Emergency disaster preparedness

Since the major floods of 2011 Australians are finally starting to listen to the advice from the State Emergency Services but it has been a long time in coming and unfortunately it has taken such serious disasters to get peoples attention. Floods are a part and parcel of our country and that means we all should be Flood Safe with a plan in mind should it happen to you.

Flood Mapping - know where the water comes from understand where it is going to go.

Part of being prepared is knowing where flood water will accumulate first. Each town should have a flood map or be in the process of doing their flood mapping and each household should have an idea of where the water will accumulate first around their own home, street and block.

This knowledge is essential for you to be able to carry out a risk assessment of flooding in your own yard. Where are the entry points for run off storm water? Once you have worked this out you can then think of ways to divert the water before it gets in.

Risk Assessment

At my place the biggest threat to my home is water coming in off of the front street. I am at a lower point than most of the street so all storm water runs past my place making it's way down to the creek. Across the road from my house is an open storm water drain. If it gets blocked the water it should take to the creek comes across the road and up my drive way. This is my biggest immediate threat.

To minimise this threat I regularly check that the under road pipes for this storm water drain are not blocked. I also remind my local council to scrape it out after big rains when a lot of debris and dirt have filled it up (we live on a dirt road) The next step for me to minimise the risk is to know how I could divert the water from entering my yard.

Utilise what you have on hand for water diversion.

My front yard has a solid brick fence which is good, but it also has two gaps, one for foot access and one large one for the driveway. I can utilise this fence as a barrier to divert the water away all I have to do is block the gaps. Easier said than done, maybe not. I have in my back yard a large piece of colour bond steel left over from a shed. I can place this to the front of the brick fence (nearest to the water entry point) and stabilise the steel with some iron droppers (star pickets). Then to make it sturdier I will place a large plastic tarp over and towards the water source and place some sandbags on the bottom edge to hold it down and to help prevent water coming in underneath. i repeat this process with a smaller sheet of iron for the other gap.Once i have my water diversion system running I then carry out phase two. Preparing for breaches and excess water from my gutters, tanks etc.

Dealing with water once it gets in.

I have a Water pump which I use to transfer water from one tank to another. This water pump can be used to pump water out of my yard. My back yard slopes away from the house so I just dig a big hole under the fence at the lowest point to help the water get out faster.

In the last week there has been several earthquakes in South Australia the largest one being near Ernabella not far from the Northern Territory boarder. This earthquake was a 6.1 according to Australian sources but only listed in the 5's according to the world map (I wonder why the discrepancy). The latest earthquake in the Outback of South Australia though was felt near Andamooka and Olympic Dam mine. It registered as a 3.9 and at first I thought it would be caused by mining activity. This however was not the case and an article can be found at ABC Melbourne

There was a quiet start to earthquake activity at the beginning of April in Australia. We see the usual few earthquakes in southern Western Australia and a couple of mid range earthquakes near the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory around Ernabella. However the massive earthquakes in nearby Indonesia has more than made up for this.

Over the last couple of days we have seen the world wide earthquake summary make a dramatic rise in significant earthquakes. Overall It went from around 198 on April 10th to a whopping 265 this morning (April 13th 7.04 am Adelaide time). I believe that Australia itself is going to see some significant earthquake activity later this year and I think Adelaide area of South Australia will have a significant earthquake before December (<5.0).
With all of this going on one wonders just how to prepare for the big one should it happen near you.

It interests me to note that the Earthquakes in Australia are not centred around the "Ring of fire" - Pacific rim which seems to be the case for our neighbours - New Zealand, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have remained earthquake free for March.

Asteroid 2012 EG5 will make it's first close path to Earth on April 1 2012. This comet is said to be approximately 60 - 65 meteres and isit is expecrted to be as close as 0.65 of the Lunar distance. This means it comes closer to Earth than the moon but not as close as our Satellites.

The asteroid EG5 will remain very close to Earth for a number of days - around the month of April before heading off. There is no major alarm in the space community over this asteroid. It would be nice to know iwhen it would be visible to the backyard astromoner. I include the link that you can copy and paste into your browser for more information. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012 EG5&orb=1

I have done a fair bit of research on the web re this asteroid and even though it will get relatively close to us, closer than some of our satellites there seems to be a consensus that it will not hit earth. If it did hit us and fell in the ocean there would possibly be a tsunamic event but world wide devistation evenb. If it struck land it would be like a medium nuke but without the radiation. That being said it is all specualation as it would depend on the angle of entry into our atmosphere. It could just burn up or break up on entry. This is definately not a domesday comet.

Another small asteroid that has come very close to earth this year and will visit again next year in February is 2012 DA14. It was discovered only this year and yet appears to visit us on a yearly basis. I wonder how many others are out there so close not yet observed. Below is an extract from Science Daily, copied on March 27th 2012.

""A preliminary orbit calculation shows that 2012 DA14 has a very Earth-like orbit with a period of 366.24 days, just one more day than our terrestrial year, and it 'jumps' inside and outside of the path of Earth two times per year," says Jaime. While an impact with Earth has been ruled out on the asteroid's next visit, astronomers will use that close approach for more studies and calculate the Earth and Moon's gravitational effects on it. "We will also be keen to see the asteroid's resulting orbit after the next close approach in order to compute any future risk of impact," says Detlef.

The website space weather has a list of asteroids that are reasonably close to earth and on this list we see that there are no more asteroids that shall pass between us and the distance of the moon up until July. I have seriously tried to find a list that takes us through to December 2012 and can not find one. If you have a web address to a list please let us know.

We recently had a bushfire in the Flinders Ranges and the town of Wilmington was being prepared for evacuation, luckily rains came and the immediate threat passed. Living in a town not far away from the fire front myself it certainly had me thinking about what I would do if the fire continued to head our way. A friend of mine was getting anxious and a bit flustered. She couldn't decide when she should put her fire plan into action. So I told her what mine was.

Firstly I check the latest maps on the Country Fire Service website that show where the fires are.(Our CFS have a good website and Facebook page to help in this).. I then would check the weather webiste BOM to ascertain wind speed and direction etc. With this information I then draw a mental line on the map and decide when the fire reaches pont X I will then action my fire plan. On top of this I told her that if the fire trucks came down my road I would then prepare the house for ember attacks and fire threat within the next couple of hours.

My preparations are then to put the dogs and cat into the house. Fill the bath, wash trough and all my buckets with water. Block my down pipes on the roof and fill the gutters with water. Wet down the garden beds and get some mops and towels that can be used to put out small ember fires. At this time I would also have the radio going so that I could keep upto date with the CFS news updates and also have my UHF radio on as I can then listen to the radio talk of the CFS and farm fighting crews. Once fire became visible up my road I would put the animals in their travel crates and into the car (we have a utility with a canopy on which provides good shelter). I would then load the car with my improtant things and park the car on the road that leads away from the fire front near my rear access gate. This gives me a quick getaway but also enables me to stay unti the last possible moments to defend my property. I finally told her that when there is a real fire threat going on in our area I tell my Husband where I would evacuate to just incase communications break dwon.

The whole pont of sharing this with my friend was to show her that by having already made up my mind what I was going to do and when gave me power over my fears and my decisions eliminated the anxiety that indecison brings. PRIOR PLANNING PREVENTS PANIC..

This type of thinking can be used to face any emergency or disaster including civil unrest.. My plans might not be perfect and there may have to be plan changes due to unforseen contingencies, however if I am basically ready I can avoid the time waste of panic and indecistion. If I have food, water, shelter items accessible and ready to go I can operate with more confidemce. This then frees my mind to be able to achieve the maximum in any given moment because I am prepared.