Is Your Vehicle Prepared?

Please take a moment to check out this blog post and accompanying video from our friends at CRESA (Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency). The video is from a dash-mounted camera during the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Click here for the post. If that happened to you---would you be prepared?

STP Bike Ride This Weekend

Expect long delays on Westside Hwy and Industrial Way this weekend, the STP'ers are coming to town! The Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic is one of the 10 biggest recreational bike rides in the country. Crazy folks...oops, I mean brave souls, start their adventure at the crack of dawn in Seattle and ride approximately 202 miles to end up exhausted in Portland.

The route map can be found here, so adjust your weekend plans accordingly and remember, yes, you might be inconvenienced but it's only two days out of your life so be cautious, be patient and be considerate. Feel free to apply this advice to all areas of your life, I won't even charge you a cent.

Help Meals on Wheels Win a Van!

From Lower Columbia CAP Meals on Wheels:
Attention Volunteers and Friends (especially Facebook friends)!

Dear Volunteers and Community Supporters,

At Lower Columbia CAP, we have a chance of winning a new van for our Meals on Wheels Program and we’re asking for your help to get the word out.

We are one of 500 nonprofits in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good contest. Each day for 100 days, 5 nonprofits compete to see who can get the most votes on Facebook.com/Toyota.

Our day is next Wednesday, July 13. We are a smaller community up against four nonprofits in larger metropolitan areas, so we are appealing to our families, friends and professional colleagues to help us get the votes to win.

It’s very easy: Please forward this message to your family and friends, asking those who have Facebook accounts to go to http://apps.facebook.com/carsforgood/?d=2011-07-13.

If you click on this link, Facebook will remind you to vote next Wednesday, July 13.

The only way we have a chance of winning the new van is through our supporters getting the word out to their networks of friends and families.

Thanks for your support!

Summertime Safety

It's summertime and that means fun in the sun and cooling off in our area's beautiful rivers and lakes. After enduring months of rain and cold, of course the Washingtonian has a ravenous, pent-up need for sunshine! Please remember that our rivers are swift and very cold, no matter what the outside temperature.

Swimming can be a great way to have fun while getting full body exercise. However, each year between 4,000 and 6,000 people drown in the United States. It is the second leading cause of accidental deaths for persons 15 to 44 years old. Shockingly, it is believed that two-thirds of the people who drown are believed to never have had any intention of being in the water. Since tragic water accidents happen quickly, we have compiled the following information to help everyone have a safe and fun summer.

By keeping these few simple things in mind, you can make your experience in the water much safer.

*Learn to swim before you go into the water. Sounds silly, but many people think it will come naturally, and it really doesn’t.
*Swim near a lifeguard so help is available if you need it
*Never swim alone
*Supervise children closely, even when lifeguards are present
*Don't rely on flotation devices, such as rafts, you may lose them in the water
*Alcohol and swimming don't mix
*Protect your head, neck, and spine by jumping feet first into unfamiliar waters
*As soon as you believe that you may be in trouble, call or wave for help
*Follow regulations and lifeguard directions
*Swim parallel to shore if you wish to swim long distances

Swimming and playing near water are favorite summer time activities of children everywhere. Parents and guardians need to pay extra attention and make sure they protect little ones from the dangers that water presents. Here are some points to consider about water safety for children.

*Never leave a child alone near water. Accidents happen in seconds, so if you have to leave, take your child with you.
*Watch out for neighborhood pools. Whether it is your own or your neighbors, toys that are left around the pool can attract children to the water.
*If you have a pool, make sure you surround it by a fence that is tall enough that children cannot climb over, and with a gate that locks.
*Enroll children over age three in swimming lessons taught by qualified instructors. Lessons won't make your child "drown-proof," but they will increase their safety and prepare them for a lifetime of fun in the water.
*Teach your children to always swim with a buddy.
*Always have a first-aid kit and emergency phone contacts handy.
*Parents should be trained in CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

What does DOTT want now?

Behold DOTT with her snazzy purple cellphone. Good thing she has unlimited nights and weekends to call her boyfriend R2D2! DOTT no longer has a landline phone, she's a busy robot on the go, who needs it?! She still wants to receive emergency information and alerts from the Department of Emergency Management. What's a robot to do?

Simple! Your Do One Thing Today is actually two things. If it's too much to handle, pace yourself and break it into two days. First, register your cell phone with the Emergency Community Notification System (ECNS). Landlines are already in the system, but VOIP and cellphones are not. To register your cellphone, look for the Alert Cowlitz County icon on the righthand side of the blog. You may have to scroll down. See it? Click it, follow the directions and go from there.

See, that wasn't so hard. Next, sign up to get emergency texts. You don't have to have a fancy cellphone to get these emergency texts, any cellphone with text capabilities can do it. All you have to do is text the words Follow CowlitzDEM to the number 40404 and you will get any emergency alerts from our Twitter feed. After you sign up, you will get a return text that says something about Twitter, just delete it, you don't have to join Twitter to get our alerts. You won't be inundated with texts, we only use this account for important information. Should you tire of receiving emergency alerts, simply text Unfollow Cowlitz DEM to 40404 and it will remove you.

If you have questions about either of these alerts, please email us at DEM@co.cowlitz.wa.us or give us a call at 577-3130, we're happy to help!

Celebrate Independence Day Safely!

This oppressive Amazonian mist we've been enduring makes it hard to believe that the 4th of July is almost upon us. It looks like the weather will shape up for the long weekend though! With that in mind, let's take a minute to review the rules for not setting yourself, your loved ones, your home or anything else on fire, shall we?

• Be PREPARED before you light fireworks
---Use legal fireworks, available at licensed outlets, not "fireworks" that your teenage neighbor makes and promises will be "like crazy sick, dude”
---Store fireworks out of children’s reach
---Keep pets indoors if at all possible
---Always keep a water bucket and/or fire extinguisher handy

• Be SAFE when lighting fireworks
---Only adults should light fireworks
---Only use fireworks outdoors
---Do not throw fireworks or hold them in your hand
---Never re-light a dud
---Be considerate of your neighbors and pets, especially as the following day is a work day. (I mean a work day for people, not so much for pets. Those lazy free-loaders can sleep all day if they want) But if your pets are skittish, maybe lay off the loud fireworks. According to state law, fireworks may be discharged until midnight on the 4th, however, much like vinyl hotpants---just because you can doesn't mean you should.

• Be RESPONSIBLE after you finish lighting fireworks
---Soak used fireworks in water
---Clean up used fireworks
---Keep matches and lighters away from children.

Also, watch out for ashes and debris falling down from fireworks because they can fall in your eye and scratch your cornea. If that happens you'll have to consult with a 24-hour medical advice line who will advise you to wear an eye patch. Which you will do for two days and look like the world's most pathetic and irritated pirate. Ask me how I know this....I dare you.

Castle Rock Phone Service Restored

At 6:30 PM telephone company work crews finished repairs to the damaged fiber optic line just outside Castle Rock. The line had been damaged by a construction crew working alongside the road. Long distance and 9-1-1 calls to and from the area have returned to normal.

The disruption caused phone customers in the Castle Rock and Ryderwood communities to lose long distance and 9-1-1 service. Emergency 9-1-1 service was restored by routing 9-1-1 calls to the Castle Rock fire station and placing a dispatcher at the station to answer any calls that came in. Additional law enforcement and emergency crews were kept in the area to provide service if it was needed. Fortunately there were few emergency calls during the outage.