“If we live like there is no tomorrow, there won't be.”

I consider myself to be fairly anti-nuclear power. I understand that it is becoming a more popular option with our ever-growing population needing more and more energy, but the tradeoff just really isn’t worth it to me.

I wrote on my Yahoo blog about my experience as a child with Three Mile Island. I’ve moved those posts to Blogger. You can read them in order here.

Recently, a Fed that I’m friends with at work told me about a website about a woman who has gone through parts of the ‘Dead Zone’ surrounding Chernobyl. Her name is Elena, she is the daughter of a nuclear physicist. She travels on her motorcycle and takes all the food, water, and fuel she might need as well as a bike repair kit, etc, because you do not want to get stranded out there. She takes her Geiger counter. She takes her camera. Her photos are surreal. She has biked all over the area.

The only catch? You pretty much have to stay on the roads, preferably in the middle of the roads. She talks about why, it is very interesting stuff.

Her page can be found here. I would really recommend starting with the link below her Motorcycle page and then just working your way through all the sections. At the bottom of each page is a link to go to the next, like turning pages of a book. It is an incredible journey. Look through the ‘Serpent’s Wall’ bit, too. It is about the wall defending Kiev from everyone, Mongols up through the Nazis. She and her friends dig there to find history.

Be sure to read her description of the accident at Chernobyl. Keep in mind that the ONLY real thing that kept this from happening in Harrisburg was that the steam didn’t blow the reactor chamber apart. They vented it out instead. That’s it. We had the steam bubble, we had the melted control rods. It was so close. I was so close to be living what she’s describing. So. Close.

What really got me wasn’t the pictures. I've seen pictures of ghost towns before. Her descriptions, though, are thought provoking, frightening, and touching. Sometimes she makes funny comments, too. It is obvious that her life has been changed by what happened here…

All the following pictures and words are from Elena’s sites, as well as the title of the post, above:

The roads are blocked for cars, but not for motorcycles. Good girls go to heaven. Bad ones go to hell. And girls on fast bikes go anywhere they want.

In Ukrainian language ( where we don't like to say "the") Chernobyl is the name of a grass, wormwood (absinth). This word scares the holy bejesus out of people here. Maybe part of the reason for that among religious people is because the Bible mentions Wormwood in the book of the revelatons - which fortells the end of the world....

The sarcophagus will remain radioactive for at least 100.000 years. The age for the pyramids of Egypt is 5,000 to 6,000 years. Each cultural epoch left something to humanity, something immortal, like Judaic epoch left us Bible, Greek culture- philosophy, Romans contributed law and we are leaving Sarcophagus, the construction that going to outlive all other signs of our epoch and may last longer then pyramids.

There are many places that not structurally safe, or have collected pockets of intense radiation. There are places where no one dares to go. One such place is the Red Wood forest and another is the Ghost Town Cemetary. The relatives of the people who are buried there can not visit, because in addition to people, much of the radioctive graphite nuclear core is buried there. It is one of the most toxic places on earth.

All of this happy horseshit was for the May 1st Labor Day parade.

Ghost Town is a modern Pompeii. The Soviet era is preserved here - in the radiation for all this years.

…Or we can stand looking at the Chernobyl equivalent of Niagara Falls. Radiation level here is same as in Kiev. Standing on this bridge is as safe as standing on bridges in Venice. But never forget this is Chernie, where you can walk a few hundred meters away and be in a dangerously radioactive place. There are several hundred unmarked burial sites of radioactive waste materials in the Chernobyl area and no one knows where all of them are. The people who buried them are now buried themselves- may they rest in peace, for we the living can not. For safety, Geiger counter must always be turned on.

The only buildings in area that is not ruined are churches. Traveling through the whole of Chernobyl region I have yet to see any ruined church.

Reading of geiger counters tell us more than reading official reports, but it tells us less than reading from the book of nature. In Chernobyl reading from the book of nature is easy, here facts themselves speak eloquently of the truth... wherever I turn, I stumble upon a fact that humans are outlawed and banned from life. I strain to hear, in hope to receive an answer, but all I can hear is the voice of Nature strongly saying to the human race, -I DON'T NEED YOU!

Get up a Go bag

An article came past my desk at work a few weeks ago, and it was so interesting that I thought I’d share it here.

We all know that we should have an emergency kit, or actually several, and most of us don’t. We don’t have a evacuation plan, we don’t have multiple routes thought out, and we don’t really want to put the time aside to do it, either, thank you very much.


Harrisburg, PA, flooding 2008

This article was in Disaster Recovery Journal, a business continuity magazine we receive. It is about making a Go Bag. A Go Bag is the bag you put aside for when you have 5 minutes to get your sh!t and get out. Each member of the family should have a Go Bag, know where it is and how to pack it, and this includes small children. If you have pets that will be coming with you, make them a Go Bag, too. Babies should have a Go Bag as well.

The suggestion is to get a backpack and have as much as you can already packed so you can just grab it and go. Also, add a list of things you need to pack at the last minute, like prescription medications, wallet, camera, cell, etc. Take the time to go through your house and add one thing from each room to the list that you would hate yourself forever if you left it behind. Family pictures, jewelry, etc. Within reason, of course, you don’t want to have to lug around Great Grandma’s solid maple dining room set.

Also add photocopies of any important documents: drivers license, insurance and home ownership paperwork. Phone numbers, too. Another good tip is to make sure that your family and friends know where you will be going if you have to evacuate. Don’t let uncle Bob think you are headed his way when you are actually going to cousin Sue’s house, because uncle Bob will be worrying his head off when you don’t show, and if the phones are down….well.

I have not done this yet, but I have the backpack. I did make a work Go Bag list, though, and I have it in my desk. These are all things I can take from my desk and throw in my tote quickly and easily and get out the door. I’ll share it with you here:

Keys, wallet, work ID badge, Kleenex, meds (I keep a pill bottle with a few of my prescription meds as well as Tylenol and advil), flashlight, candy/food, knife/fork/spoon, toothbrush, deodorant, pens/paper, mirror, tweezers, needles/pins, nail clippers, railroad spike (ok, I have this on my desk as a paperweight, but it can easily double as a hammer, prybar, or even a weapon), utility knives, eyedrops (saline), sweater, mug, antibacterial hand gel, scissors.

Some of these may seem obvious (wallet? keys?), but if all hell were breaking loose you need a list of the obvious because quite frankly, your mind is not thinking about the obvious at that time. Upon looking at the list, I think I’ll bring in an empty bottle so I can fill it with water, if necessary. I should probably steal a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, too. Hmmm.

A good Go Bag list for general home preparedness can be found here. Some of this list seems more like something I’d put in a larger emergency kit, but you get the idea. Another list can be found here. Now, for the quiz: who can tell me why that website is called ’72 hours?’

In a few future posts, I’ll talk about a larger home Shelter-In-Place emergency kit for longer-term emergencies, and I’ll also talk about an emergency kit for your car, which is very important for those of us that live in snowy and icy climates.

Stop Disasters!!!!

I've been working with the disaster and emergency management community for a little over 10 years now, and I will tell you there isn't much to laugh at or have fun with when it comes to disasters.

OK, that doesn't mean we DON'T laugh about it sometimes, but gallows humor is supposed to be kept under wraps, so I won't tell you about the guy who blew himself up after he lit a match to look at the gauge of the leaky propane tank one dark night. Ahem.

Anyway, I recently came across a game that was developed by the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) to help teach kids about preparing for disasters. It is called Stop Disasters, which pretty much says it all if you ask me. And, you know, it's a pretty neat game, and I've had fun playing it, so I decided Hey, why not pass this on?

This isn't a game very high on the technological scale. No Wii here, but you can choose your disaster! Yes! You can pick Flood, Wildfire, Hurricane, Earthquake, or Tsunami. You can also pick which language you want to use (ATTENTION TIM!).

The goals are to reduce loss of life and property. You earn points as you make changes to your community by either building shelters, reinforcing existing buildings, creating barriers or drainage, or doing training of the townspeople. It all really depends on the disaster you've chosen, and you have a set amount of money to spend on things and a set amount of time to spend it, because apparently the disaster is on a schedule here, people.

After a while, you start to hear alarms saying a flood/fire/tsunami is coming. You get to watch it unfold. Even though this is a game, it can be really surprising to see. I didn't expect the floodwaters to rise that far when I played it the first time. You can watch the $$ tally up, and you also watch the death toll rise. After the disaster, you are given the totals and you find out if you passed or failed the disaster.

It isn't as easy as it might sound. I had to play one disaster scenario several times before I got a passing score.

Anyway, enjoy the game. It's fun, and you might learn something, too.

I'm planning on doing a few more disaster-related posts here in the hopes of bringing some personal preparedness information to my few, few readers, but I hope it will be interesting and helpful. Stay tuned!

It hits the fan, part 1

Once upon a time in March 1979, my father was at his job in Atlanta for a few weeks (he had a hell of a commute), and my mother was at home listening to the Frederick, MD, radio station. I guess I was at home, too, but I was four and don’t really remember much about this.

Mom almost spat her coffee out when she heard an announcer on the radio say that airline pilots flying in to National Airport (downtown DC) could “see the flames and smoke from Gettysburg” as they were making their approach for landing.

It turns out that a white phosphorus truck had caught fire and exploded in town. Right next to the elementary school that I would eventually go for K-3, and it was only about 4 blocks from our house.

The fire was so intense it MELTED the civil war bronze statue about 50 feet away. They had to dig up the front yard of the school, haul it away, and eventually replace all the dirt.

The reason I start out with this story is to give you and idea of what we were coming off of when Three Mile Island hit the fan.

It hits the fan, part 2

Less than a week after the phosphorus incident, on (Thursday) March 28 th , Three Mile Island reactor #2 suffered a partial meltdown. Most people outside of our area don’t realize exactly how close we came to losing half the state of Pennsylvania, most of Maryland, all of Delaware, probably the nation’s capital, New Jersey, and NYC. It was VERY close to being a Chernobyl.

Again, dad’s in Atlanta, Mom & I are in Gburg. In the general area of Harrisburg and by and large all of Pennsylvania, we were in a media blackout. Something was going on with TMI, but we didn’t know exactly what. We were assured by the Powers That Be that everything was under control and not to worry. Plant officials were still trying to figure out how to stabilize the reactor, but had given a “the danger is over” message to the local public.

Outside the area, however, they were being given details. Over the next few days (over the weekend) my father in Atlanta learned what they were not telling us: a large bubble of radioactive hydrogen steam had been building in the reaction chamber. Cronkite mentioned on national news that there was a very real possibility of a total meltdown.

It hits the fan, part 3

More information of a technical nature started to filter into the media on Saturday and reached the ears of my dad in Atlanta. He served on some Nuclear Wessels while in the navy and had learned quite a bit about nuclear physics himself. He had worked some figures and realized that if the people at the plant didn’t figure out what to do, they would have a full meltdown. He had it figured to a particular time on Monday, but I don’t remember what the time was (sometime in the afternoon).

Dad got on the phone and tried to call us. He got the operator, who told him all lines were busy. Dad explained the situation, and the operator said she could try once, but that was it. In some amazing cosmic anomaly, the call went through.

My mother was, of course, oblivious to the depth of what was going on. We were completely in the dark. Dad brought her up to speed, told her to pack whatever we needed immediately, she would be meeting my uncle Sam at Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Sunday morning and he was driving us to Atlanta. And we did. Mom packed clothes and stuff, but also the family German bible, the silver set, and family pictures. Sunday morning we left for the airport.

It hits the fan, part 4

Yes, we evacuated. I still remember walking through the airport that Sunday and seeing Sam standing there waiting for us.

I still get fairly emotional when I get to this point. I mean, I didn’t know what was going on, I was 4. I don’t remember any sense of fear or panic or anything from my mom or anyone around me, but I can imagine that the place was probably full of people trying to get out. I think I must have known that something unusual was going on.

But looking back on it I realize that if things had gone the other way, I never would have seen my childhood home again. Or the battlefield, or my family in PA (we left my grandfather at the nursing home, I just realized that). A lot of things. I probably would be speaking with a deep sothrun accent right now. My life would have been very different.

Monday, April 1, President Jimmy Carter visited TMI. You might ask: why on earth would a president visit a potentially deadly place, and why would the secret service let him? Many people asked that. The answer: Mr. Jimmy had graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy with a degree in nuclear physics. I really get annoyed when someone jokes about President Carter. He may not have been our best president, but he is a good man. I'm glad he was president when this emergency happened.

Anyway, it turned out that the full meltdown my father predicted was stopped **half an hour** before it happened. That’s how close we came, people. Half an hour.

It hits the fan, part 5

We stayed in Atlanta with my grandparents for over a month, just to make sure. My father had an 18-wheeler ready to go to Gettysburg and get our stuff to bring south if need be. Mom drove us home, she often tells me that she followed dad on the interstate around Atlanta. She had to go straight, he took an off-ramp and she was crying as they waved goodbye. On the way home, we stopped in Tennessee for the night with someone she used to work with in DC, I can remember her and her house, too, barely.

In the wake of the disaster, several things happened:

• TMI reactor 2 was permanently shut down. The other reactors are still in operation.
• After this accident, all other plans for nuclear reactors to be built in the United States were shelved indefinitely. Some have been finished since, but no new plants have been ordered. Some people are upset about this, because nuclear energy is so much ‘cleaner.’
• There was a cover-up about the radiation that was, in fact, released into the atmosphere from the reactor. They claimed at the time it never happened. Now they agree that over the course of a week they released large amounts of radioactive steam and hydrogen (about 13 million curies worth). Most doctors state that the public didn’t have any ill effects from this. I say bull. There was a dramatic increase in a blood cancer called Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in the area that the steam plume traveled (a friend of mine had this, and she lived down-river from the reactor). Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Also, there were major fish die-offs in the Susquehanna River, major die-offs of livestock and yes, a couple years after the accident a two-headed calf was born, among other deformaties in plants and animals. Pictures here.
• As a result of hurricane Agnes and a few other major disasters in the 1970s, Jimmy Carter created FEMA as a centralized governmental agency to respond to all disasters. It was actually signed into effect on the day Mr. Jimmy went to TMI, April 1, 1979. That’s a joke around here, FEMA was created on April Fools Day. It wasn’t a cabinet-level department until Bill Clinton elevated it in the 90s, and now it is, unfortunately, under the Department of Homeland Security.
• Major lessons were learned about systems, operators, and engineers. The accident cause was two-fold: a water valve got stuck in the OPEN position and the warning sensor for that valve failed to go off (so, basically what happened was the core, which should be covered in water, was actually drained of water and exposed causing the heat and gases to build and build). Because of some poor decisions, the technicians did the opposite thing from what they should have done, and everything cascaded from there. Then, when radiation and temperature readings were VERY high (like Oh. My. God. high), no one believed the readings.
• Because of TMI, we all had to learn how a nuclear reactor works in my 11 th grade chemistry class, so I can draw you a diagram and explain it if you want. It's one of those rare talents that makes me such fun at parties.

SO, I'm fairly anti-nuclear power. I just don't think it is worth it.