Canton on Emergency Management

Mitigating the "Second Disaster" - Rethinking Donations Management

 

Featured Article for November 2018

Mitigating the "Second Disaster"

Rethinking Donations Management

Download Mitigating the Second Disaster

Clean Up Your Act! New Product Highlight

Every now and then I come across an interesting product that makes me scratch my head and ask, "Why didn't someone think of this before?" I've spent a lot of time in environments where water was at a premium and showering wasn't always an option and would really have appreciated something besides tiny baby wipes. Now a new product called ShowerToGo promises to fill that need. 

ShowerToGo is a massive wet wipe, roughly the size of a bath towel at 24”x 50”. It’s quick, convenient, and disposable. One wipe cleans the whole body, absorbing sweat, dirt, grime, and contaminants.  It's composed of biodegradable material, a major plus.

I can see all sorts of applications for this product, not only in emergency shelters and go-bags, but for support to homeless populations and even for sport camping. Check it out!

www.showertogo.net 

Emergency Management Solutions - October 2018

 

Emergency Management Solutions

Featured Article

Lessons from Loma Prieta

Lasting Impressions From my First Disaster

Spontaneous Shelters: Ignore them at you peril

(Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Here’s an issue that we don’t discuss very often: spontaneous or makeshift sheltering. During the Northridge earthquake, many members of the Hispanic community who had experienced the Mexico City earthquake chose not to go to the official shelters established by the city of Los Angeles. They remembered the severe aftershocks that had killed many and chose instead to camp out in the local park. This presented the city with a problem. With the large number of people in the park, there was an immediate need to provide services such as sanitation, medical care, and feeding. However, providing services would encourage people to remain rather than move to official shelters and serve as a magnet to other displaced residents. Ultimately, the city chose to work with the community and provide the needed services.

A similar problem is occurring in the Camp fire in Butte County. Beginning on November 8, a makeshift tent city has sprung up in a dirt lot next to a Walmart parking lot in Chico. (Walmart has a long-standing policy of allowing overnight camping in its parking lots.) The camp is not an official shelter but has instead relied on volunteers to provide services and on donations of goods and money. These volunteer services are ending soon, which presents the city of Chico with a problem like that faced by Los Angeles.

The situation is a bit different here, though. The vacant lot is prone to flooding and rain is in the forecast. Winter temperatures are in the 30’s and will only grow colder. From the city’s perspective, remaining in the current site presents a health risk to the residents and they are encouraging residents to move to official shelters. Neither the city nor Walmart are actively trying to evict the displaced residents, nor have they established any deadline for them to move. While the campers are not pleased, but so far, the city has avoided any confrontations and is doing its best to encourage an end to the encampment.

These makeshift evacuation sites and spontaneous shelters are not unusual. People feel at a loss and have nowhere to go. Such sites may actually perform a service by allowing people to decompress and sort out their options. However, they also have the potential to turn into a greater problem with both health and safety issues and public relations concerns. Moving quickly to redirect evacuees to alternatives is essential.