Topic 36: Preparedness

Carol:

Shake, Rattle, Roll And Duck

I lived in Los Angeles in the 50’s, on the small-house side of Brentwood. Escalating Cold War hostility created a weird disconnect between “out there” and “here at home.” After school, planted in front of the TV with my Mickey Mouse ears on, I daydreamed of going to summer camp with Spin and Marty. Meanwhile, 10,000 people were digging up their backyards to install family emergency shelters, Civil Defense Plans were on city and state agendas, and bomb drills were becoming more frequent than fire drills.

1950

Brentwood Elementary School trained its grade-schoolers in emergency preparedness for nuclear attacks. In the main building, a loud emergency horn signaled us to file out silently into the hallways, crouch down against the walls, tuck in our knees, and wrap our arms protectively around our heads—the “duck and cover” drill. The routine for self-contained bungalows varied slightly because there were no hallways. If the teacher announced, “Drop,” we were taught to duck underneath our little desks with arms covering our heads and ears. We were so well-trained that my entire second-grade class hit the floor to “duck and cover” the instant Mrs. Blair read out the new spelling word, “Drop.” Cold War at school, Ozzie and Harriet at home.

Living in Canada during the 60’s, emergency preparedness took its own strange forms. We were told that if Russia and the US actually launched their missiles, they would collide over western Canada, dropping a rain of radiation, so “Never eat snow!” Strontium 90 was  carried by wind currents across the Canadian plains, and health officials warned about contamination of the milk supply after cows fed on tainted grasses. We had emergency drills but no “duck and cover” at Earl Grey School. Instead, children were directed to walk home at a fast pace and record their time over several trips (Earl Grey was a neighborhood school, and almost every child went home for lunch) so that the students could establish a pattern and parents would know when to expect them home in a disaster. Nuclear threat at school, Gunsmoke at home.
 

2009

As futile as such nuclear war protocols might have been, they did serve the purpose of establishing order and alleviating panic, which is what ANY emergency preparedness plan tries to achieve. Maximize training; minimize consequences.  The 21st century brings us back full circle. Post-Columbine and post-9/11, The Los Angeles Unified School District website includes down-loadable resources, even simulation drill packets, for everything from pandemic flu to campus protection, homeland security, and search and rescue. Versions are available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Russian. The new mantra for earthquakes became “Drop, Cover, Hold On” and school drills are reinforced with interactive websites where kids can “Play Beat the Quake.” And somehow most kids still grow up living with that  disconnect. Global disaster at school, Modern Family at home.

Sources:
Earthquake Preparedness--
LA Unified School District “Administrator’s Corner”


Megan:

Preparing for ... what?

On New Years Eve, 1999, instead of going to any parties, I stayed with a friend whose parents refused to let him go out that night. They were very concerned about the Y2K virus and the knock-on effects it would have, so they wanted their children home safe. The parents liked me a lot, so I was invited to stay with them too.  We roasted marshmallows over a fire we built in the back yard, and it began to snow and it was really a beautiful night. But I had to sleep on the couch in the living room before the guest bedroom had been completely filled with food, water and survivalist kits. In the morning we woke to several inches of snow, no electricity and no phone line. My friend’s father brought wood in to make a fire, with a certain smug attitude like, “See, I told you this would happen.” But then the power came back on, phones too. It was probably the snow.
                         

When I was in college in Oakland, California we were constantly being warned that The Big One was on the way. It had been 11 years (now 21) since the last big earthquake, so everyone figured the area was due. After enduring a couple small quakes, that barely disturbed the dishes, one of my housemates decided it was time to prepare. She tried to involve the rest of us in the plan, but as I recall, aside from making a few suggestions about bottled water and flashlight batteries, we weren’t all that interested.  I was getting ready to move back to England for grad school and didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on a kit we probably weren’t going to  need.

“What about food?” she asked.

“Oh, you know,” we said, “food that will last. Canned, dry … whatever.”

So, off she went to Costco, alone and unsupervised. She came back with a heavy-duty flashlight, a gallon of water and about 200 cans of fruit cocktail.

“I hate fruit cocktail. It’s not even real fruit anymore. It’s just fruit shaped pieces of syrupy preservative!”  I was pretty irate because we’d had this conversation before.

“Should have come with me.”

                              
The town of March is located in an area of East Anglia known as the Fens. A few centuries ago, the area was mostly marshland and underwater. A system of drains and Dutch dykes kept the North Sea from reclaiming the region, but flooding was still common in some areas after a heavy rain.  A prison officer once told me that his favorite joke to play on the cons (“back when we were allowed to have fun with them”) was to unravel the fire hose and wedge the nozzle against the bottom of a cell door. He turned on the water and started screaming, “My god! The Fens! The Fens are flooding!” and the water would pour under the cell door while the prisoner inside would scramble to move his few belongings to higher ground (his bed). I’m guessing the prisoners didn’t find this joke as funny as the officer. There’s not a lot you can do to prepare for a flood, even a fake one.