BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)

Subject: BS: Disaster lessons learned
From: Bettynh
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 03:14 PM

I fervently hope that Thad Allen will stay on in some capacity. His is a voice of sanity and science in a usually political mire.

Stewart Brand had useful lessons from the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, too. I don't think they've been followed up, but they should be. The most important, I think, is the idea that in a disaster authority figures should shift roles and become co-ordinators rather than try to be heroes.

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: Bettynh
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 05:13 PM

Thanks for fixing the title Joe (or clone). I thought I had changed it before I posted, but it didn't take.

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: Ernest
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 01:47 AM

This might become a very short thread I fear....

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: GUEST,mg`
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 02:11 AM

What we never seem to learn is that we must get actual goods at some point to disaster victims. Various organizations will scream just send money we can't handle old t-shirts and bridal gowns etc. But this keeps help from getting to places. The victims themselves, not at the epicenter but at some safe distance away, can sort through the t-shirts and cooking pots etc. If Haiti had been sent tarps and clothing and material for bandages, diapers etc. ..if even it took a few weeks for container ships to get there..how much better off would they be. Organizations can still ask for money, and in the immediate days after a disaster I can understand why they want it, but we have tons and tons of plain old stuff that we need to figure out how to get to places rapidly, or even fairly slowly...big heavy things..tents..tools..and most of it will have to come by ship. Especially to Haiti..my goodness..it is so close to ports in America. It is surrounded by water. It is an ISLAND. They kept saying there are no airstrips. Well..use the sea. Oh the docks are broken. Park the ship away from the docks. People will make rafts or swim out or do what they have to do. We never take the strength and motivation of the victims into account and the more stuff that is gotten to people the fewer victims of riots over food etc. We need to do everything simultaneously..send money, send emergency rations via air and send at the same time more stuff..which can be easily acquired through church groups, etc. by sea. We are dumb dumb dumb in this area. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: Bettynh
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 07:50 AM

mg, it seems to me that if pictures of the disaster can get out immediately then the organization via internet can start as rapidly. It takes a shift in mindset. Probably the biggest disaster in Haiti was the loss of UN professionals in the initial event. This and this discuss some of the issues. Sending clothes to the tropics might be a mistake. Sending raw and inappropriate food can be a mistake. However, if there is internet co-ordination maybe the goodwill of donors would be appreciated somewhere else. I love the metaphor of the thousand lights focused to a laser. Focus the laser on the immediate disaster, reflect the generosity where it can do good. And find someone or a corps of someones who can do the work, even at a distance, without political preening.

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: LadyJean
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 11:39 PM

I remember packing up a box of stuff to send to victims of Katrina and discovering that the post office wasn't delivering to the area.

When my church sends a mission group to Haiti, even before the earthquake, they send antibiotic ointments, (Neosporin etc.) pain relievers and vitamins. I expect those would prove useful anywhere.

Oh, and this year the Presbyterian women were collecting hygene kits for refugee women. They asked for a hand towel, a wash cloth, a bar of soap, a toothbrus, a wide toothed comb and six band aids. I expect that those might, likewise, prove useful anywhere.

From my own experience, if you find yourself on a college campus during a tornado alert, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THE SORORITIES. It takes almost nothing to spook sorority girls. You do not want to be there when they stampede. Oh and avoid the fraternities too, as the members are mostly assholes and inclined to do incredibly dumb things.

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: Bettynh
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 05:35 AM

Exsactly, LadyJean. And blood donors on 9/11 weren't needed, either. The trick is finding out from someone at the scene exactly what can be used and getting the word out. Certainly, the restaurants that set up food kitchens after 9/11 for the rescue workers were needed and appreciated. Companies that operate huge cranes and barges started heading to the site. I read a New Yorker article that credited a man who was essentially in charge of city sidewalks who became a hub for organizing the workers who arrived to help. Since then, the internet comes in as a possible powerful tool. Finding a need and organizing a response can be done from a distance and effectively. I'd love to see the development of an organizing body (FEMA style without politics) that jumps onto the net and starts immediately assessing needs and moving appropriate supplies and workers. Maybe just a pipedream, but it's a thought...

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 01:21 PM

I think there should be immediate plans to get stuff not to the epicenter but at a distance from it. These terribly poor places, like Haiti, can use stuff even before a disaster. In fact, it would be good to cache supplies in places ahead of disasters. We dispose of so much stuff, or hang on to it in our basements, which could be saving lives. How many old tarps and tents for Haiti could a bunch of Boy Scouts (or Girl) collected? How much misery could have been avoided. How much sickness. How many shovels could have dug how many latrines? Our instincts to help in a disaster are being constantly dampened by the people who keep shouting just send money..but there should be agencies who can get goods to at least the easy places that are nearby. It doesn't mean people should not donate money right away, but at the same time start gathering goods and take to collection points. THere are of course epidemiological problems..perhaps new germs or insects etc. are lurking in our old stuff...and I don't know how to address that except that killer germs are going to emerge anyway in disasters. l mg

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: Bettynh
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 03:17 PM

I'm imagining this:

A million people in Pakistan have been affected by the floods. You want to help. Go to a website and choose to donate, say, 10 dollars for a) MREs (vegetarian or at least pork-free) for 40 people or b) 5 kits for water sterilization. You can read a report from someone at or near the scene explaining that these are what they need as soon as possible. You can follow the progress of your donated load of goods (a thermometer to show when a container is filled, perhaps) from its origin to its destination. Any delay or pilferage will be immediately noticed. Within a (hopefully) short time, you read an update requesting more of the same or something else that is now necessary. You're likely to donate more since you see that you've actually helped. The people in need actually can use what's been sent. Corruption and theft can be minimized (this is the hardest part, I know). As things progress, there are more reports from neighboring areas or even competing care-givers. They give various immediate assessments of the work in progress. They talk (and argue) with each other on a forum such as this one - online, at a distance, and without guns. They are the thousand lights that can focus a laser on the problem at hand. I know this is idealistic and far-fetched at the moment, but the world is rapidly coming online and it will be possible soon.

So, in thinking about preparedness, who in your area has access to a satellite phone? They would be the communication hub in a real emergency. Should police have access or the authority to seize access in a true emergency?

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 03:29 PM

From the Pakistan diaster, I've learned that, while banks count their profits in billions, humanitarian aid is measured in millions.

Subject: RE: BS: Lessons learned (about disasters)
From: bubblyrat
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 03:55 PM

There SHOULD really be an organisation ( but ,please God,not the United Nations !) that could and would go straight into action in places like Pakistan or Haiti,making sure that all available ,and subsequent,forms of aid go directly to the PEOPLE without getting stockpiled for months or years in corrupt Goevernment Officials' warehouses. And ANY official found to be in unlawful possession of such aid should be summarily executed. Sounds harsh, I know,but then so is life for disaster victims.Simple, isn't it ??