Wallingford Preparedness Week: Are you ready?

We’ve all been watching the devastation in Haiti and just yesterday the second crippling snowstorm that has paralyzed the Mid-Atlantic region and most of the Eastern seaboard.  I wonder how many of us have been thinking about getting an emergency kit set aside. You know, some water and food, maybe stash a crank flashlight and first aid kit with it.

For the past couple of years, Sustainable Wallingford and the Wallingford Community Council, in partnership with the Seattle Office of Emergency Management, have steadily been working on some community level preparedness while encouraging individual and block level organizing through events and workshops.

Our goal is to build individual capacity, connect block level efforts, and respond as a self reliant community during the period when even limited resources may be unavailable.  We have scheduled two events this week to get information on how to prepare yourself, your family, and start to organize with your neighbors.

Communication HUB Volunteer
GMRS Radio Training
Thursday February 18, 2010
6:00-7:30 PM

SNAP Individual and Block Level Training
Saturday February 20, 2010
9:00-11:00 AM

Both Events will be held at the Wallingford Community Senior Center at the Good Shepherd Center (4649 Sunnyside Ave. N.) Lower Level, Room 140

To RSVP or for more information: [email protected]

The Communication Hub project, you may have read about it in a previous Wallyhood posts, is to identify and designate Communication Hubs as emergency community gathering sites in case a major disaster occurs that makes it impossible to get information and help in the usual ways. These are not shelters but locations where volunteers will gather and share information around our community, up to and back from the City’s emergency operations center.

It’s pretty evident that if something big comes down, there are too many people that will need help than those able to provide it. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about being afraid, this is about empowering all of us. That is the point of getting as many people prepared as possible. If we can prepare and respond together, ultimately our community will be more resilient and able to recover more quickly. Hopefully, we will never need to use this training; the bonus is that we get to know our neighbors and build strong community connections in the process.