EPD / Links - www.ourwalnutstreet.org

Walnut Street Emergency Preparedness Program

*Update - 9/14/09: Letter from the EPD about PODs

Kim Romig has now designed our first WS POD system designed as your first point of contact with your neighbors (your POD) immediately surrounding you, in the event of any emergency, such as an earthquake. Below is the POD diagram so you know what other neighbors are in your POD:

Kim, wrote and passed out a letter to all of you that you should have received last week on your doorstep. I am including it hear for your convenience.

OUR WALNUT STREET

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLAN

Hi Neighbor.

As per our last Neighborhood Watch meeting, I volunteered to help our block plan for any unexpected emergencies, specifically an earthquake. Given our tight-knit nature as a block of 55 homes, I've designed the following plan:

I have divided our homes into pods of 8 houses. The purpose of the pod is to make communication and assistance more manageable. In the event of a real emergency, your pod will be your first line of help. Please refer to the diagram above to find your pod. Please consider the following suggestions for each pod:

Designate a pod leader who can organize your pod and take the helm of communication and will encourage each household to work on preparedness.
Share phone numbers (home, cell, work, etc.) amongst yourselves including an emergency contact number well outside the area.
Identify who in your pod knows how to turn off gas, water and power and have them teach you. Good idea to know the location of these things for every home in your pod.
If necesary, share any important health and medication information with the pod leader.
Identify who in your pod has medical experience, if any.
As an alternative to each home having their own private supplies, you may wish to consider each home being responsible for a particular item (i.e. House X will have water for the pod, House Y will have adequate first aid supplies, etc.) - whatever will work for your pod.

There is no problem if you prefer to remain private and plan on your own outside a pod. We are a community and will help you should a disaster occur, no matter what!

Pod leaders, let me know who you are as it would be more efficient to communicate through you. Best to let me know by calling me at (my home number included in your physical packet; excluded here for privacy). After that, we can organize an overall plan (i.e. the best site for a block communication during a disaster, best site for medical attention, etc.).

To get you started, included (in your physical packet) is some information I recieved from Officer Zuhlke as well as a chck list I found on the Internet. More about the Great Southern California Shakeout earthquake drill later.

Kim Romig, House #13750

I would like to thank Kim Romig for volunteering to take on the WS EPD. Way to go Kim! I trust all of our Walnut Street residents will get involved in the EP program Kim is directing.

Please read the latest information from Kim on the status of the Walnut Street emergency preparedness program.

From the Walnut Street Emergency Preparedness Director

Hi All.

At the last Neighborhood Watch meeting, I volunteered to be the block Disaster Planning Coordinator (yikes, a big job). Well, I wanted to let you know where I am in terms of organization.

We are now officially registered to participate in the Great California Shake Out. This is a statewide organized earthquake drill that began only last year. It is a way for us to create our own preparedness network of family and neighbors. We will also have an opportunity to share our activities with others who are registered.

If you are home on Oct. 15th at 10am (you can set your alarm), you are encouraged to stop what you are doing and drop, cover and hold on. After a minute or two, the idea is to look around and see what sorts of things you may need to have in place in the event of a large scale earthquake.

The drill is simple. However, it is the planning for the possibility of the real thing that takes the work. My current plan is to begin to organize the block into pods of 6 or 8 houses that will choose an identified “leader.” I can then distribute ongoing information to the pod leaders who can then distribute it within their pods. This could include anything from what you need in disaster supplies and securing your furniture to how to turn off the gas. We can help each other with these things as needed. Each pod would have responsibility check on pod members if a disaster happens. We would also have an overall plan on how to tend to each other based on our vocations, etc. I am hoping to have pods arranged and some preliminary preparedness information by our July 4th party. Later in the summer we can have a Shake Out party at our home to see how things are coming along.

For more information about the drill etc., click on the following link: www.shakeout.org

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or additional ideas on the matter. I am proud to be a part of a strong and committed neighborhood that looks out for one another.

Kim

Links:

Please visit the website of our sponsors of our 11th Annual Walnut Street 4th of July Block Party:

Rich Campbell - State Farm