Tornado Safety

Wow, what a night!  Tornados swept through the Midwest last night heavily effecting parts of Kansas, Missouri (including the music resort city of Branson), and Illinois.  Because the news media has done a good job covering the stories today, I’m not going into the post-incident details here.  But, there are a couple of things I want to mention as preparedness reminders now that we are in tornado season:

• A tornado WARNING is issued when a hazardous weather or hydrologic event is occurring, imminent or likely.  A warning means weather conditions pose a threat to life or property.  People in the path of the storm need to take protective action.
• A tornado WATCH is issued when the risk of a hazardous weather or hydrologic event has increased significantly, but its occurrence, location or timing is still uncertain.  It is intended to provide enough lead time so those who need to set their plans in motion can do so.  A watch means that hazardous weather is possible.  People should have a plan of action in case a storm threatens and they should listen for later information and possible warnings especially when planning travel or outdoor activities.
• An ADVISORY is issued when a hazardous weather or hydrologic event is occurring, imminent or likely.  Advisories are for less serious conditions than warnings that cause significant inconvenience and if caution is not exercised, could lead to situations that may threaten life or property.

Preparing for a tornado

Here are four things everyone can do to prepare for a tornado that may affect your area:

1. Know the risk for tornadoes in your area.  Although tornadoes have been reported throughout the United States, some areas are clearly at higher risk than others.
2. Identify potential shelter areas where family members can gather during a tornado.  The best shelter from a tornado is to be underground.
   If an underground shelter or tornado-safe room is not available, move to an interior room or hallway on the lowest floor and get under a sturdy piece of furniture.  The idea is to get as many walls and roofs between you and the outside as possible.  Avoid rooms with large free-span roofs.
   Mobile homes, even if tied down, offer little protection from tornadoes and should be abandoned in favor of more substantial shelter.
3. Learn the community’s warning system.  Many areas use Emergency Alert System (EAS) to warn of imminent hazards.  Within these areas, though, communities may have other warning systems for tornadoes, including sirens that are also used to signal fires and other hazards.  For those who live in communities that use sirens, it is critical to learn the siren warning tone to ensure recognition.  Also, when severe weather threatens, NOAA weather radio carries current information and instructions.
4. Conduct periodic tornado drills with the family to ensure that all family members know what to do and where to go during a tornado emergency.

During a Tornado

Here’s what you should do if you are caught in a tornado:

• Damage often occurs when wind gets inside a home.  Keep all windows and doors closed.  Houses do not explode because of air pressure differences.
• Go immediately to an underground shelter or tornado-safe room, or interior room or hallway on the lowest floor.
• Put as much shielding material (such as furniture, blankets, bike helmets, etc.) as you can around you.
• Listen to EAS or NOAA Weather Radio for current emergency information and instructions.
• If you are driving and see a tornado go to a nearby sturdy building and seek an area on the lowest level, without windows.  If there are no buildings nearby, get out and away from the vehicle and lie down in a low spot on the ground.  Protect the head and neck.

Following a tornado

Once the tornado has passed you should continue listening to EAS or NOAA weather radio for updated information and instructions.  As with many other hazards, post-tornado actions include:

• Avoid fallen power lines or broken utility lines and immediately report those you see
• Stay out of damaged areas until told that it is safe to enter
• Stay out of damaged buildings
• Use  a flashlight to look for damage and fire hazards and document damage for insurance purposes
• Turn off utilities, if necessary
• Reserve the telephone for emergencies

Take a CERT class

And let me leave you with this.  If you haven’t yet completed FEMA’s Citizen Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, what are you waiting for?  It’s the best preparedness training around.  In many areas it’s free and in those areas that may charge for it, the cost is nominal.  Visit the Citizen Corps/CERT website to learn more and then PLEASE go take the training …. for yourself and your family.  You will thank me afterwards.  Call your local police or fire department or your local emergency management agency to see when the next class in your area meets.  If you can’t find a class, or your business would like its own class, contact me.

Getting Prepared In a Year

Well, with my recent travel to Hawaii, I inadvertently missed a step in our journey to becoming prepared this year.  I hope you will consider it a minor detour.  We are back on the road and our journey continues with our fourth destination on our journey to becoming prepared this year.

When you are at the hardware store, I want you to pick-up the following items:

• Plumber’s tape which is really a type of strapping.  Don’t get this confused with “Teflon tape”.  Get the one that is a flexible metal strip with a regular series of holes running the length of the “tape.” It is generally used to provide mechanical support for piping.  You’ll use this in the “To Do” that follows.
• A crowbar
• (If your home needs either or both)  A smoke detector and a CO detector.  Don’t forget the batteries!

From your doctor or pharmacist, get the following:

• You will want to get any extra medications you may need or a prescription marked “Emergency Use” if needed.

Things to Do:

• Use the Plumber’s tape (strapping) from above to tie your water heater to nearby wall studs.  FEMA provides some good information on this, along with other earthquake related material at “Protecting Against Earthquake Damage”
• Install your new smoke and CO detectors or test the ones currently in place.

Wrapping up on an experience of a life time in Hawaii

Wow, I can’t believe that in one short month, we’ve gone from having a brief phone conversation about the possibility of conducting training in Hawaii, to actually having conducted the training, and now I’m home again.  The past 31 days has been a blur of activity.  What an amazing time line we worked through.  And it wouldn’t have happened without the energetic and committed team of players we had in place (Hawaii State Civil Defense, FEMA EMI, the instructors, and the students).  I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity.

Last Thursday evening several of us participated in a late evening “strategy” session where we discussed concerns and issues in emergency preparedness for the State of Hawaii and its’ citizens.  Out of those insightful discussions came the following points.

We must make citizen preparedness a priority

For the past several years, homeland security investments have been focused primarily on public safety and first responders.  While much of that investment was necessary and appropriate in the past, haven’t we reached a point where we should be shifting our focus from public safety and first responders to the citizens of our communities?  Shouldn’t we be making greater investments that help our citizens become better prepared (“resilient”)?  We thought so.  And not just in Hawaii, but across the United States.

The importance of networking

If history repeats itself, many of those attending our training this past week will return home very excited and anxious to begin using their new-found knowledge.  Unfortunately, reality will catch up to them and distractions will start to pop up threatening future forward movement.  In an effort to channel our interest and energy and use it to continue forward momentum, it was suggested that those in class should continue to meet on a regular (recurring) basis to network and support each other.  In an effort to accomplish this, they have agreed to meet periodically on a conference call to support each other and address strategic ideas to grow and enhance community preparedness.   Working together, they will reinforce their own learning and discover other ways in which to help their communities become better prepared.

National Guard support

On our final day together, we had the great fortune to have Col. Joe Logan join us for lunch.  Col. Logan serves as the Chief of Staff for the Hawaii National Guard at the Joint Forces Headquarters – Hawaii.  During his comments to our class Col. Logan expressed his appreciation for the work each of the students does across the state (islands) in helping citizens prepare for emergencies.  He mentioned that the National Guard was pleased to be a part of the training this week and to play host for us at the wonderful National Guard RTI facility.

A look back

Now that I can look back at this great experience, I’m happy to know I have so many new friends in both Hawaii and Samoa.  The students in our class were so gracious to us.  Throughout the week they were very attentive, they asked great questions, shared terrific experiences, and were always willing to participate.  An instructor’s ideal class.

This week I also learned.  During our “teach backs” (student presentations) I learned several new instructional techniques from my students that proved to be very effective ways of demonstrating to a class.  I thank my students for sharing their insights and knowledge.

I was surprised to learn that Hawaii has 11 of the world’s 13 climate zones within the state (islands).  Yes, it does snow in the higher elevations of Hawaii!  I also learned that there is only 1 firefighter/EMT for every 450 people, there is only 1 police officer for every 430 people, and there is only 1 ambulance for every 12,000 people.  Additionally, here in the continental United States, we can leverage “mutual aid” where when a community’s first responders are overwhelmed, they can call for help from a nearby community.  But when you live on an island and the nearest help is hours away by boat or airplane, then what?  Given the numerous and variety of risks the islands face, these figures strongly support why the citizens of Hawaii must take personal preparedness seriously.

As we closed our class down we (instructors) were each presented with parting gifts.  I was given a bag of Alaea Sea salts.  Alaea salt is an unrefined Hawaiian sea salt.  The salt is expensive and hard to find outside the Hawaiian islands.  It gets its pinkish-brown color from Hawaiian clay, called ‘alaea, which is rich in iron oxide.  Customarily, Alaea sea salt was used by Hawaiians to cleanse, purify and bless tools, canoes, homes and temples.  Alaea is also used in several traditional Hawaiian dishes such as Kalua Pig (delicious!), Hawaiian Jerky and Poke.

Finally, I’ll leave you with pictures from our CERT training In Hawaii.

Mahalo!

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Learning about the State of Hawaii

What a busy yet exciting day today was.

Bank of America webinar

I started out the day by delivering a webinar to a group of 100+ Bank of America associates who work within the company’s business continuity program.  The webinar I conducted was titled “Business Continuity and Preparedness through Social Media”.  I was very pleased to have the opportunity to present to this group again.  I think it was almost a year ago when I last spoke to them about emergency communications.

Hawaii CERT

Following the webinar, the rest of my day was spent wrapping up the third and final day of our Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) “Train-the-Trainer class.  At the end of the day, 36 more people are now qualified to teach the CERT curriculum.  Congratulations to all.  Tomorrow, we start a two-day CERT Program Manager class.

Hawaii State Civil Defense

The classes we are teaching this week are being sponsored by the Hawaii State Civil Defense office.

Until arriving here in Hawaii, I thought all state agencies across the U.S. had pretty much changed their names (many years ago) from “Civil Defense” to “Emergency Management”.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that Hawaii maintained the “Civil Defense” name that the emergency management field traces its roots to.  Today, we might consider this being “retro”.

There are eight major islands that make up four counties and no two counties are alike.  The Hawaiian language uses short vowels like the word Aloha and there are 8 consonants.   Roads with English names are older and all newer roads have Hawaiian names.  While there are Route numbers, most people in Hawaii don’t use the Route numbers.

Kauai County the smallest county has two islands (Niihau a privately owned island and Kauai made famous in movies from Blue Hawaii, Jurassic Park and Blue Thunder) impacted by Hurricanes Iwa (1982) and Iniki (1992).

The City & County of Honolulu (island of Oahu where I’m at this week) is where 80% of the island’s 1.3 million people live and home to Iolani Palace which was home to the last two reigning Hawaiian monarchs.  Oahu is famous also for its 20 foot surf on the north shore and home to a number of surfing competitions during the winter months.

Maui County is made up of four islands including Kahoolawe which is not inhabited after years of being used for naval target practice.  Molokai was made famous in the James Michener novel as the home to the colony for survivors of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) which today continues to be governed by the Dept. of Health. Lanai is owned by Rupert Murdoch and Maui is home to Haleakala which occasionally has snow.  Can you believe snow in Hawaii???

Hazards

Hawaii County, or the island of Hawaii, has 11 of the 13 climate zones including the hazards that come with each zone. The island is large enough to fit all of the other seven islands and is home to Kilauea, which is an active volcano that dumps about 40 truckloads of lava per day into the ocean making Hawaii the only state that is growing.  The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency deals with blizzard, sleet, hail hazards along with the earthquakes, lava and the gasses from the volcano.

As a matter of fact state’s top five hazards include:

•             Hurricane

•             Flash Flood

•             Tsunami – In Hawaii, a tsunami watch will be issued immediately by Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for quakes 7.9 or greater or if tsunami ETA is less than 6 hours.  Additionally, a tsunami warning will be issued whenever a tsunami wave has been confirmed by PTWC or is 3 hours or less from arrival. Respective Civil Defense.  In Missouri, while February is Earthquake Awareness Month, herein Hawaii, April is Tsunami Awareness Month in Hawaii.

•             Earthquake – coming from Missouri and the New Madrid Earthquake Zone, I was interested in learning that thousands of earthquakes occur in Hawaii each year.  They are usually linked to volcanic activity.  The largest earthquake in Hawaii history caused 77 deaths of which 46 deaths were due to tsunami and 31 were due to landslide.

•             Volcano – I was hoping to see a volcano while I was here, but just didn’t have the time.  So, for now, Kilauea is Hawai`i’s youngest volcano and one of the world’s most active. Over 90 percent of Kilauea’s surface is covered by lava less than 1,100 years old. In historical time, all of Kilauea’s eruptions have occurred either in or near its summit caldera, or along the east or southwest rift zones. For the foreseeable future, we can assume that active vents will be limited to these areas.

Mauna Loa (means “Long Mountain”) is the largest volcano on our planet, rising gradually to more than 4 km above sea level.   Its long submarine flanks descend to the sea floor an additional 5 km, and the sea floor in turn is depressed by Mauna Loa’s great mass another 8 km. This makes the volcano’s summit about 17 km (56,000 ft) above its base! The enormous volcano covers half of the Island of Hawai`i and by itself amounts to about 85 percent of all the other Hawaiian Islands combined.

Mauna Loa is among Earth’s most active volcanoes, having erupted 33 times since its first well-documented historical eruption in 1843. Its most recent eruption was in 1984. Mauna Loa is certain to erupt again, and we carefully monitor the volcano for signs of unrest.

Well, I hope you found this informative.  Until tomorrow, be safe and take care.

Hawaiian CERT – Day 3 “Learning about early Hawaii”

Well, I hope you had an enjoyable Valentine’s Day yesterday.  As candy is a main staple of Valentine gifts, here in Hawaii we enjoyed some chocolate covered macadamia nut candies.

When you see the view of the local mountains that greets us each morning here on base, it’s no wonder people love to come to Hawaii.  Here’s a few pictures of what lies very near to where we are staying.  Each day the clouds seem to always hang right around the tops of the mountains.  As the sun shines through the clouds and on to the green foliage it makes it appear almost iridescent green!  It really is a view that is awesome.

Well yesterday was another very busy day in class.  As is typically true, we covered a lot of information in an effort to prepare our students to teach the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) curriculum.  The day was spent working on both instructor development skills and reviewing the basic training material.  Hands-on activities included students delivering (instructing) a limited topic of choice in the CERT curriculum.

Continuing on in the exploration of the Polynesian culture, one of our students (“Bill”) took the time to write the following and asked that I share it with you.  I think what Bill wrote reflects the sense of “resiliency” that we strive for in emergency management today.  I hope you find it as interesting as I did when I first read it.

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated large population in the world.  Hawaii is 2500 miles away from the nearest landfall or civilization.  As such, if you live in Hawaii, you can’t simply go over to the next state or country for support.  That is life now, and that was definitely life in the past.

In ancient times (up to the 1800’s), Hawaii needed to be totally self-sustainable for its food, water, construction material, infrastructure, industry, etc.  When Capt. Cook landed on the Kona Coast in 1787, it was estimated that approximately 350,00 lived on the Kona Coast alone.  It is estimated that the population of Hawaii then rivaled that of Hawaii now.  The irony of this is Hawaii now, imports some 95 +/- of (its) consumer, construction, infrastructure, food, fuel, etc. but with the same size population Hawaii sustained its population of 1,000,000+ for hundreds of years with absolutely no input/import from abroad!  How did they do this?  How did Hawaii feed its large population?

There existed, riveted into the day-to-day business at hand, a resource management system called
“aha ‘puaha” (ah-hah-poo-ah-hah).  The easiest way to explain how this system functioned (works) is; visualize a pizza pie cut into wedges.  Now, overlay that shape and slices over an island and that is basically how Hawaiian islands were divided.  The uniqueness of this land division model was that it maximized local resources and aligned them with the communities (caretakers, stewards at large).

This system worked very well.  As a matter of fact, with a population well over 1,000,000 natives, there was so much food at times that excess surplus would be unintentionally generated and would constantly spoil and end up wasted.

In the 1700’s, established on Hawaii Island was “Parker Ranch”.  Parker Ranch, up into the 1990’s, was the biggest/largest private cattle ranch in the entire U.S. – larger than any private cattle ranch found in Texas, Oklahoma, and beyond.

In the 1800’s, there was so much food in Hawaii that when the California Gold Rush of 1848-1849 occurred, their population grew by over 500% in two years,  out stripping California’s ability to feed its surging population.  As that being the situation at hand, California turned to Hawaii to help feed “the cornucopia of the world”; California.

A Honolulu newspaper ran an article at that time expressing the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce’s relief that now Hawaii had a way to sell their surplus food rather than have it spoil in the field and orchards.  But, with the overthrow of the nation of Hawaii in 1893 by a group of U.S. businessmen backed by the U.S. military and organized religion, the land was carved up into rectangles, the  “aha ‘puaha”  system was unintentionally destroyed, and now Hawaii imports nearly everything it uses at a high premium as importing is a monopolized industry.

Hawaiian CERT – Day Two

Aloha, and welcome to Day Two of our trip to the beautiful State of Hawaii and specifically the Island of Oahu.  Weather continues to be very nice as we start our first day of training.

Today, and continuing over the next two days, we’ll be teaching the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA;  www.fema.gov ) L428 CERT Train-the-Trainer course.  We have 36 interested and eager students with very diverse backgrounds.

We started the class with a brief welcome By Ms. Lorinda Wong-Lau who is the Anti-Terrorism Planner for the State of Hawaii – Civil Defense Division.  In her comments, she encouraged the attendees to learn, network, and look for how this training could be brought to communities and citizens across the state to make the state more resilient.

Additionally, we had the opportunity to have Ms. Rachel Jacky, Director National CERT Program call in to the class and provide some welcoming comments and insight for our students.  Her insightful comments reflected on the collaborative relationship FEMA is building between FEMA and state and local jurisdictions when it comes to citizen preparedness and what a vital role local programs play to the success of community preparedness.

Expectations

I always like to identify student expectations early on in the class and ask the students when they introduce themselves if they would please identify what their expectations are for attending the class.  The three most widely expressed expectations included:

• Sustainment of programs
• Gaining more knowledge
• Developing their Instructor skills

Lunchtime Speaker

During our “working lunch” today we had the pleasure of hearing one of our own students provide an overview of his emergency management programs for the City and County of Honolulu.

Emergency Management Reserve Corps (EMRC) was started as a Volunteer Cadre in July 1941 pre-Pearl  Harbor with the intent of preparing to responding to natural and human-caused disasters.  Today, members of the EMRC serve in various capacities within the Department of Emergency Management (DEM).  Members are “On Call” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and provide the following functions:

• Assist HPD in warning/evacuation and traffic control operations
• Assist Ocean Safety in beach closures
• Assist NWS as SKYWARN
• Observe and report hazardous conditions
• Assist with damage assessment
• Provide fixed/mobile communications

From an administrative perspective, the EMRC members are considered “employees” while activated.  As such, they are covered under §128-16, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) which in turn provides for both medical coverage via workmen’s compensation and reimbursed Mileage and Meals.

The EMRC has 130 volunteers in six geographical districts.  Functionally, each EMRC geographical district  includes an Operation Support Section, a RACES section, and includes a coordinator & staff.  Team members meet monthly and those meetings include both training & administrative matters.  Examples of functional training that’s provided include: Traffic Control, Damage Assessment, Hazardous Materials Familiarization, Radio-telephone Procedures, First Aid/CPR, Incident Command System (ICS), Weather Spotter Training, and CERT.

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a volunteer cadre that was first formed in 1995 with the expectation of having trained citizens who could respond to natural and human-caused disasters.  Oahu CERT’s, like their counterparts throughout the United States, are community/Business/Neighborhood based teams.  In Oahu, CERT’s are self-activating after catastrophic events.  Their duties include:

• Assist their neighborhoods after a catastrophic event
• Assist NWS as SKYWARN
• Observe and report hazardous conditions to EMRC
• Assist with damage assessment
• Provide fixed/mobile communications

From an administrative perspective, Oahu CERT’s are members of the host organization and are covered under the HRS Good Samaritan Law.  There are approximately 1300 CERT trained community members that make up 12 Community Teams, five hotel teams (remember tourism is big in Hawaii), and two University of Hawaii Campus teams.  Organizationally, Oahu CERT has one CERT Coordinator and a CERT Steering Committee.  Training is supported by 14 volunteer instructors and classes are held approximately 15 times a year.  Challenges that Oahu CERT face (like many other CERT teams) include:

1. Having only one person administer the program (limited resources)
2. Lack of paid instructors
3. Funding is dwindling
4. Community mindset – like other communities throughout the United States, community members may believe, all their needs will be taken care of after a disaster.
5. 10 – 15 Classes held a year – in some cases one might say that’s not enough, in others, one might say that’s too much as we don’t have enough resources to support that many (or more).

Looking forward, the good folks in Oahu are looking strategically at how to reach out to (and include):

• Neighborhood Board Involvement
• Community Disaster Committees
• Boy Scouts of America
• High School JROTC
• Business and other Organizations

Working with Access and Functional Needs populations

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the organizers of this class wanted to create an “EMI-like” experience that builds “esprit de corps’ among the students.  Beyond having us all stay at the RTI, they also arranged to have a working dinner each evening that provided a meal and a guest speaker.  For our first evening together we met and heard Ms. Debbe Jackson from the State of Hawaii Disability & Communication Access Board.  Ms. Jackson spoke to our group about communicating with the Access and Functional Needs populations.

Warm Hawaiian appreciation

The wonderful kukui nut necklace and book "Life in the Pacific of the 1700's"

Well, I want to close my blog today by going back to how we started the day.

As my fellow instructor and I were being introduced at the beginning of class, we were each presented with a Kukui Nut necklace and a book titled “Life in the Pacific of the 1700’s”.

The Kukui tree is the state tree of Hawaii and in the past the oil derived from the Kukui nuts (a.k.a. “candle nut) was harvested and in turn was burned for light.  In Hawaii, the kukui is a symbol of enlightenment, protection and peace.

The book, “Life in the Pacific of the 1700’s” is a wonderful award-winning catalog which shows the exhibits which were collected during Captain Cook’s expeditions to the Pacific.

OK … that’s it for today.  Hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for more.  Until then …

Aloha ahiahi ia oukou

Preparedness – Hawaiian Style

Welcome back to yet another SPECIAL EDITION of my blog.  This week I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to be in Honolulu, Hawaii teaching Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Train-the-Trainer and Program Manager classes.  This is my first trip to Hawaii, so I’m really looking forward to what lies ahead this week … and sharing those sites and experiences with you.

Getting to Hawaii – Saturday

It's a good time to be leaving St. Louis

When I left St. Louis, Missouri early yesterday morning it was dark, very cold (in the teens) and snowing.  It was a great time to leave for sunshine and warmer climates.  I flew my favorite airline, Southwest from St. Louis to Los Angeles with a change of planes in Denver, CO.  I know I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again … I really enjoy flying with Southwest.  Their fares are reasonable, their customer service is outstanding, they have a good frequent flyer program, and they don’t charge for your first two checked bags!  I only wish they flew to Hawaii.

On a related item, in the December 2011 issue of “Fire Chief” magazine  editorial director Janet Wilmoth wrote about how Southwest could be seen as a role-model for fire departments.  In her article she mentions a few strategic initiatives that are as applicable to fire departments as they are to Southwest, including:

• Standardization
• Service, and
• Culture

I ate the "double double" animal style

I had a four-hour layover at LAX in Los Angeles so I took advantage of the opportunity and had lunch with my nephew, Kevin.  While reconnecting with Kevin is great, he made the visit even better by taking me to a place I’ve wanted to try for many years, but never had the chance.  Kevin took me to “In-N-Out Burger” !  What a neat place.  Their menu is very limited to burgers, fries, and drinks.  But since I was with an experienced “guide”, we ordered something that wasn’t on the menu.  A “double-double animal style”.  Two hamburgers with pickles, cheese, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, and their special sauce (thousand island like).  Man, was it good!  After lunch, Kev dropped me off back at the airport for my final leg of the day’s journey.

From Los Angeles to Honolulu I flew United.  I think I flew many years ago, but not recently.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how nice the five-hour flight was.  The plane was a big 767 and was clean.  The seats were very comfortable.  And the customer service was very good.

Altogether, I spent 20 hours in travel time, of which five were spent on the flight from LA to Honolulu.

Welcome to Hawaii

This week I have the great fortune to work again with a good friend of mine.  Although we haven’t known each other very long, we’ve worked together in Reno (last month) as well as at FEMA’s EMI in Emmitsburg, MD (last October).   Wilson is one of the best instructors I’ve worked with.  As I mentioned in a previous blog, I admire his teaching capabilities.  PLUS, he’s just an all-around good guy!  Anyway, Wilson picked me up at the airport and then took me on a little tour of Oahu.  I actually think we were lost but of course being men, we weren’t about to stop and ask for directions.

For those attending classes this week, the organizers of this great training opportunity wanted to provide an “EMI experience”.  To help create that experience, those from out-of-town are all staying at the new Hawaii National Guard 298th Regiment MFTU (RTI). If you click on the link, take a look at the “Welcome Brief”.

We’re tourists – Sunday

So, today Wilson and I spent the day playing tourists.

Weather was great today.  Mostly sunny, high in the low 80’s, and gentle ENE winds.  There were just a couple of things we knew we had to do while we had the chance.  We wanted to go see Pearl Harbor and also the U.S.S. Missouri

To have the opportunity to see both of these historic sites, it truly reminds us how fortunate we are to live in America.  And when you collectively look at Pearl Harbor along with other attacks like the Murrah bombing in Oklahoma City and of course 9/11, you are reminded about how resilient we Americans really are.

Here’s some pictures from today …

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On the way back to the RTI, we had the opportunity to see some of the beaches and the ocean …

And of course, no trip out-of-town is complete until you have visited the local Walmart …

Does your local Walmart have a Hawaiian BBQ?

Well, I hope you will follow me this week and check back daily to see what’s going on in our class and throughout the state of Hawaii with respect to emergency management.   Along with our classroom experiences, I’ll also be briefing you about some of the guest speakers who will be joining us this week as well.  So stay tuned.