Earthquake Preparedness

In light of the two major recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, I decided to check out the Spike TV Surviving Disaster episode about surviving a massive earthquake; after all I do live on a major fault line in Vancouver. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I enjoyed this episode much more than the Pandemic/Active Shooter one and I actually learned a thing or two.

During this episode, host and former Navy Seal Cade Courtley matter-of-factly states that during a major disaster, First Responders are too busy dealing with other emergencies so it’s up to you to fend for yourself. It may be 3 – 5 days before First Responders arrive, so you need to take action. This is very true, and yet something most people aren’t prepared for, especially in developed countries like Canada and the United States. For the most part, people think these sorts of things won’t happen to us, but there are major fault lines here too.

During the episode, Courtley dispels the popular myth of getting into a doorway during an earthquake and discusses void spaces – the space beside a heavy, sturdy object that is a much better hiding place during an earthquake. He provides important advice to viewers by telling them to shut off the gas and electricity following an earthquake to prevent further emergencies and he also provides some very realistic and practical survival ideas, such as using mustard for a writing utensil, a car jack to lift heavy debris off a trapped person, a swing set and garden hose for a rope and pulley system and other useful tips that could very well save you or someone else’s life.

Watching this show certainly highlights the need for a Disaster Plan. If you would like a free Family Emergency Preparedness Plan, please contact us today for your copy.

Fire Safety Plans – Avoiding Security Concerns

Do you know who is handling your company’s sensitive information?  When you choose a company to prepare your building’s Fire Safety Plan, or other Emergency Response Plans, you should have full confidence that your company’s private information is secure. Imagine if your building’s detailed floor plans, personnel contact information, characteristics of the  life safety systems, Assembly Areas and security information got into the wrong hands. Burglary and theft probably weren’t issues you were thinking about when choosing a company to provide you with a Fire Safety Plan – and they shouldn’t be. And we haven’t even begun to address terrorism – with the aforementioned information they will know exactly where and how to hit you to maximize damage.

Trust your sensitive information to WPS, the company where every single employee has Federal security clearance, that’s right, every single one. Don’t trust just anyone; trust the company that’s been providing Fire and Life Safety Plans for over 30 years.

Creating a Fire Safety Plan for Your Home

When disaster strikes, you will inevitably be needed at the office. However, unless your family is taken care of, you won’t be able to leave your home. Being prepared is essential both at home and the office. To ensure the safety of your family, have a fire safety plan for your home, as well as emergency supplies stored in a safe place, so you can rest assured that your family is okay before heading to the office to assist your personnel.

A home fire safety plan is a necessity if you want to have your family prepared to respond in the case of an emergency. A fire safety plan is required by law for most commercial buildings and local businesses; however, the law does not apply to individual family homes since enforcement would be next to impossible. Regardless, Fire Departments highly recommend that families create a fire safety plan because it will vastly increase the chances of your family escaping a fire unharmed.

The essential parts of a home fire safety plan include:

• Knowing the escape routes to safely exit your home
• A designated meeting place outside, such as a park nearby
• A list of important emergency contacts
• The storage places for important emergency supplies
• The locations of your fire extinguishers

Tips for Developing Your Home Fire Safety Plan

Keep your plan simple so that everyone in your family can remember the important details in a stressful emergency situation. Spend some time with your children to make sure they understand the dangers of fire and how to respond to a fire. Review and practice your fire safety plan every 4-6 months.

Focus on prevention by identifying potential fire hazards in your home. Most household fires start in the kitchen so a good way to reduce risk is to have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. It is also a good idea to have a smoke detector just outside the kitchen, in each bedroom, and on every level of your house. Be sure to test your smoke detectors every few months and change the batteries on an annual basis.

Plan escape routes so you can quickly exit your home. Each bedroom should have two escape routes, both a window and a door. We recommend that you buy a ladder for bedrooms if you have a two or three story house.

Review the proper fire evacuation procedure to safety exit a burning house. Teach your children how to crawl on their hands-and-knees under the smoke and how to cover their mouth and nose with their shirts to breathe. You should also review with your children how to stop, drop and roll to put out any fire on their clothing.

Identify at least two meeting places where you can meet as a family outside your home. This is very important so the firefighters can confirm that everyone is out of your house. One of your meeting places should be beside your home and another can be at a nearby park or public area.

Review the locations of fire extinguishers in your home. It is also important that you ensure they are well-maintained and that your entire family knows how to properly use a fire extinguisher. To correctly use a fire extinguisher remember the PASS Acronym.

Pull the pin off the fire extinguisher
Aim at the base of the fire
Squeeze the handle of the fire extinguisher
Sweeping motion from side to side to extinguish the flames

An emergency family contact should be established. We recommend that you choose a close friend or a family relative that lives nearby.

We recommend that you practice your family fire safety plan at least once every 4-6 months with your entire family. This will ensure the safety of your family in the event of a fire in your home.

For more information on Fire Safety Plans for your home or business, please contact us.

WPS Disaster Management Solutions Is Now On Facebook® Become A Fan Today

WPS Disaster Management Solutions now has a Fan page on Facebook®.  Click the link above to become a fan.

Why should you join? Here’s what you’ll find on our Facebook® Fan Page:

• Resourceful links regarding Fire and Life Safety
• Useful links for Property and Facility Managers
• You Tube videos of fires, disasters and whatever else we think might be of interest to you
• The discussion board is waiting for your questions for our Fire Safety Expert
• You can also view our up-to-date blog with industry related news right on our fan page

Join now and check back often for industry updates, or to ‘Ask Our Expert’ a question!

Free First Aid Program for Unemployed Emergency Personnel

First aid re-certification courses can be very expensive, making them difficult to maintain when one is unemployed. However, letting certifications expire is sure to pose problems when looking for work.

Are you a first-aid certified professional who has been hit hard by the economy? If so, ‘Helping Heroes’ may be able to assist you. This new program has been established to help career and volunteer firefighters and other emergency medical services personnel maintain their certifications during this time of economic downturn.

To view all the details, and to see their eligibility requirements, visit the Helping Heroes website.

Update: Residential Fire Sprinklers Mandatory in Building Code

Update:

Three more states have now adopted the new mandatory fire sprinkler requirements in all new one and two family homes: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and California.

Originally posted on November 4th, 2009:

At the International Code Council’s 2009 Code Development Hearings and Annual Conference in Baltimore, building officials and fire service members of the International Code Council (ICC) came together and successfully preserved the residential-sprinkler mandate; a decision that had been made last year in Minneapolis. Fire sprinklers will be mandatory for newly constructed one and two-family dwellings.

“The ICC voting members defeated (by an overwhelming majority) a floor motion to overturn the committee vote last night. It’s now very clear: ICC members have sent the strongest message possible on the importance of residential sprinklers,” IAFC said in its announcement.

Chief Jeff Johnson, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) stated, “On behalf of this nation’s fire chiefs, I would like to express our willingness to work with the homebuilders and others, to step onto a common path that ends with homes that are fire safe in America.”

Source: IAFC website, www.iafc.org

2010 Vancouver Olympics Security – why are we giving away our emergency response plans?

Help me out here, but I’m not entirely sure why we are advertising our new security measures on the front page of The Vancouver Sun[1]. Doesn’t one generally want to catch the bad guys off guard? Instead, we’ve just given away exactly what we plan to do during the Olympics if the bad guys show up. We’ll just shoot down any planes that disobey the rules. Um, hello, anybody home? Isn’t that exactly what any terrorist would want us to do? Now instead of trying to sneak an explosive on board, they just have to coerce a pilot to disobey the rules and BAM we shoot the plane down for them. How does this make any sense?

We’ve also told the bad guys exactly when we will be transporting dangerous goods, you know, to minimize the “chance of incidents.” Now I’m no security expert, but I would think that in order to minimize those chances, we should NOT tell everyone exactly when and where we plan on transporting dangerous goods.

As if all of this isn’t enough information, we’ve also detailed, complete with coloured pictures, exactly what airspace will be monitored and how securely. Apparently the Abbotsford International Airport isn’t important enough. Did you catch the word ‘international?’ It may be a major airport, but it’s not included in the pretty blue “Olympic Rings” zone of increased security and yet it’s only a few hours away from Whistler. Interesting.

I’m all for planning for the worst, but shouldn’t we be keeping our security measures a little more ‘secure’ instead of broadcasting them? Just a thought.

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[1] Wong, Maggie. (2010, January 20). ‘Lethal force’ an option in Games airspace. The Vancouver Sun. Breaking News – Front page

Why Photoluminescent Evacuation Signs are Better

The Canadian National Fire Code states that “at least one copy of the fire emergency procedures shall be prominently posted on each floor area.” Evacuation signage is required by law, but what good are your signs if no one can see them, let alone read them, during an emergency? WPS posts their photoluminescent evacuation signs at the exit doors, guiding you towards the exits during an emergency. When posted at exit doors, they also provide the First Responders with a clear floor plan of the building immediately upon entering, as opposed to placing them in the elevator lobby, where no one would see them since no one uses elevators during an emergency.

Smoke, like heat, rises, often compromising one’s visibility during a fire, making standard evacuation signs difficult, if not impossible, to read. Photoluminescent signs glow-in-the-dark making the emergency procedures and floor plan of the building clearly visible, thereby facilitating a faster, more efficient evacuation. When you post photoluminescent evacuation signs, you improve the life safety of your building and increase the chances of everyone getting out alive.

Reasons why Photoluminescent evacuation signs are better:

1. They are visible during emergencies, including power outages
2. They act as beacons to the exits as they are placed at exit doors
3. If an exit is compromised, they clearly show you another way out
4. They provide Fire Fighters and other First Responders a clear, visible floor plan
5. They naturally glow-in-the-dark, no batteries or light bulbs needed
6. They increase life safety in your building

Improve the life safety of everyone in your building, inquire about photoluminescent evacuation signs today.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Emergency Planning

The Vancouver 2010 emergency planning team is quietly preparing for a variety of emergency scenarios that could affect the Olympics. Some of the scenarios that have been identified are: traffic jams, accidents, power outages, earthquakes, mudslides and a terrorist attack. The bulk of the money budgeted for emergency planning and preparations will be spent on security.

The RCMP is already calling the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics the “largest security operation in our nation’s history”.  The security budget for the two week event is estimated to be nearly a billion dollars.

To give you an idea just how much manpower will be necessary to provide security during the games here are some recent estimates.

• 5,200 RCMP officers from across Canada
• 1,800 Police Officers from Vancouver and other Lower Mainland departments
• 750 Police Officers will be placed on-call in case there’s an H1N1 flu outbreak
• 4,500 Canadian Armed Forces troops will be deployed throughout the city
• 4,000 or more private security guards will be hired and trained for the event

The one billion dollar price tag is shocking for many Vancouver residents but it is actually less than the amount spent on security for the 2004 summer games in Athens, but significantly higher than the security budgets for Torino and Beijing. The Greek authorities had a security budget of 1.5 billion USD which worked out to $142,857 per athlete or $283 per ticket sold.

The Benefits of Online Emergency Response Training

Online Emergency Response Training

When Property / Facility Managers are considering the option of emergency response training for their personnel, they often ask us about our online option and whether it would suit their needs. There are numerous benefits to online training, whether it is their sole choice for training, or a compliment to on-site training.

Our online modules allow clients to get the full benefit of professional emergency response training from any location. No matter how far out of the way your property may be, if you have access to an Internet connection, you and your staff can get trained. This makes our online option a great solution for clients who are headquartered in remote areas.

Online training is also an optimal accompaniment to on-site training. Some clients wish to train several times a year, yet budget constraints or scheduling restrictions prevent them from having several on-site training sessions. Online training is the perfect solution to these issues.

And let’s not forget about the environmental factors associated with online training. You lessen your carbon footprint when you don’t have to unnecessarily fly a trainer out to your location every time you need training. Our new Live Online training sessions are another great ‘green’ way to get your personnel trained as well.

We do recommend that everyone consider the option of on-site training, for the simple reason that it allows us to give you a more personalized training experience within your building.

Why Choose online emergency response disaster training?

• It’s Convenient – you can train any time that suits you from your own computer
• It’s Cost Effective – no trainer to bring on-site means frequent training is more affordable
• It’s Better for the Environment – less transportation costs means less of a carbon footprint

Learn more about our online and on-site disaster response training here. Or simply contact us for more information regarding our on-site and online disaster response training.

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