three times a day.
· Olive leaf extract—one capsule three times a day.
· Grape seed extract (or other high-potency anti-oxidant)—one capsule six times a day.
e. Use melaleuca (Tea Tree Oil) as a salve for all lesions, open wounds, or sores.
There are other natural preparations that I believe are effective, including some new detox homeopathic preparations. Check with the Herbal Healing Academy at 870-269-4177 or www.herbalhealer.com. This academy has excellent prices, information, and products. I have no financial interest in any of the recommendations I make.
3. If you begin to have symptoms, begin antibiotic treatment immediately, under the care of a physician, if available. Chances are high that despite government assurances, there will not be enough antibiotics to go around in a major biological attack, so it is important to live healthily and stockpile natural alternatives. Learn to live with alternative remedies before your life depends on them since it takes some skill and sensitivity to learn to recognize your own body’s feedback signals giving you hints about what it needs. Remember, too, that natural solutions only work well when your body is NOT loaded down with food, especially junk food or cooked food, which have no live enzymes.
4. Leave any area where infection is growing. Find temporary housing in rural areas. It is best to make arrangements with friends and relatives beforehand. This is important to avoid continual exposure even to low levels of contaminants. Wear your gas mask in the car when leaving town. Don’t worry about looking silly—it may save your life.
5. If you can’t leave the area, close all windows and doors in your home and stay indoors. Wear a gas mask as long as you can do so without undue stress. You must remove it to eat and drink, unless it has a built in water straw.
GAS MASK RECOMMENDATIONS
What to Avoid
If you have already purchased one of these items (or this is all you can find), go ahead and use the item. But don’t pay more than $20 or $30 for the mask or filter. Otherwise choose from the “OK Choices” list below.
· Old US M17 series masks with cheek filters. These are hard to replace and tedious to change.
· All Russian, East German surplus masks. The quality is poor for these masks.
· Old, outdated filter cartridges. These filters are still useful, but won’t offer close to 100 percent assured protection, nor do they filter effectively for more than a few hours.
· M9 gas masks with the 60-mm size cartridge. The filters for these masks are oddly sized and are not compatible with the NATO standard.
OK Choices
These masks cost from the low to moderate range ($30 to $150).
· Israeli Civilian or M15 military version masks. These are usually the best buy, but they are only acceptable if you replace the stock filter cartridge with a current, dated M95 filter cartridge, which gives the full range of modern protection. Military personnel used to the finest equipment will likely denigrate this choice, but my personal experience with these masks says they are very functional for civilian uses. Adult and youth sizes are available.
· Canadian M69 masks. Some of these masks have had slight leaks at the voice piece. Check and test before you buy.
Current Model Choices
These items cost from the moderate to expensive range ($200 to $300). In my opinion, the expense is too high unless you are certain you are going into a high-threat zone where you need the best. All masks have drinking straw options and other high tech features and are lightweight.
· Advantage 1000 mask. This civilian version is expensive.
· British S10 mask. This mask has a current NATO filter
· BSK (European standard mask). Available at www.redrainbow.com.
· Canadian C4. This is probably the best and most comfortable mask made, but it’s hard to find in the United States.
· US M40 series. The current issue is expensive.
· US M95 mask. This is the best buy of a modern U.S. model. The mask comes with a well-priced M95 c/a filter, the universal NATO filter, which also can be used with other masks.
Sources
There are hundreds of sources for gas masks and filters. Prices vary wildly now and, not surprisingly, availability is low, low, low. It will start to come back in a couple of weeks. Beware of Internet sources that are charging more than the average pre-September 11 prices mentioned here—it means they are taking advantage of the crises. I wouldn’t pay more than $250 for even the best masks. Most acceptable mask should be below $150. Best buys are under $74.
Three good sources for masks and filters are:
· www.4starmilitarysurplus.com
There are others. No distributor carries the full line of different masks, so you’ll have to search around on the Internet. If you find others with reasonable prices, please email me at joel@joelskousen.com and I will post the information.
What the hell is this? Oh, and BTW,
JudgeAmint Since Mar 6, 2003
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