This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.
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For anyone concerned about the negative health effects of Radio Frequency (RF) and other Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) in their homes, I know of a consulting company that specializes in RF/EMF remediation. Keith Cutter, the owner of the company, has about 30 podcasts on the subject now archived and available for free listening. I’ve actually known Keith since 2001. But until just recently, I hadn’t heard that he is now doing this specialized consulting work.
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Reader G.S. sent this, in response to Modern Civil Defense by 3AD Scout:
“First, I need to say I have been an avid reader of the blog for the past 10 years plus and find the information included to be outstanding.
I am an Emergency Management Director for a county in rural Ohio. I moved here almost 9 years ago after having worked in a large eastern city, in the Office of Emergency Management where we responded to both man-made and natural disasters on a fairly regular basis. (I felt the need to move away from the East Coast). I am also an old Navy veteran that served on destroyers in the late 1980s so I was part of the Cold War response and the regular Nuke training based on the risk provided by the Soviets.
In reading the recent article “Modern Civil Defense” by 3AD Scout it brought back memories of the Cold war preparations. The author is pretty close to dead center on his research but did fail to address the varied modern-day preparations that we are currently dealing with in the Emergency Management offices across the country. My agency is fortunate to not only have staff but to be set up and fully funded by our County Commissioners. The grant money I receive each year is not spent on labor costs like so many of my sister agencies, but real gear. My county is over 150,000 people and the issue if the balloon was to ever go up is that it would be virtually impossible to take care of the residents. Large scale shelters do not exist and even with my funding I am unable to store the needed food (MREs) and drinking water for that many people. We have had these discussions with my counterparts and most are in less fortunate circumstances since they do not have any discretionary income since they rely on those grants just for normal operations. Ohio has 88 counties and this is the situation for about 75 of them. The other 13 do have funding and are preparing as they see fit with those priorities varying quite a bit based on location and political leanings of the leadership. (That is just a reality.)
Here in my county, we are in the process of building a robust mass casualty program and are currently working on training both county employees and concerned volunteers to handle “longer-term” shelter operations that would normally be outside the ability and scope of Red Cross to staff. This includes shelter supplies such as cots, comfort kits, food, water, and blankets, this effort is designed for the 99% of events that we would encounter. The migrant crisis or a larger scale incident are the targets we are building this to.
As far as education to the risks that we face currently, it seems that more and more people are waking up to the reality of the situation but the overall percentages is still well into the single percentiles. This is better in counties with conservative leanings and is helped by the rural populations but the closer you are to major metros the attitudes shift from self-reliance to “what can you give me today?” Education will be our best single approach to getting the population prepared for whatever we might face but that will take significant time that we simply do not have. This is currently being done through outreach programs with civic groups and myself and my staff take every opportunity talk with people to be better prepared.
Not all of .gov has their heads in the sand, but this might be too little too late with current events trending the way they are.
Keep doing what you do sir, your efforts are appreciated more than you know.”
Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”
