Shake, Rattle and Roll – with your “Go Bag!”

Hi folks,

This past weekend on the “to do” list was to assemble our “Go Bag.” That bag of essentials that you would grab if you need to go – right away. Well….long story short. We didn’t do it… yet. Maybe you have had a similar issue with emergency preparedness. If you read this newsletter, you know that it’s something that we at KWMR dwell on. And I must say, here at KWMR, the crew is better prepared with redundancies and plans than we are at home.

ReadyMarin.org has a Grab & Go list as well – it’s a bit less specific, but gets you the essentials.

I was really thinking about this last night as I was reading the Red Flag fire warning on the air, which is in effect through late tomorrow, Wednesday 9/27. We have had a few fires this summer in West Marin, and thankfully conditions were such that crews could get them under control. Since I often think in the “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” mode, you would think I would be more prepared, personally.

Well, I have printed off the two lists, and I’m taking them home so we can get to work on pulling these essentials together. Nobody wants to think about losing their home to a disaster, but these days all you have to do is turn on the news, or browse the web for photos of homes lost. Thousands of people have evacuated from their homes due to hurricanes, and associated flooding in the Eastern part of the United States and Puerto Rico and many other islands. Wildland fires have raged in the Western United States. It has happened here, and it will likely happen again.

Here is my CERT card. I re-CERTED this past year. (why did I wear that shirt?)

There is a CERT = Community Emergency Response Team course coming up in Nicasio on October 14 and 21. If you want to sign yourself up. It’s a fun training and you learn a great deal, plus you get to put out a little fire all by yourself! And you learn about communication during a disaster. By the way, if you are interested in stepping up in your community, just get ahold of your local fire department.

September is Preparedness Month! And the Great Shake Out earthquake drill is on October 19th at 10:19am.

I am with you on how daunting this is, but as I read on one website, “Natural Disasters don’t plan ahead, but you can!” Hopefully by going public with this, I’ll shame myself into getting it done. Let’s do this!

Amanda Eichstaedt
Station Manager and Executive Director

p.s. Don’t forget to sign up with Alert Marin! And about that Air Evacuation membership.…

p.p.s. Still love us? Why not make a contribution to local radio station KWMR!