Lemme Take a Selfie (And Please Send Your #Selfie or #Unselfie To Us)!

Good morning, Charlotte!

Molly and I are starting a campaign to compile as many pictures of volunteers in love with how they give back as we can for a really fun project, and we need your help!

While we love to share what we're doing with all of you, we think a product with selfies of volunteers from all over would be much, much more interesting than a bunch of pictures of just us in the office. This means, if you have any pictures from a volunteer project you love, please e-mail it and a little blurb about why you love volunteering to us at rob@handsoncharlotte.org!

If you're heading to a project soon, please don't forget to take a new picture and send it our way too! We're so excited to see how others like to give back, and we're really excited to get going with this project. Thanks for any and all pictures, and since it's inevitable I use this song, dance around your office (or wherever you find yourself), and enjoy your day!

Stay safe, y'all!

(Staying Warm When It's) Hot As Ice!

Good morning, Charlotte!

We hope this finds you staying warm. In light of the wild weather earlier this week and the lingering cold temperatures, we did want to let you all know about resources in case you are reading this and don't have access to regular shelter. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management and Mecklenburg County Community Support Services will be opening a warming station at the Homeless Resource Center Hal Marshall Annex at 618 North College Street at 10:00 AM today, Thursday, February 19, and tomorrow, Friday, February 20. These warming stations will remain set up until 6:30, when if transportation to an overnight shelter is needed, it will be provided as well.

For further information about the warming stations, please click here to see the full release from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management.

Please stay safe and warm, y'all, and enjoy some Britney to keep you extra toasty!

(What Do We Do If We Encounter A) Starman? Preparing for Extraterrestrial Encounters and Alien Interaction!

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

It is my hope that with this blog, we have been able to prepare you for a myriad of potential emergencies, some more likely than others, and I promise we will continue to do this. However, while I am not necessarily walking around with a tin-foil hat on my head to block the alien radio waves, I do think the whole idea of an alien encounter is a pretty interesting subject to explore, and Molly and Sara can attest to that after watching me sit down and read up on the possibilities of life elsewhere in the universe for the past hour or so.

First, let me say that the inspiration for this came from NPR's 13.7 blog's article by Marcelo Gleiser, "Should We Be Afraid of Aliens?" published this morning. I love sifting through NPR in the mornings for material to relate back to our emergency and disaster preparedness postings, and this was simply irresistable. While the conclusion of this article is that we have many more pressing issues on our own planet with which we need to deal, that is what the rest of this blog is for, and I decided to go a little further to explore the possibilities for our interactions with extraterrestrial life, and their implications.

What I found next was this journal article published last year in Risk Management by Mark Neal at the University of London. In this journal piece, Neal explores five possibilities for our relationship to extraterrestrial life, namely that:

• We are alone in the universe.
• There is life out there, but it is non-intelligent.
• There is intelligent life on other planets, but it is technologically no more advanced than us.
• There is intelligent life on other planets, which is technologically more advanced than us.
• Extraterrestrial life is here, or has already been here. 

Neal explores each of these and analyzes what gaps in preparedness actions exist. For example, if there is intelligent life with a chance of contacting us, or if intelligent life has already contacted us or is even living among us, we are already wildly behind in our preparations. That said, if we are indeed alone in the universe or have little to no chance of making any contact with life light years away, the latter of which Gleiser supports in the aforementioned NPR piece from this morning, then we really should devote our whole efforts to the problems we face on this wonderful planet.

And then we have some exciting worst-case scenarios. This one, from National Geographic's program Alien Invasion, gives an example of how an alien attack, if aliens were indeed able to reach Earth and were filled with malicious intent rather than the happy peaceful loving benevolent aliens I like to imagine, and how we really don't have any sort of plan in place to deal with the endless possibilities for the development of their technology and intelligence. While this example is pretty bleak and ultimately results in mass casualty and the collapse of civilization, National Geographic does raise one very important point: our home team advantage. Any resources brought to our planet would hypothetically be non-renewable, so whatever we would be able to sabotage would be lost. At the very least, it gave me hope. 

Further, Scott Hillis offers up some additional points about the argument for alien attack preparations in his piece from Reuters (admittedly from eight years ago at this point, but if the universe has existed for 13.7 billion years, what is eight years in the long run?!), and Hillis offers up the practical implications for what to expect in the case of technologically and intellectually capable malicious alien attack. Apparently guerrilla warfare may be our best bet.

Of course, statistically, as Gleiser mentioned, our chances of dealing with intellectually and technologically developed civilizations from other planets many light years away are quite low. But as you all may have noticed if you've made it through a fair bit of this blog, we like to get wacky, and while I promise you I'm not totally an extraterrestrial preparedness nut, some days it's nice to explore the unknown and muse over the possibilities of other lifeforms, possibly even wholly benevolent ones who would love to come here to visit, enjoy the beaches, and munch on an avocado. But I digress. Think I need to be more worried? E-mail me at rob@handsoncharlotte.org. Tell me all the things. I've never found a topic too ludicrous to explore in this subject, because at the end of the day, we really just can't be too prepared.

And speaking of wacky inspirations, here's some David Bowie. It's too appropriate to pass up, given the subject matter. As always, stay safe, y'all, and love life and live large!

Stronger Than Yesterday: How Boston Became So #BostonStrong!

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

On December 3, 2014, Radio Boston (WBUR) announced that Boston had been chosen as one of the Rockefeller Foundation's "Resilient Cities." This program provides funds to cities around the world, a list of which can be found here, to fund measures to bolster resilience in the face of all manner of natural or man-made disasters.

If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you may have noticed that it is almost impossible not to hear about the record-breaking winter weather slamming Massachusetts this season. Being here in Charlotte and having had not so much as a snowflake this winter, it is incredibly hard for me to imagine how crazy the over six feet of snow dumped on the Boston area must be. However, as this article from Radio Boston (WBUR) points out, Boston has had a relatively smooth encounter with Mother Nature, primarily due to plans the city made to plan for emergencies and disasters.

The radio segment included in that article is also quite an interesting segment. Judith Roden, who is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, the organization that granted Boston the opportunity to join its Resilient Cities program, participates in an interview discussing the similarities among many of the disasters Boston faces, even between the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the most recent record-breaking string of winter storms. Roden points out that during the Boston Marathon bombings, the Mayor of Boston was actually in the hospital, and the appropriate city and state officials knew exactly what was needed to respond effectively. They had participated in various drills, gone through ample training; essentially, it all came down to the investment of time and money the city and state had made in times when disasters and emergencies were not necessarily imminent. As Roden puts it, "preparation turns luck into opportunity."

The National Preparedness Cycle, as published by FEMA.

This is not to say that Boston is not without its fair share of challenges to its resiliency. Roden brings up issues of economic inequality, poverty, and the availability of affordable housing, issues which plague major metropolitan areas across the country, including Charlotte. However, it was as a result of this planning on the part of the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts that the city and state have been able to deal with everything from a major terrorist attack to a season of winter storms surpassing all written records.

While this need to prepare exists at all levels, from the individual household to the nation as a whole (and further, as a united planet), Boston provides an amazing example, along with many other of the Rockefeller Foundation's chosen Resilient Cities. And for that reason, I would love to honor their work with some of the amazing work from the Queen of Pop (and as my roommate and I would say, the Queen of Everything), the god and legend, Ms. Britney Spears.

Stay safe, y'all!

Origa-Me, Myself and I (and Other Ways To Stay Entertained During a Loss of Power)

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

Given our lackluster weather today, as well as the crazy snow up north and the so-called "Pineapple Express" storm system out west, Molly and I figured today would be a pretty swell day to bring up a more light-hearted side of power outages -- keeping one's self from becoming bored. Further, we actually had the pleasure of volunteering this morning at Project 658's ESL childcare program, where parents are able to drop off their children so they are able to attend ESL classes offered by the group. While here, we decided to try our hands at some origami with the kids, which proved to be quite a challenge, and involved some pretty entertaining failures before finally being able to fold paper successfully into a recognizable shape.

Our greatest success!

If you don't have any sort of emergency kit already, we would recommend starting with the basic necessities like water, food, and warm clothes. However, if you do already have these basic needs down, a little entertainment can go a long way, and let me be the first to say that we had a great time occupying ourselves with some origami. All it takes is some paper and patterns, and if you'd like a pretty grand variety, we can recommend this website. Of course, be sure to include some variety in your entertainment supply, and card and board games are always easy and reliable sources of non-electric powered entertainment. While survival is the first priority, it can be hard not to get stir-crazy after being cooped up in a house or apartment for days on end.

As always, stay safe, Charlotte, and try to stay dry with this nasty rain today!

Plant Your Root: What We Can Do for the Earth to Prevent Emergencies!

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

If you aren't familiar with the area surrounding the Hands On Charlotte office here in Plaza Midwood, one of my favorite features of the area is a Lorax-inspired mural painted on the fence bordering Thomas Street Tavern. (Random fact, The Lorax and The Sneetches are my two favorite Dr. Seuss books.) Given this side of me, it really was only a matter of time until I took to this blog to broadcast the importance of plants and trees within emergency preparedness. While not necessarily directly related at first glance, planting trees and deep-rooted plants does a lot to help with urban and suburban flood prevention.

In this article, the EPA points out the benefits of what they call "beneficial landscaping." One of the facts that really stuck out to me was that a typical lawn has only ten percent the water absorption capacity of a natural woodland area. Many of the aesthetic benefits that come from traditional landscaping actually do very little and exacerbate urban and suburban flooding issues. The article has a great bulleted list of facts regarding what we can do to better preserve our planet and protect ourselves from flooding in a major metropolitan area. Please give it a read!

Further, I was informed by one of my coworkers here at Hands On Charlotte about a pretty nifty program that will actually provide tree seedlings at neighborhood events. If you're looking to host a neighborhood tree planting, or even volunteer at tree plantings in the Charlotte area, feel free to give their website a look via this link. I'll probably be joining some of these volunteer opportunities in the near future, so please join in!

If you have any questions or further information about what we can do to make a positive environmental impact and take proactive steps toward flood prevention here in Charlotte and beyond, please e-mail me at rob@handsoncharlotte.org. It's a cause I'll sign up for at the drop of a hat, and would love to get further involved with the environmental preservation community here in Charlotte.

Also, because I'll be attending tonight's Lotus show in Asheville (will I see any of you there?), and because this song is just too perfect not to post with this cause, enjoy, and stay safe y'all!

Money, Money, Money: Emergency Preparedness for Your Wallet!

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

I know we have told you all about taking care of yourself and your family and friends, but my little economics-loving heart happened to run across this pretty fantastic article published about four weeks ago in the New York Times regarding the preparedness measures to be taken regarding one's financial assets. While anyone living in the United States and in many parts of the world may remember, 2007 was not really the best year for financial assets and the economy as a whole, nor were the years immediately following. We entered a horrible recession, and have only just recently found our unemployment rate (admittedly a lagging indication of economic performance) back down to 5.6%.

With this newfound confidence in a growing and more secure market, however, comes newfound risk-seeking behavior. The New York Times article outlines how some mutual funds are increasing their "illiquid" assets, or assets that would be hard to trade or sell within the seven-day period required by the SEC. While not typically phrased in this way, remaining aware of one's preparedness given an emergency like the crash that kicked off the most recent economic downturn is incredibly important. Given Charlotte's status as the second-largest center of finance in the country (second only to New York), I figured I might not be the only one interested in this article. Enjoy, y'all!

Some days you just have to make it rain at the office in the name of preparedness.

Further, while many of our posts here from your Community Emergency Preparedness Corps crew relate directly to what to do to prepare yourself for a house fire, or an earthquake, or a hurricane or any manner of wild scenarios, many times people may take steps to prepare for these physical emergencies, but take no time to make sure their information regarding assets (like a house or car), insurance, and bank information is in one place. The Red Cross estimates you have on average two minutes to escape a house fire, so having this information easily accessible in one place (especially in a fireproof safe, in case disaster strikes while you're away) is incredibly important.

All that said, I get it: I'm young, and if not for finding myself in this field of work, I would have very little idea what all I should have set aside if my apartment were to find itself in flames. And for that exact reason, I have this amazing pamphlet from FEMA outlining exactly what one needs to set aside. Some of these items you may not have a need for. For example, I'm happily unmarried, so I don't really need to set aside any marriage or divorce paperwork. That said, this is a really wonderful and exhaustive form in quite the user-friendly checklist format outlining a lot of things I should have set aside, like my renter's insurance and birth certificate. If you have pets, make sure your microchip information and pet veterinary records are here as well. As I learned in a recent training with Red Cross, if you need to take your pet with you to your local pet-friendly shelter in the event of a disaster, you will have to have current veterinary records to show that your pet is healthy and not a risk to others.

To access the pamphlet from FEMA, please click here!

And because life just isn't as complete without some ABBA in your day, here's my favorite tune from the first CD I ever had. Yes, it was the Mamma Mia Broadway soundtrack, and yes I have no shame.

Unvaccinated? Uninvited.

Good afternoon, Charlotte!

By now, many of you may have heard about the measles outbreak that originated recently from Disney's California Adventure theme park. Unfortunately, this article from TIME Magazine tells us that the number of confirmed cases in the United States since January 1 already stands at 102 as of January 30. While neither Rob nor I are licensed medical professionals and therefore do not have the educational background to tell you to go out and vaccinate your children right this instant or commit yourself to the fiery pits of hell for all eternity, the TIME article does mention that 92% of physicians attribute the spread of this measles outbreak to parents' not vaccinating their children. TIME also notes that measles can cause serious complications, like deafness, pneumonia, and long-term brain damage.

The doctor is ready for you now.

While much of the debate on vaccination thus far has revolved about the closely held religious beliefs of parents and the risk that unvaccinated children pose to the general public, we also found this interesting article from NPR outlining some cases in which children are unable to be vaccinated due to compromised immune systems, and are therefore at a severely heightened risk of contracting measles from those within the healthy population that are not vaccinated because of a choice made by the parents.

Obviously, measles is a serious disease and could potentially become a public health emergency if it continues to spread. Further, please feel free to reference this page from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding symptoms, implications of contracting measles, and additional information about the disease. While we can't recommend specific medical advice, we can gladly help you reference information from professional sources!

Some parents pushing for vaccinations have even come out to say that schools should bar children who are unvaccinated, as it puts their children at risk. This January 29 article from NPR, also regarding the family mentioned in the one above, outlines this argument from their point of view. Essentially, Mr. Krawitt says that if your child is unvaccinated, they should be uninvited (see what we did there).

And speaking of being uninvited, and in the Alanis Morissette theme we started yesterday, here are some delicious tunes for your day. As always, stay safe, Charlotte!

All I Really Want (Is Clean Drinkable Water)!

Good morning, Queen City!

I've mentioned before the amazing campaign run by Do 1 Thing, a site that sends out monthly reminders of items to keep in a home emergency kit. This way, one does not have to purchase a variety of items at once (although if you are financially able, by all means prepare yourself), but rather one is able to procure one set of items each month so that by the end of the year, one has a complete home emergency kit ready for whatever emergencies may come to pass.

This month, Do 1 Thing's publication is about the need for storing drinkable water. In the case of many emergencies and disasters, the municipal water supply can become contaminated, and many times during disasters emergency response may not be able to reach an affected area for up to 72 hours. For this reason, Do 1 Thing (and Molly and I!) would strongly recommend that one keep one gallon of drinkable water per person per day in home emergency storage.

You can find Do 1 Thing's posting on the importance of water storage at this page. Further, if you would like to view an illustrated fact sheet with important bulleted facts regarding the importance of water storage and ways to store water, please click this link!

And since this is a monthly publication, if you would like to join me in signing up for Do 1 Thing's monthly reminders, please click here. It's only one e-mail a month, and creates an easy and less immediately costly way to prepare yourself and your family for the worst!

Stay safe, Charlotte, and enjoy some Alanis with this beautiful bright blue morning!