Saturday, September 13, 2008

Wnat will happen to our community

ron thomas...
Patron saint of lost causes

Every time there is a disaster I go out to the garage and root around for my soap box... Let's see it must be there over in the corner... There it is underneath the pile of lost causes that have made there way to my door over the years.

What a great collection it is. Sad that they inevitably ended up tossed in a corner of the garage... Heck, we even rented an extra storage place over at the lockers by the state police building. I told everyone that it was for Jacky's "stuff collection" but there is a good deal of my causes over there too.

At any rate I need to get up on this soap box so I can rail at you better even though it is waste of both of our times... Something compels me to do it just like that cat of mine has to scratch a post or furniture when we are not looking... so must I yammer about, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling", one more time.

Look at the terror 70 to 100mph winds engendered in Americans living in Texas... I have even seen them on TV talking in awe about 35mph winds... Yet every year we experience the same thing and we more or less dodge the bullet of disaster. Will we too have our, "perfect storm"?

Enter the new effort to build a communications network and teach everyone here how to use their FRS radios. We are hoping this effort will not end up on the pile of lost causes in my garage.

One of the newscasters last night said "We have lost all electricity, telephones and cell phones are not working well but we have our satellite link to show y........ as the screen flickered and failed. Hmmm? No electricity? No telephone? No Cell phone? They said in some places service would not be back for up to two months! Two months! How many people called for help ... with what? In Katrina?

If you have no way to communicate how are you going to call for help? Communication and how to use it lay at the very base of a good plan for survival... We are building that plan now.

Don't let this effort join the heap of Lost Causes stacked up in my garage. Get off your duffus and find that FRS radio and either charge it up or put new batteries in it. Tune to CH6.16 or even ch6 if you have to and listen in on your radio to the LVH emergency net Sunday at 7pm sharp!.. Learn how to take part...

If you learn now how to do this small thing and stay on the net each week not only to improve your emergency communications skills but to help your neighbors develop theirs... do this small thing.... When the day comes, and it will, you will both help and be helped.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Webmaster and Cert team member: I'm on the radio listening 99% of the time. Usually it's very quiet, to the point I wonder is it working? When the weekly "shout out" is performed, I count the # of members registered with radios to be called, and the response is decreasing in number. Believe most think disaster happens only to other people. Maybe most folks are out having fun in nice weather. and just aren't home. That's possible. But this exercise you folks developed, honed, & perfected is the best thing going, and I fear it will dissolve for lack of interest, when it is such an exciting, comforting community opportunity to save ourselves, if we ever need to. Tune up, turn on those FRS/NOAA radios! Thanks to everyone involved.