Cascadia Preparedness

      The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency in Washington State has posted instructions for making a Do-It-Yourself Air Filter to remove particles from the air within your home. These “filter fans” can filter out the small particles that are common in wildfire or wood smoke. Particle pollution can lead to a number of immediate and long-term health impacts such as trouble breathing, asthma attacks, and lung and heart disease. Particle pollution is especially dangerous for children, the elderly, and people with sensitive immune systems. Testing found that: It takes 15 minutes to clear 90% of particles out of a small room (12'x12'), 25 minutes for a medium size room (12'x18'), and 2 hours for a large room (20'x35'). It takes 15 minutes at high speed to remove 90% of particles from a small room, 20 minutes at medium speed, and 35 minutes at low speed. A single filter is just as efficient as two filters stacked on top of each other. Using two filters in a triangle, so th...

  Emergency Advisory Radio Stations provide information in a 3 to 5-mile radius by broadcasting on a set AM frequencies. These stations are set up by local municipalities to provide emergency information to their communities. These radio stations may be fixed stations (often installed at municipal buildings such as an emergency operations center or city hall), or portable stations that can be set-up in a disaster area to provide information to that specific area. Unlike the NOAA NWR Service , Emergency Advisory Radio does not broadcast continuously, rather these stations are only activated when there is a local event adversely affecting the public. Emergency Advisory Radio allows local officials to provide information in a specific limited area. Emergency Advisory Radio Stations in Oregon and Washington include:  OREGON       Ashland - 1700 kHz (fixed ALERT AM station)     Baker County - 530 kHz (fixed Information Station components) ...

  The REACT Emergency Communications training and certification program will provide the public service community with trained radio operators who will have a consistent level of expertise in Emergency Communications no matter where they live. Parts of this course are similar to the Emergency Communications program developed for amateur radio operators by the ARRL, but the REACT course includes material for radio operators in other radio services. Both courses teach the same procedures for emergency and public service communications. Radio operators who complete the program from either organization will have demonstrated the knowledge and skills needed to provide effective communications support to emergency service agencies. The ARRL program focuses specifically on amateur radio while the REACT program covers amateur radio, Citizens Band, the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), the popular Family Radio Service (FRS), and the Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS). Some of the material i...

Forget about the world coming to an end. Imagine the power grid getting knocked out for two weeks. That’s two weeks without refrigerated food and, in most places, two weeks without water, as most modern plumbing systems need electricity to operate. Do you know how to survive if the power grid goes down? For most Americans, the answer is likely no. However, power outage survival is a real concern. In fact, many have speculated that North Korea wants a nuclear weapon – not to incinerate Seattle, but to detonate the device in low orbit and knock out the American power grid. Worst of all, America doesn’t seem to be doing much to prepare for this likely attack. If you’re going to prepare for one disaster, a medium- to long-term power outage is the one. America’s power grid is woefully inadequate, outdated and ill-prepared for an attack or even a natural disaster. Whether it comes in the form of an EMP from North Korea or Chinese hackers or any other source, the power grid isn’t something th...

If you read many articles about disaster preparedness, you will come across the "SHTF" types who hype end-of-the-world disasters, and common among these disasters is an EMP or electromagnetic pulse that destroys all electronics. While this type of hype makes for good apocalypse fiction, it is too often just that Fiction! Even if an EMP could have the effects described in so many fiction novels, the probability of an EMP is extremely unlikely. Yes, the threat of an EMP is real, but don't fall for the hype found in the latest prepper fiction novel. The following article, provides a common sense discussion of EMP. The EMP Threat Is Real, but It Shouldn't Keep You up at Night by: Scott Stewart VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor (April 9, 2019) https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/emp-threat-real-it-shouldnt-keep-you-night U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 26 [2019] outlining the administration's policy pertaining to the threat of an electrom...

The 2020 FEMA National Household Survey found that only 48% of American households have disaster preparedness plans. This statistic underscores a common belief by many; that their families and homes are immune from the impacts of a disaster, and so they fail to make plans until it is too late. However, the fact is that every community, every neighborhood is vulnerable to experiencing severe weather. So ultimately, how well you prepare for a disaster today can significantly influence your ability to recover tomorrow. Waiting until moments before a disaster strikes is too late, as evidenced by long lines at gas stations, empty shelves at supermarkets, and miles of congested traffic before a storm. Preparations do not have to be expensive or time consuming, and small efforts can save lives. I urge you to consider taking these small steps: Make a Plan –Your family may not be together if a disaster strikes, so it is important to know which types of disasters could affect your area. Know h...

When we think about preparedness, we often think about how to survive in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, i.e., 'be two weeks ready'. This type of planning is essential. If you don't make it through the immediate aftermath of a disaster, well... you won't have to deal with long-term uncertainties. As we have seen with the COVID pandemic, an event can disrupt our lives for months or even years. In "Surviving The Economic Collapse" Fernando Aguirre wrote " Crisis or not, no matter what happens you still have to go on with your life. People expect some radical changes after SHTF, but in most cases as soon as the minimum amount of order is restored you’ll have to get back to work or school and do all the things you already do, only that you’ll have to take some extra precautions to stay safe and avoid trouble. " But getting back to work or school may not mean getting back to normal. Psychological and emotional stress, worry and anxiety can be diffi...

Zello ( https://zello.com/ ) is a free walkie-talkie app for smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. The app requires an Internet connection to work properly, whether it’s through Wi-Fi or a mobile data network. Unlike the standard calls you can make on the device of your choice, Zello connects you to fellow users and radio channels where large groups can talk regardless of distance. According to Zello: Zello is designed to make optimal use of whatever network resources are available. Even if phone towers are down and radio waves are saturated with other signals, Zello cuts through loud and clear, using low-bandwidth 2G connectivity if it has to. Having a push-to-talk app in your pocket means access to instant or replayable voice communications, text, location and media sharing in one place. With the help of a gateway, you can even integrate Zello into your existing LMR system and completely eliminate dead zones. Channel communications are encrypted in transit, and direct...

  GET READY ROGUE- Family Emergency Preparedness Handbook A Josephine and Jackson County, Oregon Publication (10 May 2021) Southern Oregon is a beautiful place to live, but we are vulnerable to disasters, such as fires, floods, severe storms, earthquakes, dam failures, landslides and hazardous spills. Many of these disasters have already occurred here and undoubtedly will again. During a disaster, you may be able to stay in your home, but it could be without power or water. This preparedness guide and family workbook will help you to be ready for whatever emergencies may occur.  

Paranoia Works is a suite of encryption tools that help you safeguard your files, communications, and on-line content. While most preparedness communication is plaintext and completely open (i.e. radio traffic on the Amateur and Personal radio service bands), there may be times when we need to send sensitive information over an insecure channel (i.e. e-mail, text message, social media). In these cases a common, multi-platform encryption method is needed to safeguard the content of our communications. One option to meet those encryption requirements is the Paranoia Works suite of encryption tools. Paranoia uses symmetric encryption (single key), meaning that you must share a key/password in advance, but once you have a shared key, you have an effective means of secure communication / encryption.   You can (should) download Paranoia and run it from your own computer, but an on-line version of text encryption is available. The following message is encrypted with Paranoia Text Encryp...