The Riviera Association

Red Flag Alert Program (May 17, 2010)

The Riviera Association has been working with the Eucalyptus Hill Improvement Association to bring additional awareness into the area during ‘Red Flag Alert’ days in the high risk fire areas. A coordinated program with the City Fire Department will contact residents from a pre-selected list in areas affected on a given alert day. Resident will post the signs in their yards near main transportation routes such as Foothill, Highway 192, to raise awareness during high temperature, low humidity days. The signs will be removed once the alert has been canceled.

Prepare 2009 – Be There! (Aug 25, 2009)

In the past 2 years we have suffered through 4 major fires together, a remarkable demonstration of community resilience and mutual assistance.

Once a year volunteers get together to share their training and talents with each other and to celebrate a unique hobby. It’s called a Hamfest, but this year, given all that has happened, They’d like to share our knowledge with you as well.  Take a look at the link below for all of the information:

Prepare 2009

Fire Season Is Now All Year Long! (Aug 15, 2009)

WHAT CAN I DO NOW TO PREPARE?

1) CLEAN YOUR PROPERTY, creating DEFENSIBLE SPACE. Click on http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Government/Departments/Fire/WildlandInterface.htm for details

2) CREATE YOUR STARTER DISASTER SUPPLY KIT.

3) START YOUR EMERGENCY PLAN.

4) GET DISASTER TRAINING:

5) BE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED FOR REVERSE 911 SERVICE.

6) LIST EMERGENCY RADIO STATION # ‘S ON YOUR BATTERY OPERATED RADIO
Possible choices: AM 990, 1290, 1410, 1440 FM 91.9, 101.7

Riviera Association Thanks Firefighters and City Officials (Dec 9, 2008)

On behalf of the entire Riviera Association, we express our
sincere gratitude for the responsiveness during the Tea Fire.

Thank you,

Riviera Association Board
December 9, 2008

Survival Instincts (Oct 19, 2008)

SURVIVAL INSTINCTS
Why We Do What We Do In an Emergency

By Lou Dartanner, N6ZKJ

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and you receive a phone call from “Reverse 911″ informing you a fire is headed your way and you should evacuate immediately.

You scoop up the cat and place her in a carrier, snap the dog’s leash on his collar and put both in the car. You then methodically collect the folder containing important papers, the photo album, computer disks, prescription meds, and other items on the “don’t forget to take” list kept on the fridge.

You can feel the tension and anxiety, but you and your family have rehearsed this before, so you feel confident things will be OK. You have cleared flammables away from your home. You know your children’s school and spouse’s work disaster plans. You have your ‘get away” pack in the car. You know where you will meet with your family. You know several ways out of your neighborhood.

Just as you start to leave, the phone rings. It’s your neighbor. She asks you what you are going to do. She wonders if you think the threat is real and if you have talked to anyone else. She wants to know if you think she should leave.

Why the different reactions to the same phone call? You have “trained” your brain to instinctively know what to do by your preparations.

In emergencies, our instincts can be dangerous. We want to stay put, we want things to remain normal. In fact, research has shown that people will first check with several sources before deciding what to do. This “freezing” behavior is instinctive. When People are caught up in a disaster, 10-15% will act quickly and properly; 15% will “freak out,” and the rest will do very little, stunned and bewildered. 1

In an emergency, the brain slows down. When you are calm, your brain takes 6 to 10 seconds to process each new piece of information, but the more the stress, the slower the process and when the brain is bombarded with new information, it shifts into low gear. 2

In this state, people will first experience a period of disbelief and move very slowly, often forming groups. they can walk in circles, as if in a trance.

“…All of the seriously (auto accident) injured were transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, while others wandered around the glass-splattered scene disoriented and shocked….” Melissa Evans, Santa Barbara News-Press, Feb.20, 2006.

If no familiar behavior or action comes to mind, the brain will latch on to the first familiar “fix” in its library of habits and knowledge. You may run out the door you came in, even though you pass by exits you could have taken sooner. It’s like a Google search: put in a word or tow, like “FIRE EXIT,’ and your brain searches past actions, training, readings, etc, to find something to do. It will probably come back with many “hits.” But if you’ve been observant of all the exits (especially those new to you), you can say, “FIRE! FIND EXIT I SAW COMING IN.”

According to news stories, in a disaster drill following the Amish shootings, students ran past exits and into rooms with no outside doors; those that reached outside gathered in groups a short distance from the building, in harm’s way if the shooter exited.

We live in earthquake country, but face a number of potential hazards , from auto accidents to wildfires. Start now and put together your disaster and evacuation plans, start your get-away kits, make a list of what you’d take if you had to evacuate in a hurry, and think about how you would react to different circumstances to give your Google search engine (brain) lots of information to consider in an emergency.

Fortunately, we live in an area where disasters are few and far between. However, this greatly affects our attention to preparedness and our ability to respond to them when they occur. Residents in hurricane zones often have to practice their emergency and evacuation plans several time a year.

Unless you have been through and personally affected by a natural disaster, it might be difficult to imagine what it will be like and how you will respond. People will often decide (consciously or subconsciously) to not deal with the subject at all. This can be a dangerous mistake!

It is important to start planning for emergencies without delay. This will give you a great sense of being in control of your own situation. Think of it as preparing a will or trust- you put it off because it is an unpleasant reminder of your own mortality and it takes time to gather all the information- but when it’s done, you have a good feeling of accomplishment and readiness. Consider disaster preparation a form of insurance. You hope you never have to use it, but if you do, it’s ready to use.

Remember, although you can’t predict or control a natural disaster, you can protect yourself and your family from its consequences. You will feel more in control and less anxious. Engage your whole family in this endeavor. Start your emergency kit and family disaster plan now!

The only thing tougher than planning for a disaster is explaining why you didn’t.

JUST HOW PREPARED ARE YOU FOR AN EARTHQUAKE? (Sep 19, 2008)

After the initial shaking, the most danger to property is from fire from broken gas lines. Help protect your home by installing an automatic gas shutoff devise on your home gas line which shuts off gas automatically when we experience an earthquake of a certain magnitude. Easily installed by most licensed plumbers.

Check out these websites:

www.GasValveDoctor.com/order.htm

or

www.seismic-safety.com

Earthquake Safety (Jul 15, 2008)

EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP’S ARTICLE ON THE: ‘TRIANGLE OF LIFE’

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world’s most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters. The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City, Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the ‘triangle of life’. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the ‘triangles’ you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.
TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY:
1) Most everyone who simply ‘ducks and covers’ WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different ‘moment of frequency’ (they swing separately from the main part of the building).The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads – horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn’t collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible- It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting orlying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

Spread the word and save someone’s life… The Entire world is experiencing natural calamities so be prepared! ‘We are but angels with one wing, it takes two to fly’,

In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul , University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did ‘duck and cover,’ and ten mannequins I used in my ‘triangle of life’ survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover.

There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the ‘triangle of life.’ This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA , Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.

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