495 Upper Park Road
Santa Cruz, CA 95065
Phone: (831) 458-7150
Fax: (831) 458-7139

Office Hours:
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Neighborhood Networking

Survival Through Self-Sufficiency

PREFACE

This handbook describes the evolution of a concept of disaster preparedness which responds to the possibility that many neighborhoods will be isolated during the early stages of a disaster.  It contains guidelines which any community may follow and adapt to their circumstances and environment to facilitate the highest level of human survival until civil agencies can come to their aid.

This project was implemented by the San Lorenzo Valley Resource Center, under a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Many thanks are due to those who participated in this first effort, particularly project Director Mary Hammer.  It is our hope that your neighborhood will also benefit from their experience and suggestions.

INTRODUCTION

The San Lorenzo Valley could be right down the road from where you live. A forty-five minute commute from a major metropolitan area, this former resort area of summer and weekend cabins in Northern California above Monterey Bay now principally attracts year-round residents who are drawn to its scenic beauty, rural contrasts to nearby urban environments and lower housing costs.

Small towns, historic centers of a now-inactive lumber industry, punctuate a two-lane road (the valley's only access) at three mile intervals as it meanders along the river that created the canyons and high valleys into which these relatively isolated residences cluster.

These three small communities in the San Lorenzo Valley are America's new suburbia's whose rapid growth has been fostered by the widening radius of acceptable commutes. This new migratory population pattern present in the San Lorenzo Valley and similar areas throughout the United States can be characterized by:

1.    Summer and weekend cabin conversions to year-round residences (or conversion of farmhouses in agricultural areas).

2.    Limited accessibility.

3.    High incidence of commuter families - often dual career - which significantly decreases neighborhood cohesiveness.

4.    Relatively limited municipal and civil services due to isolation of clustered residences.

5.    A significant proportion of young families, retirees and others with relatively low income.

Such settings do indeed offer scenic serenity away from a  noisier, more polluted and hectic urban environment. But the jeopardy inherent in such settings is tragically proportionate to features defined as idyllic by these eager new immigrants to new suburbia.  Let's go back a few years to January 4, 1982, to The Storm, when we realized the awful truth/price demanded by that jeopardy and vowed that no emergency would ever, ever catch us unprepared again.

The Storm

Heavy rains weren't unusual in the San Lorenzo Valley.  After all, we were the first valley in the westward Pacific Storm migration (which meant every one of those big Pacific storms hit that first ridge east of the beaches and emptied every drop of every black cloud right into the valley).

But it had been a particularly wet holiday season and the hillsides,  steep, heavily forested slopes of thin topsoil over sandstone,  were so saturated that networks of new waterfalls crisscrossed every canyon and even the usually sleepy streams were beginning to threaten the unimproved,  sole-access roads that followed their course.
The sound changed.  Twenty inches of rain roared throughout the canyons and valleys in the next twenty-four hours.  Twenty inches! Thousand-year-old, thirty-story redwoods screamed and crashed in uprooted agony.  Tons of water exploded through the thin topsoil and slid everything -- and everyone -- down steep, slippery sandstone.  At fifty miles per hour!

Propane tanks weighing hundreds of pounds bobbed along raging torrents that usually whispered through rounded stones.  Transformers exploded as utilities crashed into flooded roads.  And always the incessant silent scream of your own fear.

Children are still buried under one of the most massive landslides that raced down a San Lorenzo Valley hillside at fifty miles per hour that night.  Hundreds of families in the San Lorenzo Valley -- verdant paradise for new suburbanites -- lost every thing they owned and too many of them lost loved ones.  Millions of dollars in property damage (most homeowner insurance policies specifically excluded earth movement) paled before the terror and anguish of each individual's awful realization of inexorable aloneness in the face of disaster.

Hundreds of San Lorenzo Valley residents,  many of them elderly,  were literally stranded in their damaged or jeopardized homes.  Such isolation of whole neighborhoods -- exacerbated by downed utility and telephone lines -- painfully demonstrated the need for emergency preparedness for every resident and neighborhood.

Lack of egress/access and communication were doubly felt with the certainty that local,  state and federal governments,  however much they might wish,  simply cannot afford to maintain immediate readiness to fully respond to such disasters. The realistic resident was painfully forced to accept the high price of procrastination in emergency preparedness.

So even as hundreds of San Lorenzo Valley residents were literally being rescued by volunteer fire departments,  ad hoc citizens groups,  ham radio operators and hastily assembled neighborhood rescue squads,  some people were vowing to make every effort to make sure every resident of the San Lorenzo Valley (and indeed the world as those first concepts were born) would never,  ever again suffer the tragic consequences of not being prepared for emergencies. Thus was born the Emergency Preparedness Project and the Neighborhood Survival Network described in this handbook.

Emergence of a Concept

The first morning after a disaster is often a desperate time for victims.  Almost the only actions taken are assessment of personal losses and an attempt to telephone government and civil agencies.  In our area many sections of the telephone system held up well,  but an overwhelming number of calls overloaded the system and delayed response.

It was clear that help must first come in small increments and originate close to home.  Many mountain neighborhoods were isolated by loss of roads,  downed trees and collapsed bridges.  Neighbors joined neighbors to overcome problems.

When egress from a neighborhood was blocked by a washout,  the road was made passable by an available tractor or by muscle and shovel.  Downed trees were removed by neighbors chainsaws.  Power outages were dealt with by sharing lanterns,  wood stoves,  and camp stoves.  Some shared their homes with those whose houses were destroyed.  Car pools were formed to minimize traffic.

During this time,  rescue agencies such as Red Cross and the County Office of Emergency Services were assembling their resources to render what was to become massive aid.  But in the meantime,  small operational neighborhood clusters,  determined by geophysical terrain,  began to function in the absence of outside aid.
In view of the realities of a disaster,  the concept of neighborhood self-sufficiency was obvious.  A disaster preparedness program was henceforth to be devised within the neighborhood organizational framework that spontaneously sprang up in the time of stress.  The concept had been born;  the organizational effort to implement it was about to proceed.

Preliminary Organization/Planning

The notion that a program should be developed begins with perception of a need. The idea may have occurred to others and the sharing of views will bring forth a commitment by the group to solve that need.

Planning thus begins by setting goals.  In the San Lorenzo Valley where this program was first created,  the likelihood that another storm or flood or fire or earthquake or any other emergency would again isolate hundreds of neighborhoods provided clear impetus toward development of an emergency preparedness project centered in those neighborhoods.

Establish a Goal

The goal was clear:  To prepare each neighborhood to be self-reliant for three to five days in dealing with its own disaster survival needs.

With an established goal, the original group set out to determine if other organizations could accept and sanction full development of a program to achieve that goal, or if a new organization would have to be created. The Valley Emergency Preparedness Program was created and, as with any other new organization, some standard group mechanics began to take place.
 

Build an Organizational Structure

A program principal was chosen to direct and coordinate all activities of the group. This individual became responsible for establishing goal-directed priorities, maintaining an essential overview of all activities, coordinating all committees and advisory boards, and maintaining liaison with government agencies and other groups concerned with emergency preparedness.

Next, an Ad Hoc Support Group was established. This category would later encompass the organization's infra-structure for development and operation of the program, which included an advisory board, focused committees, task forces and staff. These people, initially all volunteers, will conduct the program and report to and seek assistance from the organization.

Identify the Organization's Needs

The organization itself will have a wide variety of needs in order to perform the work required by the program. Each of these broad functional categories must be specifically planned for so that the organization can survive and its program goal be achieved.

Of necessity, the original members of the organization will be volunteers. Volunteers bring original enthusiasm, ideas and ambition to a new organization, but also suffer from fluctuating diligence. To be precise, volunteers serve at their convenience. Therefore all program schedules and deadlines must be designed with built-in flexibility and specific volunteer incentive and recognition programs (supplementing and integrated with the training). These must be developed at the outset to establish and maintain the organization's most important resource -- dependable, enthusiastic volunteers.

Volunteers must be recruited, trained, applauded and encouraged. They will need forms, printed materials and constant reassurance that the organization is behind them. Failure in any of these areas will doom the organization's chance to achieve its goals. Many of these volunteers will expect some social benefits from their contributions. Potlucks, barbecues, and other social gatherings can prove to be invaluable.

Often relegated to when we have some spare time, promotion and publicity will be crucial to every phase of your organization's activities. Adequate, consistent publicity and public information (beginning with creation of the organization and continuing through every phase of its activities) will determine the ultimate success or failure of your volunteer recruitment and fundraising, and ultimately, of the program itself. Press releases and other publicity vehicles such as newsletters and direct mail must be an integral part of every project plan and schedule, and major promotions should be scheduled at least once a year. An individual or committee should be specifically assigned to work with the principal (Director) to ensure these important promotion activities are planned and performed on schedule.

Nothing will get done on schedule without adequate clerical support. Promotions will require especially massive volunteer assistance as posters are distributed, direct mail and press releases are assembled, labeled, sorted and mailed, and a myriad of support activities are performed. Volunteers for these tedious, often boring tasks must be especially rewarded.

Your organization will also need to establish a program for consistent coordination with other community groups and, in our case, governmental agencies concerned with emergency response. They will become obstacles or assets, depending upon how successfully your program is designed to identify and meet mutual organizational needs and to maintain and strengthen these networking resources.

Location is next. You've been doing this around your kitchen table using your phone. But your network organization will have a lot better image and credibility if you can get an office location. In the beginning, you should seek out donated space. Talk to your Parks and Recreation Departments, (city and county), City Council, Red Cross, Chamber of Commerce, etc. The things you want in an office are a good-sized wall to hang your maps on and a desk with space for a phone and typewriter. In any case, a headquarters location away from home makes the network identifiable and home life more peaceful.

Develop Program

The program goal (to prepare neighborhoods for three to five days of self-sufficiency in an emergency) dictated and guided each step of its fulfillment. How became broad functional categories which became the principal elements of the program. Thus with its primary goal established and preliminary organizational structure in place, Your Emergency Preparedness Project can develop its first program outline:

1.   Identify neighborhoods geographically with special attention to potential isolation and inter-neighborhood consolidation.

2.   Identify neighborhood needs and households whose families have special emergency preparedness concerns, such as those with disabilities, seniors, and latch-key children.

3.   Identify neighborhood resources in households whose families have medical training, chainsaws, construction equipment, water and other resources that could be offered for disaster response.

4.   Locate communication equipment, such as CB and amateur radios, and operators who can function on a neighborhood basis.

5.   Identify emergency response resources available from governmental agencies such as the Fire Department; community organizations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army; and local merchants.

6.   Develop a program that will encompass, coordinate and support all of these activities.

 To satisfy the last requirement first, you must analyze your own limited organizational resources and divide your project into mutually supportive programs. For example:  the Neighborhood Survival Network, the Emergency Communications Network, and the Community Participation Survival Plan were established in the San Lorenzo Valley, and they then proceeded with preparation of the Program Précis.

Program Précis

The Valley Emergency Preparedness Demonstration Project comprised of three, one-year programs:  Neighborhood Survival Network, Emergency Communications Network, and Community Participation Survival Plan.  All are premised on the need for neighborhoods, sectors and communities in emergency-caused isolation to muster their own unassisted response to damage, injury and continuing danger.

Emergency Communications Network

Amateur and CB radio operators will be identified and located within each sector to establish a vital communications network with sectors, local emergency response organizations and agencies. A Disaster Information Center will be established and regularly tested to coordinate all emergency communications.

Community Participation Survival Plan

The Community Participation Survival Plan will inventory the emergency response resources within the local business community and develop a plan based on voluntary commitments of goods and services.

NEIGHBORHOOD SURVIVAL NETWORK

The Neighborhood Survival Network will recruit and train volunteer neighborhood coordinators to identify and classify their neighbors resources and needs and to help establish emergency preparedness plans for each home and neighborhood. Coordinators will be grouped into topographically accessible sectors organized under a sector leader who will be responsible for sharing information within the sector. Emergency information from neighborhoods and sectors will be used to guide disaster response efforts by local agencies and organizations.

The first step in establishing a neighborhood survival network is to become familiar with the area where the program is to operate. You will need detailed county base maps and topographic maps as large as your space will accommodate. These maps, available at County Public Works or Planning Departments and local civil engineering firms, show streets, roads, parcels and topographic features such as creeks, canyons and mountains with altitudes indicated by contour lines. Maps with a scale of 1" = 1,000' for sector identification will provide all the information you will need in sizes that won't become unmanageable.

Neighborhood & Sector Identification

Neighborhoods are defined as clusters of ten to fifteen residences. Neighborhood designations for classification and reference purposes should be delayed until a pattern of neighborhood clusters or sectors evolves. Coordinated neighborhoods may, in urban areas, tend to congregate around schools, churches, or other community activity bases. In this case, sectoring is simplified. Cities can provide various versions of street maps on which coordinate neighborhoods may be outlined. When several neighborhoods fall into a group, these may become the nucleus of a workable sector.

In mountain areas such as the one where this program was developed, sectors must be formed with respect to the topography and the ability of coordinators to reach each other and share resources in the event of isolation. It was necessary to know where rivers and streams would swell, where road-blocking landslides might occur, or where bridges might go out. A neighborhood in a canyon flanked by high ridges could be isolated by any of these things.

We used three tools to develop base maps for neighborhood and sector identification:

1.  A county base map showing streets, roads, and parcels in the Valley (scale 1" = 1,000').

2.  A topographic map of the same area showing elevation lines, streams, rivers, and hopefully major roads for orientation (same scale).

3.  Transparent vellum of approximate map size and scale.

Using the vellum overlay on the topographic map, you can outline natural sectors by tracing ridge lines, streams, rivers and roads. For example, a line drawn along a ridge and down two potential overflowing streams can enclose an area which will suffer a washed out access road, a fallen bridge, or be isolated by a landslide. An earthquake can produce similar problems.

With the vellum over the topographic map, these natural sectors can be traced out with felt-tip pens.

 Next the sectors on the vellum are transferred to the base maps and located within distinct communities. Each sector was prefixed by a two-letter designation for the nearest town. Thereafter, each neighborhood was traced on the base map and found to fall within a particular sector. Its neighborhood identification number became, simply: Community, Sector, Neighborhood. i.e. BC3-6 for the 6th neighborhood in Sector 3 for Boulder Creek.

The evolution of this system can be rather long and laborious, but the benefits in easy location, reference and liaison were worth the effort as an initial step in establishing a Neighborhood Survival Network.

Information Handling and Forms

The resource information gathered by the coordinators must be sorted and assembled to be useful. Although the resource cards could be used manually, initial transfer of the information to a computer source document is helpful if available.

The information on the source document, when transferred into a suitable database, can deliver the information sorted out by neighborhood, resource, or any other common parameter.

Computer printout lists are given to each coordinator and sector leader for reference. A three unit coding system can be used for computer neighborhood recognition. A card file is then kept for each coordinator with his/her address and 3-unit code.

Several forms should be developed to enable both Coordinators and Director to record who has returned data and updated information. It is necessary to communicate with the coordinators periodically to encourage them to return their information, answer questions, and provide extra materials. To do this, establish a phone tree:  Director calls Phone Coordinators, who calls 10 Neighborhood Coordinators and then calls the Director.

As it expands, the program can use sector leaders to contact their Neighborhood Coordinators. Supply a chart to record any messages which need to be relayed to the Director.

Finally, mailing an Update Sheet to all Neighborhood Coordinators with the Newsletter for correcting computerized information if people moved, added household members or acquired resources or materials was key.

Computers presented a particularly troublesome dilemma for the project. On one hand, computers considerably simplified recording, storing, retrieving and updating constantly expanding and changing data from all the neighborhoods. But on the other hand, computers -- no matter how user-friendly -- are still unfamiliar and often frightening to many people. Concerns about privacy and confidentiality in these intentionally isolated residences were exaggerated by computers. You can establish a policy of entering neighborhood information in the computer only upon request from a particular neighborhood.

Administrative copies of the various listings were kept only for ongoing program reference. It must be remembered that in a disaster, headquarters assumes only an assistance function since each neighborhood has been programmed to be self-reliant.

 Finally, in the information system of the program, continuously updated data should flow to all coordinators. This keeps all coordinators abreast of the latest developments in local disaster response and it also reminds them that as part of an important system, they have not gone un-noticed. To do this the Director's office issues a coordinator's newsletter. These come monthly in the winter and seasonally during the summer. There are about 8 issues per year and they are mailed under the sponsor organization's non-profit mailing permit.

Key points in the information system:

1.  Gather adequate useful information, but don't overburden your system with irrelevant data.

2.  Keep information viable and moving. The coordinators have the need to know.

Recruiting and Training
Neighborhood Coordinators

The key to recruiting success is not only to get the message out, but to tailor the message to attract people who would get excited about disaster relief service, especially if it can be done at home and with minimum risk. Some folks would like the feeling of being a neighborhood captain; some are very caring about the welfare of their friends and neighbors. We find that those who respond to the call are both.

When the informative material is composed explaining the network program and the coordinator's role, use phrases like Alert us show you how to bring your neighbors together in survival cooperation in time of disaster or be your neighborhood information resource during an isolating disaster. Try to carry this message to the public through all of the usual means - newspaper articles, handouts at fairs and public events, talks before regularly meeting clubs, and occasional messages included in the packets of City Council members and County Board of Supervisors.

Each attempt to publicly interest people will bring forth several recruits for coordinator positions. New people coming forward to serve replenish losses from attrition and enable the program to expand its services to more neighborhoods.

Initial training of volunteer neighborhood coordinators is best done by regular orientation meetings for all new recruits at a given time and place. Depending on the rate of volunteering, the meetings may be scheduled at a certain time each week. (i.e. each Monday at 10:30 a.m.)

Training can be provided anywhere, but the morale and spirit of the group will be higher and their sense of identity will be stronger if an accessible public room is the program headquarters.

If there are only a couple of new volunteers for a given week, every other week may be sufficient, but never less often than that. If volunteers make an offer to serve, they should get a chance as soon as possible. If the first meeting is more than 2 weeks away, they may think you are too complacent about having them aboard, or some other activity may absorb their energy and enthusiasm. If you want volunteers in the program, pay immediate attention to them.

 To train a new coordinator initially requires about one hour. A full explanation of the purpose and philosophies of the program is followed by a four-page training guide.

Volunteer coordinators must know they are going to serve 15 households or less and are not responsible for the care and rescue of everyone in their neighborhood. Coordinators are a rallying point around which neighborhood disaster responses will assemble. They will have the information about where the skills and equipment are. They will know what to do first, where the radio and whatever data communications are, and special needs of residents.

To start the coordinator toward preparation for their function, the program provides certain self-guiding forms. The first is a Survival Card (data connection card), which the coordinator completes for each household in the neighborhood. Besides establishing the names and addresses of the people in the neighborhood, the card helps the coordinator determine the kind of survival information that will be important in the 3-5 days that the group may be isolated.

In many households, both adults work. If a disaster happens during working hours, work locations and phone numbers are useful, and vital if there are latchkey children who may be home. It is helpful to know if they have alternate sources of heat and light if/when the electric utilities fail. Take your new coordinator through all these things by discussing the reasons for knowing these things in a disaster.

Remember you will send them out to survey 15 households and they will discuss the ideas, methods, and reasons for their inquiries with every resident. Give your coordinators full information about the program so that they will be prepared to respond to varied questions and anticipate types of resistance to the program. This sort of instruction prepares them to take charge of disaster preparedness in their neighborhoods with the confidence they derive from the information and philosophies which you provide in your training sessions.

A few families who do not wish to participate may be found in every neighborhood. The coordinator should leave a program description with them and tell them that they will be available if assistance is needed. It is very important that every family, whether an active participant or not, be aware of the program, and of assistance available in an emergency.

If you have any comments or questions about this information, please email us at 
Office of Emergency Services

The County of Santa Cruz makes no representations or warrants as to the suitability of this information for your particular purpose, and that to the extent you use or implement this information in your own setting you do so at your own risk. The information provided herewith is solely for your own use and cannot be sold. In no event will the County of Santa Cruz be liable for any damages whatsoever, whether direct, consequential, incidental, special or on claim for attorney fees arising out of the use of or inability to use the information provided herewith.