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Getting Ready for Disaster
February 2006
One of the volcanoes near my home on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, Augustine Volcano, started erupting again a few weeks ago. This wasn't exactly a surprise. Augustine renewed activity was already a few years overdue: It is one of the most frequently active volcanoes in one of the world's most geologically "interesting" areas, Southern Alaska, and has been slowly rumbling and shaking back to life, very publicly, over the past few months.
Despite that, when the 40,000 foot high ash columns first met the clouds, hardly anyone was prepared despite months of slowly gathering warnings, newspaper articles and Web site postings. There's always a tendency to put off disaster preparation and mitigation measures until the situation becomes acute and there's no more time to prepare and to react appropriately - that's one of the main impediments to dealing with uncertain potential hazards that later emerge as full-blown crises.
In another now-familiar context, scientists have been warning for decades that New Orleans was highly vulnerable to a powerful hurricane, certainly a foreseeable situation on the same Gulf Coast that has been eroded and pummeled repeatedly over the years, most recently in 2004, and yet responsible authorities never quite got around to strengthening the levees and planning the inevitable evacuations and the private sector was never quite prepared for the deluge. Other needs and demands always seemed more immediately pressing until there was no time left. As with hurricane landfalls, volcanic eruptions during a specific time frame are highly uncertain - a volcano usually erupts several times during any eruptive sequence but the number of eruptions and their timing is highly uncertain and, in any event, the prevailing wind may blow ash in a different direction that day.
In my years living, practicing law, and flying in a somewhat rural part of Alaska, I have learned one cardinal rule: potential dangers typically can be substantially mitigated when you have the right attitude and sufficient knowledge, time, preparation and judgment. Attitude is the most important. If you have the right attitude, then you will already be prepared when a natural or man-made disaster looms and you will use good judgment.
There are distinct similarities in how different kinds of disasters impact a population and hence distinct similarities in how you can prepare to protect yourself, your family and your law practice. It's actually easier to be prepared to meet a broad range of potential disasters because of the generic similarity among disaster mitigation measures. For example, when other nearby volcanoes such as Mt. Redoubt have erupted in years past, we lost electrical power for a few days when turbine electrical generators were shut down to prevent damage from airborne ash and when transformers shorted out because of highly conductive ash deposits. Food and emergency supplies ran low when the unprepared suddenly descended in droves upon normally stocked local stores and aircraft and truck operations were reduced to avoid engine damage from gritty volcanic ash. These are the same impacts that we experienced for 10 days in early 2000 when unusually warm winter weather caused massive mile wide avalanches that shut down our only electrical transmission and road transportation corridor to Anchorage, the nearest large city; these are also among the same impacts that we will likely experience when the inevitable large earthquake again strikes Southern Alaska and destroys infrastructure.
Although I knew for years that my own earthquake preparedness was sparse, I somehow failed, despite years of governmental reminders, to lay in adequate emergency food and the fuel supplies needed for basic transportation and for the operation of the emergency generator needed to maintain minimal electrical power and heat circulation in my home. My lack of preparation changed dramatically on January 13, 2006 when Augustine's first large eruption occurred during the middle of the night. Luckily, I got into town early enough that day to buy the last available spare auto air filters and that last available dust masks. Those who dawdled even by half an hour found the shelves temporarily bare. Similarly, the fumes and particulate matter from large summer forest fires common throughout the Western US are, like volcanic ash, airborne nuisances that damage health, electronic equipment and engines. Mitigation measures, for those not directly in the path of the flames, are similar to airborne volcanic ash protection.
Aside from the general mess and health hazards, volcanic ash and other similar airborne particulates can cause substantial interior damage in sufficient concentration. Interior carpeting may be ruined, requiring replacement. Gritty particulates, when introduced into machinery, photocopiers, laser printers and scanners, either directly or when clinging to unprotected paper, can damage or destroy the device's printing and scanning elements and moving mechanical parts. Because ash, among other pollutants, is quite conductive electrically, it can short out and damage other electronic systems, such as computers and telephone systems.
After erupting sporadically for about one week, Augustine suddenly became very quiet, "almost too quiet", to use the cliché from old cinema Westerns. Most people dropped their guard, either a little or a lot. We were thus surprised when, despite checking the Alaska Volcano Observatory web updates every few hours, Augustine suddenly roared back into nearly continuous eruption a few hours after everyone went home for the weekend on Friday evening, January 27, 2006, necessitating a trip into Soldotna to shut down and cover all of the office equipment and be sure that all exterior air openings were properly sealed. Our situation was made even more tenuous by the partial failure of our office network file server the day before, perhaps due to operation in an environment made stuffy and hot by our volcano preparations. Luckily, the failed components were part of a disk array that continues to function despite the loss of one hard disk. However, due to air transport interruptions caused by volcanic ash clouds, we may not receive the replacement hard disk as quickly as we anticipated.
Here's the generic natural disaster checklist that we have evolved over the years under similar prior circumstances:
GENERAL MEASURES:
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I'm amazed at the major benefits inhering to real-time Internet access to real-time disaster information. So long as Augustine keeps up its current eruptive cycle, we will regularly check appropriate university and governmental Web sites throughout the day. They have a wealth of information about mitigation measures and about the impending natural disaster itself. For example, FEMA's Web site contains excellent general disaster preparation information, including checklists of appropriate emergency supplies and protective measures. In the case of a gradually unfolding but probable situation, such as we now have with Augustine Volcano, the Alaska Volcano Observatory of the University of Alaska (http://www.avo.alaska.edu and http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Augustine.php) and the National Weather Service (http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/augustine.php ) constantly update Web sites showing remote Web camera images of current volcanic activity (or pauses in activity), precursor earthquake activity, eruption predictions and current status, the probable paths of airborne ash clouds at various altitudes, and links to FEMA Web sites. We check these Web sites regularly during the day to see whether an ash cloud is drifting our way, requiring immediate action, and in the evening to determine the likelihood that an ash fall might blow in our direction in the event of yet another midnight eruption, thus requiring a disruptive overnight systems shutdown. We also check in late evening in case suddenly resuming volcanic activity militates in favor of driving back into town in order to shut and cover down all equipment.
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Be sure that you completely backup of all possible data every day. Because we converted our entire office to Adobe Acrobat files and to purely electronic accounting several years ago, we can carry our complete office data in a shirt-pocket sized portable USB hard disk. You'll need to have copies of your program installation disks off-premises, of course and should remove the backups from your office premises each day. For more information, see our companion article on Disaster Recovery in Your Shirt Pocket elsewhere in this issue.
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Educate your staff and any others in your building about appropriate damage mitigation precautions. These will likely be at least somewhat disruptive whenever forecasted activity indicates that you would be wise to implement them. In my experience when dealing with potential disasters that are probable sooner or later but not imminently certain, nearly everyone seems to assume that they will happen at some later time, or that the wind will continue blowing ash in the opposite direction, etc. It is important for staff to understand that everyone has a common interest in avoiding the kind of damage that shuts a business for a few weeks rather than for half an hour in the morning. In the event of phenomena such as volcanic ash, it is important to ensure that everyone in the building, not just your staff, understands and implements reasonable measures to prevent the incursion of ash indoors where it will spread throughout the interior spaces. In our case, I spoke to the building owner who then sent around a memo to all tenants requesting that they undertake specific listed measures to prevent the incursion of airborne ash into the interior spaces.
- Be balanced in your actions, neither over-reacting nor under-reacting. If you cry wolf too often, you will likely be dismissed when a real problem is highly probable. Whether or not to implement a shutdown and protective measures will be determined by your assessment of the degree of risk that day and whether you will have enough advance warning to react appropriately. In the event of a daytime eruption whose ash cloud is blowing toward us, we would have at least an hour to react, so our most sensible course is to keep a weather eye on current activity throughout the day but otherwise work normally. During the first eruption sequence when Augustine erupted several times a day, we shut down all office equipment and covered everything with large plastic trash bags every evening but this proved fairly disruptive because restarting the network, desktop computers, and phone system often took quite a bit of time. Now, before leaving for the night, we check whether an eruption is forecast as likely and also whether prevailing wind patterns will blow the ash toward us or away from us. If there is little likelihood of eruption blowing in our direction, we simply ensure that the offices are sealed against outside air incursion but do not shut down nor cover office equipment.
We check the Web sites again toward the end of each evening in case we need to react during the evening.
- Be sure that you have adequate personal health and safety supplies. In our current situation, that includes several dust masks and perhaps protective eye wear for every staff and family member along with sufficient emergency food and fuel, flashlights and batteries, interior dust cleanup equipment and supplies, and transportation supplies such as extra air filters and windshield fluid. We also have a small 1.5 kilowatt generator to provide emergency electrical power.
- Be prepared to take specific mitigation measures. To deal with pending ash falls, we sealed all exterior vents, air conditioners, and windows with plastic sheets and duct tape and prepared covers for all office equipment. Interior doors and vents to the file server room were also sealed each evening with duct tape whenever we left the server turned on overnight. Ultimately, we found that heavy gauge reusable painting drop clothes were the easiest to use. Light gauge single use plastic sheeting was ineffective and generally a mess to handle and reuse.