[Grovenet] Ready . . . or not

[allnutt]

Interesting site Ron.
I remember going to ready.gov in its early days and finding it particularly 
unhelpful. Especially the sheltering in place instructions.  The critics are 
quite right that it never explained how you were to know whether to stay put 
or to try to get away. But then I also figured, if the right thing to do was 
get away,, how in the world would the roads hold all the cars. Remembering 
Houston's fiasco with hurricane Rita it may be the case that your chances of 
survival are the highest if you just default to stay in place. In all of the 
disaster preparedness that I have seen, the recommendation is to travel 
perpendicular to the direction that the danger is travelling, because that 
is the shortest distance to minimize your exposure.  Leaving presupposes 
that a) your FEMA or government sources have correctly identified what is 
going on (not likely while all the Bush cronies are still in office) and b) 
that there is a road in the direction that you need to go. Perhaps I am a 
bit fatalistic but that seems to be a matter of luck or poor planning on the 
terrorists part.

I think a truly complete disaster preparation plan would be to get a really 
good respirator for chemical attack and go to a dental supply company for a 
lead lined apron for every member of your family in case of a nuclear 
attack.  That way if you really are stuck in place you can have a modicum of 
protection from the threats that you might not be able to outrun.  (My car 
cannot outrun a radioactive particle yet, even though I would likely be 
going as fast as I could.)

And my guess is that the government site was done by no bid contract that 
paid by the word. So of course there are sections of rather randomly 
repeated information. If you write it once, why not get paid for it twice. 
Right?  Somebody is going to the bank happy.

Kudos to the scientists who took it upon themselves to try to make something 
accurate and helpful.

Katie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <rondec at easystreet.com>
To: "'Forest Grove local interests list'" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 3:27 PM
Subject: [Grovenet] Ready . . . or not


>
> I ran across this interesting information a the site of the Bulletin of 
> the
> Atomic Scientists (1):
>
> Obscured beneath a stock photograph of a smiling, disaster-ready American
> family of four and the green check marks that dot every branded component 
> on
> the Department of Homeland Security's Ready.gov main page exists a link to 
> a
> disclaimer. "We are not responsible if information we make available on 
> this
> site is not accurate, complete, or current," the disclaimer warns 
> visitors,
> ostensibly the American public. "The materials on this site are provided 
> for
> general information only, and any reliance upon the material found on this
> site will be at your own risk."
>
> Three years after its unveiling, Ready.gov, Homeland Security's supposed
> go-to source for all things preparedness, is woefully unprepared. "The
> average user going to the government site comes away flummoxed," says Ivan
> Oelrich at the Federation of American Scientists. "Plus, many of the
> instructions are plain wrong." In the spirit of scientific accuracy, 
> Oelrich
> and his colleagues created their own preparedness website--built in just
> nine weeks, for the price of a domain name.
>
> To explore the private site filled with interesting and useful information
> for individuals everywhere, go to:
>
> http://fas.org/reallyready/
>
> Eh... How many billions of public funds  have we spent on Homeland
> (In)security so far?
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire
>
> (1) http://www.thebulletin.org/index.htm
>
>
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