Each box contains a portable two-way radio (think Walkie-Talkie), a light, clipboards with paper forms and mechanical pencils. The city has 74 boxes in total, distributed throughout different sections of the city, which are dubbed “zones” and clustered into 13 “Emergency Preparedness Areas.”
The basic plan goes like this: In the event of a disaster that lays waste to the town and impairs standard communication lines, those who are able will assemble at the boxes. The first person to arrive will be named a “zone leader.”
The residents will use the clipboards and paper to assess the damage at each house in the neighborhood. Their findings will be relayed to the city via the radios. The city can then deploy emergency resources to the places most in need.
I actually kinda like this idea, although, really, any group..family, congregation, tribe, clan, cell, whatever…should already have several rally points assigned and stocked ‘just in case’. If Utah really wanted to go nuts, they’d do like the Japanese and have their parks double as emergency facilities with wells, toilet facilities, cooking areas, etc.
But, I gotta give credit to those fun-lovin’ Mormons…they don’t screw around when it comes to the preparedness stuff.
Every family or other group unit should have at least a couple ‘rally points’ or ‘meetup areas’ designated and stocked as prudently as possible.
The very fact that they’re activating a plan like this -now- nominally raises an eyebrowz or three… Dunno if ZI ever heard of a thing at the height of the cold war… They know something we don’t?
Read
The Day We Bombed Utah
Very enlightening, what a deal…
Most towns and cities should have some sort of underground civil defense shelter or a school gym type of building. The high school in our neighborhood was built in the 60’s and has a huge underground bunker, largely forgotten about and ignored. Then again the Astrodome during Katrina turned out to be a major shit show so I’m not a fan of mass gatherings.
Hey everybody, let’s meet at the tunnel! The brits used the subway system to shelter from German bombs, seems like a good idea if plans are in place. From what I’m seeing now our government couldn’t plan a dog show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnenberg_Tunnel
Many of these buildings have been abandoned, condemned ,have had the bunkers walled off or simply locked with the keys lost. Most authorities are more concerned with the liability the bunkers pose if people get hurt inside then maintaining such things.
Astrodome is in Houston; I think you might have meant the Superdome in New Orleans and yes it was shit show!!!
This sounds like a variant on the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) system pioneered in California. We have some CERT groups in Minnesota, of which my county is one.
Steelheart
We are seeing CERT programs here in Texas also!
Interesting. I hope they have a plan to keep batteries fresh, etc…
I’d rather do it on a family basis, but in a town everybody needs to work together.
“Raises eyebrows”?
By whom, morons?
Sounds like a well thought out, effective town emergency preparedness department – assuming they swap out batteries regularly, and have the rest of the processes in place to do something with that information gathered.
Steelheart is right, this does look like a CERT system. With only 4% of the population taking part in the first drill, I’m not sure how well this would work in the event of a real emergency.
Damage Assessment is done by CERT members in our County. We also use an online tool to help determine the damage, take photos and ultimately tie it to the assessed value of the property. If the cloud is down (like that would happen), its done the old fashioned way via FEMA street sheets and calculated by hand. The states want this info asap so they can determine if a disaster threshold has been reached and they can ask for Federal assistance (be that as it may…).
This is not part of the initial response but it does help with the overall recovery.
In an actual emergency they will probably be overwhelmed with folks seeking help
Not enough money to go anywhere near that site or be the person with the clipboard.
No way.
People are stupid enough with a functioning system.
Of course if the emergency is a nuclear detonation these things will be useless, so much for total preps.
Many towns and cities in Utah have this level of preparedness based on the FEMA CERT program. They’ll pay to send volunterrs through a training course. Supply HAMs with mobile radio set ups in each area. The areas are set up usually on the predominant religion of the areas heirarchy. So not to reinvent the wheel. They coordinate with County, State, and if appropriate, Federal. This includes National Guard. Sunk a bunch of money into a Mobile Comms Center to tie all the different freqs used by different departments together for coordination, etc. The big focus in Utah is usually Earthquakes but the prepare for most things. They have some good training especially on Organization and how FEMA operates at https://training.fema.gov/is/.