NOTE This page is in reverse chronological order (blog format!)...newest items are at the top. Older items, especially those near the end of the page, may be obsolete. July 2011 Get a grant for emergency preparedness: The City of Seattle recently announced that the next cycle of Small and Simple grants will focus on emergency preparedness! We've posted the details on our 'blog.  West Seattle Summer Fest: We had an informational table on Saturday, July 9th. We also attended the "What If?" Expo that same day. We've posted a couple of photos taken that day. Thanks to those of you who stopped by and talked with us! June 2011 City of Seattle Emergency Preparedness Initiative: This kicked off on June 13th with a City Council briefing by Barb Graff, Director of the Seattle Office of Emergency Management. We've posted details including video of the briefing on our blog. Outreach events: The summer festival season has officially kicked off. This month, we'll have a booth at the Morgan Junction Community Festival on June 25th and at the Mayor's SW Town Hall event on June 23rd. Visit our blog for details about other events we'll be attending! Updated Hub Map! We're in the process of upating all of our maps on this site to include two new hubs, one in Delridge and one in High Point. Meanwhile, until we roll them out, here's a printable flyer with the new map and the hub addresses.  May 2011 Free SNAP training in West Seattle: The next SNAP emergency prepardness training in West Seattle will be June 7th, 6:30 - 7:45 PM, at the High Point Library. You can find additional details, as well as other classes and event information at http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/events. Everyone is welcome! Outreach events:  We have a busy weekend! Today, Saturday, May 21st, we'll be at the WestWood Village Street Fair. On Sunday, the 22nd, we'll be at the Alki Summer Streets festival. We have a great assortment of preparedness materials and information - including fun stuff such as coloring book pages for kids and emergency whistles (until supplies run out). We're happy to answer any questions you have about the Emergency Communication Hubs or getting prepared. We'l be there from 11 AM to 5 PM, both days. Hope you'll stop by! Training & Education series:  Stay tuned for details about the next event in this series, coming up in June! Our most recent Training & Educatation series event was on Monday, May 16th, 6-8 PM, at the West Seattle Senior Center. We screened the documentary film, "Cascadia: the Hidden Fire"; discussion followed with special guests Chris Jonientz-Trisler (who is featured in the film) and Mark Howard from the Seattle Office of Emergency Management. Thanks to those of you who attended and participated! Communications Drill coverage:  We've posted photos and have linked to West Seattle Blog's coverage of the May 7th citywide communications drill/field exercise. This drill marked the debut of a new emergency communications hub in the North Delridge neighborhood! New Hub!  The North Delridge hub is so new, it isn't even on our maps yet! We'll be adding it soon though; meanwhile, make a note that it is located at the Delridge P-Patch - the street address is 5078 25th Ave SW. An additional new hub is not far behind; stay tuned! Check our April notes below for info about two other May events: SNAP training on May 5th and our field exercise on May 7th! April 2011 Our group will be participating in a field exercise on May 7th; it's an opportunity to test our radio communications with members of the Seattle Office of Emergency Management and Seattle ACS. Here's a description of the drill; our last such exercise was on February 12th. We've added an Earthquake Preparedness page to our blog. It includes both old and new resources; our purpose is to centralize and highlight this information. Since it's emergency preparedness month, we've posed a few preparedness-related questions. Do you know the answers? Mark your calendars for the next event in our Training & Education series; it will be on May 16th -- details to be announced shortly! We've learned of another West Seattle SNAP training at 6:30 PM on Thursday, May 5th. It will be at Delridge's Youngstown Cultural Arts Center/Cooper Artist Housing, 4408 Delridge Way SW. JoAnn Jordan of Seattle's Office of Emergency Management will give the presentation. For more info, contact Scott Squire at 206.935.4802. Keep checking our new 'blog and our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook group page for the latest in ongoing West Seattle emergency preparedness info, announcements and events!  Multiple emergency preparedness events are scheduled for April 20th. At 9:45 AM, there is a state-wide Drop, Cover and Hold drill. Be sure to practice this - even after April 20th - until it becomes second nature; you will want it to be able to do it effectively and quickly during a real earthquake. Mid-day at the Central Library, you can attend a SNAP Training session that is focused on how to respond if you are downtown during an earthquake. Lastly, there is a special event at the Seattle Office of Emergency Management; the powerful documentary film, “A Village Called Versailles” will be shown. Details are in this April 2011 Monthly Connection newsletter. If you missed the training session on April 18th, you can find video coverage from the West Seattle Blog, as well as an article by the West Seattle Herald. Great preparedness training opportunity on Monday, April 18th!  West Seattle Be Prepared and the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains' Network are co-sponsoring SNAP neighborhood emergency preparedness training with Office of Emergency Management trainer, Debbie Goetz. Info from the April 9th Community Preparedness Summit is now posted, as well as coverage of the April 7th Red Cross presentations. As well, we continue to link to the West Seattle Blog's Earthquake Preparedness Series that is running this month. The Office of Emergency Managements April 2011 Monthly Connection newsletter is now published. Don't miss it! It includes prepareness tips, upcoming events, and first-person insights from Japan. Mark your calendars for another event! On April 16-17th, South Seattle Community College will host the 2011 Amateur Radio Communications Academy; this is annual training for new and experienced amateur radio operators. For more information or to register, go to: http://www.commacademy.org/. Visit our Other Communication Sources page for more about HAM radio groups and activities. April is a big month for preparedness training and events. We've just updated our new 'blog with detailed information about the training sessions we have scheduled; these include the Red Cross training on April 7th, the Community Preparedness Summit on April 9th, and SNAP neighborhood preparedness training on April 18th. West Seattle Blog has kicked off an Earthquake Preparedness Series that will run nightly throughout this month. We are linking all of their reports from our Facebook page. March 2011 As we wrap up the month of March, and look ahead to Emergency Preparedness Month, we have a new item to tell you about. We've just rolled out a new Events Calendar on our 'blog - check it out and let us know what you think! It's a work-in-progress that we envision will be useful, especially during the busier months. Individual items are not yet hot-linked, but we hope to have that functionality in the near future. There are several new and interesting postings on our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page. Of particular interest is an article about the role that amateur radio operators played post-earthquake communications in Haiti from Emergency Management magazine. Speaking of training...on April 18th, West Seattle Be Prepared is combining efforts with the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains' Network on a West Seattle preparedness training session. Debbie Goetz from the Office of Emergency Management will be the trainer. It will be held from 6 to 7:30 PM at the SW Police Precinct (2300 SW Webster St., next to the Home Depot store). We'll post more details shortly; meanwhile, save the date! Registration is open for the Office of Emergency Management's spring classes! You'll find their event calendar here, as well as on our Training & Education page. We especially recommend the Disaster First Aid (offered on 4/9/11) and the Search & Rescue (on 4/2/11) training! The Earthquake Retrofit course (on 4/16/11) is also extremely informative. More news! We've created a new West Seattle Be Prepared 'blog and have set up a Twitter account. You can find the 'blog at http://westseattlebeprepared.wordpress.com and you can tweet us @wsbeprepared. Our display name on Twitter is "westseattlebprepared", missing an "e" because of character limitations. We plan to better integrate our 'blog, Twitter account and our Facebook page with this website very soon! Here's the official announcement flyer and a few more details about our upcoming Education & Training Series. It kicks off on April 7th with a presentation and free training by members of the Red Cross. Did you miss the presentation that Cindi Barker from West Seattle Be Prepared and Debbie Goetz from the Office of Emergency Management gave on March 14th to the North Delridge Neighborhood Council? If so, or if you wished for a Replay button, here's West Seattle Blog's video of the presentation. Our preparedness counterparts in the Wallingford neighborhood have invited us (and YOU) to a Potluck Breakfast on Saturday, March 19th. It is from 9 AM to noon at the Wallingford Community Senior Center. Debbie Goetz from the Office of Emergency Management will be the guest speaker. Additional details are on our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page. A reminder that the CERT training we mentioned earlier this month starts tomorrow, March 17th! Registration links are included below. We've continued to add some of the more noteworthy links of the disaster in Japan to our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page. We especially found this interactive before/after satellite imagery to be informative and chilling. This local round-up of disaster-related information and resources from KING5 is also very useful; in the interest of full disclosure, it includes a link to the interview, "Staying Connected When an Earthquake Hits" they recently did with our group.  Mark your calendars! Our educational series launches on Thursday, April 7th. As well, on Saturday, April 9th, we will be participating in another preparedness Summit (similar to the ones held last November and last April). More details to come about both events; meanwhile, save the dates as we hope to see you there! The March 2011 Monthly Connection, SNAP spring OEM newletter has now been published. You'll find it included on our Training & Education page, as well as on this page. Note that spring classes are starting very soon! Although we don't cover breaking news realtime, we want to acknowledge the huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan tonight (March 11th); we added links to some of the early media coverage and streaming video on our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page. Want to learn more about West Seattle emergency preparedness? Come to the Delridge Branch Library on March 14th at 6:30 PM! Cindi Barker from our group, West Seattle Be Prepared and Debbie Goetz from the Office of Emergency Management will be guest speakers at the North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting. The switch to Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, March 13th is a good time to make sure you are prepared for emergencies! Put fresh batteries in your smoke alarms, Carbon Monoxide detectors and flashlights. Replace the water and perishable items in your emergency kits. The Resources section of our site includes some great information about what to include in your kits! Several members of our group attended the Emergency Management magazine's "All Hazards/All Stakeholders Summit" at Olive 8 on March 3rd. Some of the slide presentations are now posted; it was a very informative and well-organized event.  Interested in CERT training? Spring 2011 classes start on March 17th; registration details are linked from our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page and on our Training & Education page.   We are planning a spring-summer educational series! Stay tuned for more details. If you have suggestions for topics or presenters, we'd love to hear from you. February 2011 The story about our group on KING 5, Nisqually: 10 Years Later, "Staying Connected When an Earthquake Hits" has now been posted! Monday, February 28th marks the 10-year anniversary of the Nisqually earthquake. Watch for our group on the KING5 TV local news that day! Reporter Meg Coyle recently interviewed us. The drill on February 12th went well. We'll try to post some photos and details in the coming weeks. Our group, West Seattle Be Prepared, will participate in an Emergency Communication Hubs drill on February 12th. We are one of several neighborhoods involved. The purpose is to practice radio communications with the the Office of Emergency Management, identify improvements to our process and to test capacity. If you are interested in being involved in future drills, please get in touch! The Seattle Office of Emergency Management has just released its February edition of the SNAP Monthly Connection newsletter. It includes lots of useful information! Note that you'll find a permanent link to all of the Office of Emergency Management newsletters at the top of our Training & Education page. The Office of Emergency Management's 2011 Events Calendar (also linked from our Training & Education page) has been updated with the schedule of SNAP classes. Looks like there are two sessions in West Seattle, June 7th and November 3rd. Note that they will provide additional sessions as needed for groups of 20 or more. January 2011 Added a new page for 2011 Events & Activities. So far, it's pretty sparse; we hope to add more events to it soon! A new link to a video game for kids, "The Day the Earth Shook", has been added to our site! You'll find it on the page of Individual Household Resources, along with other great resources for kids. Thanks to Dave from our Highland Park Hub for sending it our way! We've also linked in the January 2011 and December 2010 editions of the SNAP Monthly Connection newsletter; you'll find it on our Training & Education page. Happy New Year!  We have some interesting and exciting things planned for this year, including a speaker/lecture series. More details to come later... December 2010 On December 8th, three members of our group attended the "Hospital without Walls" meeting and participated in the discussions. You'll find coverage on the West Seattle Blog and the West Seattle Herald. We'll keep tracking this issue and will add updates as we obtain more information. Visit the Medical & First Aid page of our site to see what we have so far; we've added some new information following the Summit in November. If you know of additional resources we should include, please let us know! Members of our group have been invited to attend "Hospital Without Walls", a meeting on December 8th that will focus on emergency care in the event of a disaster. Here's a link to West Seattle Blog's coverage of the award presentation! Exciting news! We're honored that our group, West Seattle Be Prepared is receiving a West Seattle Volunteer Recognition Award! The award presentation is Sunday, December 5th, at 1 PM in the Junction. We're looking forward to it and hope you can join us! On our calendar, we'll have an informational table at the Mayor's Town Hall forum at Youngstown Arts on Thursday, December 2nd, starting at 6 PM. Hope you'll stop by to see us! We have great (FREE) emergency preparedness materials including postcard maps showing the emergency communication hub locations; we also have coloring book pages for kids! In light of the recent snowy and gusty weather, here are a few of the best resources we know of: West Seattle Blog is publishing realtime reports on our local conditions and happenings throughout West Seattle! This includes photos, video and reader contributions. This useful link from the Seattle Department of Transportation includes district snow maps showing which routes will be cleared! You can pick up a printed brochure that includes the Seattle snow map at the Seattle Public Libraries or the Neighborhood Service Centers. You can get great regional information from RPIN.org; either visit their website or sign up to receive news alerts via email!   November 2010 Great to see so many of you at the Summit last Saturday! We've posted some highlights and photos here. Many thanks to those who attended. West Seattle was well-represented! We have just posted the agenda for the Emergency Communication Hub Group Summit. It is on Saturday, November 20th, from 8:30 to 12:30. Hope you will join us! On Facebook? We've added more details about the upcoming Summit on our Events page there: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=124139400981058. Facebook users can RSVP via that page as well as via the email/phone addresses noted in our earlier posting. We hope you'll be able to attend! Interested in learning more about Emergency Communication Hubs? On November 20th, we will be participating in an Emergency Hub Group Summit. Here are more details: Saturday, November 20, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Seattle EOC, 105 5th Ave S., Seattle 98104, Emergency Hub Group Summit – Learn how Seattle communication hubs operate. Special session on how new groups can get started begins at 8:30 a.m. Main topic: Seattle-King County Public Health’s Medical Reserve Corp. To attend, RSVP to snap@seattle.gov or contact Mark Howard at 206-684-7727. The November edition of the SNAP Monthly Connection newsletter has been published; we've added a link to our Training & Education page as well as well as this page, as it contains information about upcoming classes. It was great to meet some of you at Gathering of Neighbors on November 6th. Thanks for stopping by! West Seattle Blog snapped a photo of our booth in case you missed us.   For those of you who weren't aware of it, City Light has launched an online Outage Management System (OMS). which displays outage information in our city. Visit http://seattle.gov/light/sysstat/ for details. October 2010 We have news! We've registered to have a booth at the Gathering of Neighbors! GoN is on November 6th, 11 AM to 4 PM at Chief Sealth International High School (2600 SW Thistle). It's a great opportunity to talk with us, attend workshops, meet other community groups, meet or catch up with your neighbors, and see the newly remodeled high school. We hope to see you there! Now that fall/winter weather has seemingly arrived, we want to hightlight the city's Take Winter By Storm website; it has lots of useful information in a variety of languages. Year 'round, you can also find this link in our Resources section, on the Safety Tips for Emergencies page. Among the most useful resources on this page (in our minds) are the Emergency Contact Cards...if you don't have one yet, visit this page and download it! Or, stop by our booth or the city's SNAP/emergency preparedness booth at upcoming community events to pick up free printed wallet cards!  Need training in how to prepare for emergencies? There is one more FREE West Seattle preparedness class scheduled this year; it's on November 6th at the SW Library, 9010 35th Ave SW, 10:30 to noon. Visit http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/, you'll find class schedules in the "Hot Topics" section. Also, on November 6th is West Seattle's "Gathering of Neighbors" (GON) event; at the moment, our group is NOT scheduled to have a booth there, but we do plan to take the opportunity to go. It's a good opportunity to learn about communiy and neighborhood groups, and to meet your West Seattle neighbors. Hope to see you there! More about GON at http://www.dnda.org/events/gathering-of-neighbors-2010.  Added a link to an online exhibit from the Burke Museum, "The Big One – Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest" that Cindi discovered. It's on our Additional Information page.  Cindi Barker will be giving a short presentation about the West Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs at the October 21st meeting of the Genesee-Schmitz Neighborhood Council; here's a link to the informational flyer. A huge thank you to the actors and other volunteers who participated in the training exercise on Saturday, October 16th!  Here's a link to West Seattle Blog's coverage. Visit our are West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook group page for coverage of the Queen Anne-Magnolia-Interbay and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. On Saturday, October 16th, from 9 AM - noon, we are participating in a citywide emergency preparedness drill, "Sound Shake, Day 2", based on a catastrophic earthquake scenario, complete with aftershocks. This drill builds on the "Rattle In Seattle" drill in May 2010. In West Seattle, we will activate three of the nine Emergency Communications Hubs. To make this as realistic as possible, we have invited citizen "actors" to participate; their roles will be to report damage, request assistance or offer resources so that we can test our communication procedures and our radio systems. We'll be at the Admiral, Fauntleroy or Highland Park Hubs and would like to invite West Seattle residents, (especially SNAP groups and Blockwatch members) to watch, so you can see how the hubs will function. This drill involves multiple volunteer community groups and responders, Ham Radio operators, the Office of Emergency Managment, hospital staff and other organizations; more details are provided in this press release.   A reminder: there are only three more SNAP emergency preparedness classes in 2010! The next one in West Seattle is on November 6th from 10:30 AM - noon. Can't wait? On October 16th, there will be one at the Capitol Hill Library from 10:30 AM - noon. On October 21st, there is one at the Lake City Library from 6:30 - 7:45 PM. You'll find links to more information in our September section below. The Office of Emergency Management released the October 2010 Monthly Connection newsletter this first week of October. It has preliminary information about the emergency drill in which we'll be participating on October 16th, more details about the SoundShake 2010 event on October 6th-7th, as well as updates about upcoming SNAP classes and other disaster training. September 2010 We have no more outreach "tabling" events this month, but will be participating in a citywide emergency communications drill in mid-October. Regional SoundShake 2010 events are also coming up in October. A new noteworthy Neighborhood Preparedness page has been added to the Office of Emergency Management site; it has links to several community preparedness documents. These include a detailed description of the cross-community pilot project that includes our West Seattle group. The Office of Emergency Management has created and posted a map on this page that shows our West Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs in the context of local potential vulnerabilities/hazards and resources. The Office of Emergency Management has added several other new items to their website recently; see the "Hot Topics" section at http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/. Highlights include a special SNAP continuing education workshop, Effective Drills and Exercises on Wednesday, September 29th (the registration deadline is on Monday, September 27th). More Leadership Academy sessions are coming up in October. Registration links and information for the Fall Skills Training workshops (which we mentioned last month) and the three remaining 2010 SNAP classes are also linked from this page. Note that space is limited and all of these classes tend to fill up quickly. Earlier this month, the Office of Emergency Management's Fall 2010 quarterly newsletter was released (newsletters are linked from the Hot Topics section at http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/). Our group's last summer outreach event was Alki Family Fun Day on Sunday, September 12th, at the Statue of Liberty Plaza on Alki Beach. Good to see so many of you! August 2010  Interested in role-playing the part of a disaster victim? If so, the NW Citizen Corp Expo on Saturday, August 28th, can use you! Here is a flyer with more details. It's a great way to have fun, as well as help disaster responders practice their skills. We enjoyed talking with some of you at the SW Precinct Picnic on August 21st; thanks for dropping by! We had a great time at the booth we shared with the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains' Network. It was great to see the SPD officers from the SW precinct and so many other West Seattle community groups. You'll find event coverage on the West Seattle Blog.  If you missed seeing us at our recent summer outreach events, you can pick up free Emergency Communication Hubs postcards at either of the Neighborhood Service Centers. These include a map of the hub locations; keep a copy in your emergency kit, on your frig or in your vehicles!  The Office of Emergency Management will be announcing their SNAP Skills Training fall 2010 schedule of classes the week of August 23rd. We've linked their flyer to our West Seattle Be Prepared Facebook page. If you aren't a Facebook member, here's a link to it that doesn't require Facebook membership. We've also posted the July-August SNAP newsletter on our Training & Education page; it includes a list of fall events. Night Out against Crime was on August 3rd! Hope you had an opportunity to talk to your neighbors about preparedness at the neighborhood level. See our Neighborhood Planning page for more info about ways that neighborhoods can help each other get prepared! June - July 2010  We had a great time at the West Seattle Summer Festival July 9th-11th! Thanks to those of you who stopped by our table to say hi.  Interested in local ham radio? We've added a new link to the West Seattle Amateur Radio Club from our Other Communication Sources page in our Resources section. We enjoyed meeting some of you at the Junction Health Fair on June 13th! Here's West Seattle Blog's coverage of the event, including a picture of our booth.  Thanks to those of you who stopped to see us at the Morgan Junction Community Festival (MoCA) on June 12th. West Seattle Blog's coverage of the festival includes a photo our booth.  We had a great time at the reFRESH Festival on June 5th; we were glad that a lot of people stopped by our table! Check out the extensive coverage and photos of the event. KUOW radio recently broadcast a special series about earthquakes,"On Shaky Ground"; it is now linked from their website. We've also posted a link on our Facebook group page.   Our West Seattle group provided an update to the Seattle City Council "Regional Development & Sustainability Committee" on June 4th. Ours is one of three neighborhoods leading the way on establishing emergency communication hubs. We've linked to video of the presentation; click the 6th link, "Emergency Management"; the session regarding the emergency communication hubs is approximately 30 minutes long. Our Facebook group, West Seattle Be Prepared, now has 285+ members. We hope you will join, if you haven't already! We frequently post new articles, announcements and other information there.

Look for items from the first half of the year on the 2010 Events & Activities page in our Learn More section; there you'll find more information about our previous activities and other West Seattle-specific events and news.