New guide offers disaster advice

The county Office of Emergency Management has issued a 100-page guide for residents with recommendations on how to prepare for "a major disaster," survive and recover.

The online guide is at (Down Load The PDF HERE), and includes tips on preparing for a litany of natural and man-made events.

"The Los Angeles region is subject to various destructive emergencies including earthquakes, floods, landslides, wildfires, tornadoes, urban fires, tsunamis, hazardous material releases, terrorism, and civil unrest," the guide states in its introduction.

County residents have faced nearly all these potential hazards in the past year, according to the Office of Emergency Management.

The countywide Emergency Survival Guide cautions all residents that in the event of a major disaster, they may be on their own for several days before professional emergency responders arrive.

"First responders will need to focus their efforts in the areas where they can do the most good - helping severely endangered people and heavily impacted areas first," the guide says. "It is possible, even likely, that some areas may not get professional assistance for days after a disaster has occurred."

The guide's checklists, color graphics and photos evoke the 145-page Topanga Disaster Survival Guide, issued by the county in September 2005.

The new guide includes brief accounts of
some of the county's previous disasters, including one of the costliest in U.S. history - the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Link Back: www.shtfm.com/viewtopic.php?f=161&t=5180

- City News Service