Caught Off Guard?

Inspired by all of the trouble caused by the snow and ice storms we had in January, Damon set out to organize a community Emergency Preparedness Fair, hosted at our church building on April 14. He spent over two months putting together a 4-hour event with visits from emergency aid personnel and vehicles and classes taught by local experts on topics such as emergency heat and electricity, water and sanitation, emergency food prep and storage, kids' emergency preparation, and wildfire mitigation.  Although the fair was held at the church and organized under the supervision of our local ward leaders, this was truly a community event. Only two of the presenters were active Church members.  There were probably 150 people in attendance and nearly half were not members of our ward.

From the press release printed in our local paper:
"Fair organizer Damon McMillan stresses, 'This emergency preparedness fair is not geared toward hard-core survivalists or emergency services providers, but rather those average citizens who just need to take a few simple steps to be ready for the next emergency or disaster.'
"After the snow and ice storm this past February, McMillan, a White Salmon resident, was inspired to do something to help his family, friends, and neighbors be better prepared for future emergencies, weather-related or otherwise. He approached leaders at his local congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who agreed that hosting such an event would be of benefit to the community.

"McMillan talked with people about their experiences and found common themes amongst their challenges, especially during power outages. He then spoke to local experts, asking questions about wood heat alternatives, cooking without power, and other issues. They agreed to share their knowledge of emergency preparation at a community event."

Everyone enjoyed touring the fire engine, which actually had to go out on a call during the fair! (No worries: someone was just burning brush on their property near the road and another person driving by called it in; that's legal where we live and a common occurrence in the springtime.)

 

They returned after making sure the fire was under control, and they brought an ambulance back with them!

 

Here's Adah in the fire truck with a few other kids we know:

 

Maggie even got to try on some of the fire fighter's clothes! (I didn't even know about this until I saw photos later.)

 

The Red Cross also sent a truck and presented a class on children's emergency preparedness and family emergency plans.

 

The real feather in Damon's cap for this event was the landing of a Life Flight medical helicopter in the church parking lot! He learned that they have a community outreach program and so he submitted a request for them to visit the fair.  We found out just a week before the fair, after all the publicity materials had been printed, so we got an additional press release in the paper and started spreading the word.

Everyone was pretty excited about seeing the helicopter land. They were a little later than expected and the first class had already begun. I was in the kids' class and the teacher let us all run out and see the chopper land. (I'm in the photo below, wearing a red jacket,behind a kid in a purple shirt.)

 

 

Adah snapped at least 20 photos of the helicopter. I spared you from looking at all the interior shots. You'd think she was a spy for some competing medical helicopter company trying to document exactly how this one was equipped. Still, they were kind of fun for me to look at it since Holly wouldn't let me get close enough to have a tour and I didn't want to leave her with Damon since he had enough to keep track of being the head honcho that day.

 

 

The kids' emergency prep class was well-attended and the kids got to participate by answering and asking lots of questions about different kinds of disasters they might experience and how they can help keep themselves and their families safe. They were all given the assignment to go home and ask their parents about their fire safety plan and to make sure they had working smoke detectors. It was a good reminder for us to review our fire escape plan, especially with Gunnar, who is now old enough to remember the family meeting place in case of fire.

 

The class I was most looking forward to and at which I learned some really great tips was the one on emergency heat. We have an electric heat pump and no fireplace of any kind in our home. When the power goes out, our means of generating heat is gone. That has always been my biggest concern in a winter emergency. I always have plenty of food and water on hand. (We're on city water anyway, unlike many of our friends who have their own wells and pumps, so we've always had water.)  We have a camp stove and a propane BBQ grill with a burner, so plenty of options for cooking meals. And, as much as we like watching TVs, we're good at entertaining ourselves without electricity.

However, it gets SO COLD in our house with no power. Even on sunny days, we don't have the southern window exposure to heat the house up much. At the heating class I learned about a few propane heaters on the market as well as a window-insert pellet stove. I think the best trick I learned was that you can use your grill to heat dry bricks and then wrap them in towels and bring them in the house to heat up your bed (or wherever). I thought that was brilliant and was disappointed that we had just sent about 10 bricks to the dump the week before! I plan to get a small stash to keep in the shed for future emergencies.  That's a simple low-cost option to help out through a chilly night.

Lucky for us, the longest we've been without power since living in this house is about 27 hours. During this last storm it was only out for about 20 hours. That is long enough for the inside temperature to drop into the 40s or 50s, so I don't think we could last for days and days as some of our friends had to do. Lucky for us, as well, those friends who had to tough it out without electricity are also very generous and were willing to share some floor space with us as our house cooled off. We've got friends who will always take care of us . . . if we can just get there through the snow.

But now, after this fair, I learned enough new, small steps that I can take to be more self-sufficient and prepared for the future that hopefully we'll be better off the next time the power goes out.

The Emergency Preparedness Fair that Damon planned was an excellent and successful event, lauded by all who participated and attended, including a fire chief, the mayor, and other civic leaders. I was and am so proud of all the work that he put into creating such a well-organized, useful, and timely event for our community.