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nice to see more folks getting on board with general preparedness. I wish more cities and municipalities would get on with this sort of thing. In the event of a disaster it would probably help to save them a lot of time, money and help alleviate some headaches. Kudos to the city of Puyallup. Hopefully we see more of these elsewhere.
 
AAR of the City of Puyallup's 2010 Preparedness Fair

Upon arrival there where several EMS vehicles on display with some educational displays primarily for children.

Once inside the door (of the small north exhibit hall for WAC members who are familiar with the buildings) they had booths set up for the following:
1. American Red Cross
2. Pierce County Search and Rescue
3. Citizen Corps
4. Local chapter for Ham radio operators
5. USGS
6. Pet and farm animal rescue nonprofit 501(c)3 group
7. Home Depot (Major Sponsor of the event)
8. Another Animal rescue organization
9. Four different vendors who specialize in selling items and/or food for emergencies
10. Washington State Emergency Mangement
11. Alderleaf Wilderness College (more on these guys later)
12. Puyallup Water department

There could be one or two more I am forgetting but that is about it there.

I had sat down to listen to a couple of speakers the first being Mr. Bill Lokey, Catastrophic Disaster Transportation Recovery "Reconnecting the Dots", with James Lee Whit and Associates (Consulting group). Mr. Lokey was hired under the Clinton Administration into FEMA by the FEMA director back in the 90's. At one point in time he was the Director of Operations in the FEMA Operations Center. OOOOhhhhh pretty impressive stuff there, we needed a Doctorates level instructor at this fair of common folks. Most of what he was talking about was pure blah blah blah... his presentation was not suited for this event, but did provide some insight to Federal planning for disasters. 1.) Aside from immediate disaster assistance of supporting local authorities and first responders the FEDs want to focus on post-disaster operations, there primary mission is to support the economic efforts. Ports of Seattle, Everett, Tacoma and Olympia make more money receiving goods and having them pass through onto a further destination than shipping goods over seas (like I needed him to tell me that) and if the ports where damaged the goods would be diverted to other ports in CA. Also the overseas companies would most likely continue shipping to the new ports and not back to the original ports of WA once the disaster has been cleaned up, losing all that business. Wow. 2.) The next biggest task they consider is the educating the public on self reliance during a catastrophe. To many who are already of the preparedness mindset this is nothing new, but to many this could be earth shattering. Mr. Lokey explained that many Americans have become so dependent on outside services providing there every needs that many have a complacent view on society. Once again, WOW! At this point many people where walking off. I was entertained. Feds mission as they feel is to: 1. Educate the people; 2. Train the responders; 3. Have a plan; 4. Get acquainted.

On another thread in the Preparedeness section someone gave some good advice, "aside from being invaded by Cuban or Chinese Soldiers, head down to your local Sheriffs office and see what you can do to help" and that is what the FEDs are trying to facilitate. I could go on a rant for the next two days how good portion of the American population (but not all) have become lazy, complacent and apathetic because of many government programs and government interference, but I feel this is not the place for it and I would be preaching to the choir.

Mr. Lokey's brief went on to show contingency plans should areas become unaccessible (example was the flooding south of Chehalis(SP?) a couple of years ago and how 350 Safeway trucks where backed up trying to turn around). Nothing conspiracy here as all this information will be posted on the WA state Emergency Websigh in the next couple of weeks.

The next presentation was on outdoor survival skills in the Pacific Northwest by Jason Knight of the Alderleaf Wilderness College (AWC). I was expecting some hippie cr@p but to my surprise he hit all the basics and gave great examples all within his one hour limit. Great speaker and instructor for the AWC is a wilderness survival school located about 20 minutes out of Monroe, WA. Caution shameless plug here: his web sight WildernessCollege.com has the class schedule for 2011 and it covers many topics from beginning tracking to a seven day 'survival trip'. After his presentation I found his table with his display of primitive tools. Funny, carry a cigarette lighter but learn a bow drill. I am going to take a coupe of the courses this next following year and I informed him that he should look into buying advertising space here at NorthwestFirearms.com being 1. a local forum and 2. 10,000 members and growing with some of the maturest members (I know this may be a stretch with Trismn here... :s0114::s0112: ) but it may help his school and several memebers have asked in the past about local survival training.

The vendors where looking kind of bored. I found out that the creators of the fair had worked on it for three weeks and the person responsible for advertising had dropped the ball. There was a guy selling Mountain House, a family selling shelf reliance food and an older couple selling Wise Foods prepackaged long term foods. I was given a package of Wise Food lasagna that I will do a review on later. I had bought a water filter that I will do a review on later also, as it is convenient and American (Logan, Utah) made!! More on that later.

All in all it was a pretty good first attempt at such an event. There was a lot of positive feedback and I believe there will be another. If the camo wearing, head to the hills, zombie-killing 'survivalists' had shown they would have been disappointed. This was a very family oriented, educational and geared to the general public who are coming into the 'preparedness' mindset. I give many kudos to the City of Puyallup for putting on such an event and will support/volunteer next time if there is an oppurtunity. Wish me luck as I head to my Ham radio operators license test in the next few weeks and my first class with the Pierce County Search and Rescue to be a mentor for young adults this Wednesday.

SF-
 

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