Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Something's up in Yellowstone

The headline, "Scientists eye unusual swarm of Yellowstone quakes" pretty much sums it up--apparently there is an eyebrow-raising amount of seismic activity taking place in certain areas of Yellowstone. Depending on where you live in Idaho, and which way the wind blows if/when something serious happens, such activity could affect you and yours. Are you prepared?

Awhile ago, I received notification through family e-mail about a group buying gloves and masks to improve their emergency preparation supplies, a portion of which is reproduced here:

"Why do we need masks? After an earthquake there is a lot of dust raised and it will have a lot of nasty things in it. The N95 rating means about 95% of stuff will not go thru the mask. You may want to get the standard masks for working when things are settled down but the respirators with a valve will let you work comfortably for a long time and should be considered an essential part of every CERT kit and probably for each person's 72-144 hour kit as well. "

I did not participate in the group order, but I have obtained the information about the website with the products they were interested in , some of which can be found here. I provide this site not for advertising purposes, but to give you a starting point for researching such items, if you are interested--everyone needs to figure out what will work the best for their own situations. This link will provide a list on the same site for gloves. In the above mentioned e-mail, note was made that those who are allergic to latex would need to order vinyl gloves, and this information was given:

"Gloves are an obvious need. I have both of these types so you can have for in the house needs and then the very difficult to puncture, 16 mil ones for really dirty work inside or outside.

As you make out your order carefully consider who in your family will need these and for how long. After a disaster or during an epidemic or pandemic even pre-teens will be doing work cleaning you wouldn't expect them to do now, so they too will need protection."

It is worthy of noting that in the news article linked above, there is this quotation:

"There doesn't seem to be anything to be alarmed about," Vallie said."

So why am I bringing this up? Well, the thing about emergencies is that they aren't always expected, and while in this article, there is also this to consider,

"Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don't know. That's what we're there to do, to monitor it for public safety."

note that the experts on this sort of thing are there for public safety. We, however, are responsible for our own personal safety, as well as the safety of those for whom we are responsible. If something along the lines of an earthquake/volcano eruption occurs that affects the safety of our air, maybe someone who's concerned with public safety will be there to hand out masks/gloves/name your emergency need to help you. But if you can't breathe, how long can you stand in line?

What if nothing happens, and you don't need masks and/or gloves for this particular scenario? Store them away, hope you never have to use them, and be glad when you don't. However, these sorts of emergency items would be helpful at the very least when you have sickness that you want to avoid contracting, when you need to care for someone who is ill, or when you need to clean up after another sort of emergency. I don't have masks or gloves yet, but they're on my list now... hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst... :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post Marie,

You can't stress enough how important it is to "pre"pare.

For example, try and find a snow shovel in North Idaho or Eastern Washington. They don't exist--bought out--gone. Our local Wally World is stocking the shelves for valentine's day and swim suits aren't far behind.

Prepping is NOT hoarding. By purchasing your mask, gloves, etc. in advance, you are enabling the stores to order more for the shelf. Thus when an emergency happens, you are not part of the problem (i.e. mobbing the store).

So as the stores clearance out their winter items, stock up now for next winter. Buy extra gloves, boots, coats, etc.

Be part of the solution.

Anonymous said...

Hi Marie, while I am not in your state I thought I'd throw in a comment here. I have found Black 16mil Chemical gloves at my local surplus/closeout store for $3.00 a pair and they come with nice little cotton liners, I think they were 3 for $7.50. I have found a myriad of uses for these things. Just last week when I decided to deice-pack my gutters I used them so my hands did not get all wet and cold. They worked wonderful.

Carl In Wisconsin

Marie said...

Idaho Homesteader--I don't think that I ever looked at prepping that way, but I like your explanation about it not being hoarding a lot. I have never thought of prepping as hoarding, so if someone had said to me that it were, I probably would have said that I was buying storage food/lighting sources/insert emergency need here at the same time that it was available to everyone else--and I don't see people complaining about the fact that others were "hoarding" stereos/big screen TVs/insert luxury item here at the same time I was storing. Your explanation comes across with more kindness, and shows the financial/storage benefits to everyone---thanks for your comment!

Carl--Thanks for a great idea for using and buying the gloves--if I can find them around here I won't have to order from the internet or wait for another group buy, so I'll have to check around locally. Thanks for stopping by--you are always welcome, and I appreciate your comments!

Carla said...

Marie! I didn't know you were in Idaho - I thought you were in Utah. Thank you for starting this blog - I WILL be a frequent reader. Don't know that I have that much to contribute - I mostly absorb as much as I can from such sites as Code Name Insight & Gallimaufree - oh, and another titled "Food Storage...a Necessary Adventure" - sound familiar? :)

I have to thank all of you for your information - Idaho Homesteader touched on the amount of snow we have had in North Idaho - it is incredible! The snowiest month on record EVER!! My arms (and back and whole entire body) are tired of shoveling - and there is no place to put it now.

But, as to being prepared - so far I've only been close to running out of coffee beans. Amazing! This has been since it started, Dec. 18th. BUT I am also mentally making a list of what I will need before next winter: a roof rake of some sort. The landlord deducted $$ from rent the guy/family on the other side of the duplex for clearing the roof - but he took a very long time doing it - and he didn't even do the south side! I don't want to be dependent on someone else for this. I'm going to get a couple of other types of shovels also.

Oops! sorry this is so long - maybe I should make a post about it over at my own blog (yes, I have more to say on the subject...)

Anyway - thanks again for this blog, Marie!

Marie said...

Carla--Thanks so much for your comment! We're right here in Idaho, though I do have family living in Utah.
I'm glad that you mentioned the massive amount of snow that we've been having and mentioned a precaution which is needed to avoid having one kind of emergency in the first place-- removing heavy snow from the roof before it becomes a problem. Would you like me to include a link to your blog here? Yours is an Idaho blog, and mine looks pretty lonely all by itself...so let me know. (And thanks for reading :). Also, if you send me information in a comment, I'll cut and paste it here, giving you full credit, if you'd like. Thanks for your comment--I appreciate it!