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The Whipple Creek II Emergency Preparedness Team, led by CERT volunteer Ron Sjolander, hosted an Open House on May 19, 2019, featuring approximately a dozen displays ranging from emergency shelters, a variety of emergency cooking stoves; sanitation and personal hygiene; true emergency food like MREs and freeze dried with tasting samples of these and other items; water supply and disinfecting water; examples of a complete home first aid kit, an under the bed kit, a car kit, tactical versus regular flashlights; and more.
Thank you, Ron, for all you do to promote emergency preparedness and help to build resilience in our community.
Above, left shows 4 kinds of emergency food: Heater meals (5-year life, non-refrigerated, self heating meals), Mountain House freeze dried meals, MRE’s and a US Coast Guard ration bar.
Above, right: Crock pots held two samples of different freeze dried and one MRE meal. The fondue pot on the right has a Hawain delicacy, SPAM and pineapple. A lot of samples were eaten.
Left: This area was popular! This table had samples of the Coast Guard ration bar, some no bake cookies, the SPAM pineapple and pemmican. Relative to the food, the consensus was that the freeze dried foods were quite good, the MRE was okay to good, the ration bar was surprisingly tasty, to my annoyance all the cookies were eaten, the pemmican got mixed reviews but some really liked it. The SPAM – not everyone tried it but those that did said it was okay to good.
Above: Photos of a comprehensive car kit. For a detailed list of recommended contents, see Car Kit.
Above: An under the bed kit. A cloth bag (an old pillow case works) with shoes or hard soled slippers and a flashlight with batteries separate. Tie a light line to the bag and to the bed frame, long enough to bring onto the bed without getting up. Additional options: spare glasses, if needed, a light stick, extra batteries, work gloves and a bottle of water.
On the far right of the display are several flashlights. This was the tactical vs regular flashlight display. The differences are: tactical flashlights, originally made for the military and police, are heavier, tougher and brighter than comparable regular flashlights. They offer defensive possibilities to temporarily blind an assailant, allowing a few seconds to flee or fight using the light as a strike weapon.
Above left: The water display, including how much, sources and means to disinfect.
Above right: This photo shows a large number items of potentially useful things grouped into three categories. On the right were things you will probably never have too many or too much of like toilet paper, duct tape, batteries and flashlights, buckets etc, in the middle were things that you might wish you had if you don’t and included alternate light sources, emergency radio, good knife and light line, coffee maker, etc. and on the left were things maybe needed like window repair, clean-up, and gas and water shutoff tools.
Above left: Sanitation and personal hygiene display including a hand washing station.
Above right: The emergency stove display included both fueled and rocket stoves.
Not pictured: A small display of CERT and CRESA material, and the CERT in Action video was playing on a loop on a large monitor.
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