Lessons Learned on Disaster Deployments

[CharlesHarris]

Lessons from Louisiana after Katrina, Rita, and Other Disastrous Places You Wouldn't Want to Go on Holiday!

Instructor cadre at our Fire Academy include personnel from one of the FEMA Urban Search & Rescue teams which USAID deploys around the world in response to disasters. What follows is useful during any time when healthcare, sanitation, and security are impaired, either in a post-disaster situation or an escape and evasion scenario when needed to move through a dangerous Third World area.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
When on disaster relief deployments I always carried an "on body kit," to augment a small, (less then 5 kilos) ruck carried on daytrips. I wore NYCO BDU cargo pants and made use of their pockets and also wore a Rigger's Belt. I’m retired from my government job now, and remain in good health, so my precautions must have worked OK.

Sanitation tops the list. I carried travel-pack baby wipes, a viscose rayon compressible towel and hand sanitizer in my left cargo pocket. I also carried a half dozen alcohol prep pads in the upper left shirt pocket, and equal number of eyeglass wipes, absolutely essential if you wear glasses! On a neck chain, I carried yet another small hand sanitizer.

While on travel I collected take-out restaurant salt and sugar packets in case they were needed for making rehydration solution if dehydrated due to diarrhea or excessive sweating. Another use for them is for getting rid of leaches. Salt, when sprinkled on them, makes the little buggers shrivel and roll off. Sugar, when sprinkled into the bleeding hole they leaves causes the blood to coagulate. Best is to carry a tube of rehydration tablets (Natural Hydration) and use them as needed if engaged in strenuous physical labor.

A UV Steripen is effective to sterilize most local water, if filtered first to reduce turbidity. But with questionable sources which may be contaminated by sewage or floodwaters use multiple methods, combine filtration, chemical sterilization and boiling or distillation if possible, to be most effective.

Always carry N-95 masks and a box of Nitrile gloves. I carry and use regularly "Silva Solution Advanced Liquid Silver (Colloidal Silver) and several tubes of "Airborne" tablets. Anytime I develop a scratchy throat, I have used them both to good effect.

For tools and sharps I carry a K-bar, Mil-K-818 pocket knife and a Leatherman Super Tool. They are primarily for fixing and making things, but I also feel more secure carrying them... just in case. I kept them in cargo pockets, out of sight. A sturdy Lexan water bottle of purified water secured on a length of parachute cord, looks innocent enough, but can be swung as a defensive weapon if needed. Keep another full bottle in your ruck.

I carry a small 2 lb. "survival kit" which is secured to my ruck with a snap-link. Never leave home without it since the night my car slid off the road into a pond and I had to walk home several miles in wet clothes during a New Hampshire snowstorm . If I had not gotten a fire going , I could have died. My compact survival kit also contains basic first aid items and can be hooked onto a belt loop via its snaplink. An extra tube of triple antibiotic is in my ruck. A 25' feet roll of parachute cord stays in my back pocket and another 100' in my ruck. A small backpack roll of duct tape goes into a my front shirt pocket. Documents stow in a very tough Alosak plastic bag with a Fisher Space pen, small pencil, and Rite In The Rain waterproof notebook.

A Petzl LED headlamp is useful for hands-free things after dark. Also wore, around my neck, a Fenix E01 light. Both real handy for after dark rendezvous with others in your party when there were no streetlights.

I wear my old military boonie hat with parachute cord hatband and have extra paracord wrapped in extra-long laces wrapped around my work boots. A 55 gallon clear barrel liner and a poncho are in my ruck, with rain jacket, extra socks, D3A leather glove shells and wool liners, fleece watch cap and neck warmer. Sunglasses are secured with a dummy neck cord. My watchband also has a Suunto wrist compass. A civilianized "Dogtag" with personal data, including blood type completes the on-body kit.

[River Song]

I think the words I am searching for are "Good Grief".

Very useful list Charles. I can't see any room for a small bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream :-)


Thanks

[Highlander]

Good list CH,... I would add a couple of chocolate bars, or other high energy food

[CharlesHarris]

Ordinary chocolate bars do not do well in summer heat here and most of the energy bars are mostly carbs and sugar.

In my anorak pockets I ordinarily keep a quart Ziplok bag with MRE foil packets of peanut butter, cheese spread or fruit jam, plus instant coffee sachets and teabags, and several packets of the fortified MRE "John Wayne" crackers, which resemble pilot biscuit.

In the ruck emergency rations consist of either a Seven Oceans or Mainstay 2400 lifeboat ration, a pound plastic jar of peanut butter, another plastic jar of fruit jam, a dozen teabags or instant coffee sachets, and a dozen or so restaurant packets of crackers, sugar, salt, pepper and whatever free condiments are there to be had, packed in the mess tin.

I don't carry Harveys, but have been known to keep a 300ml flask of the Pusser's Rum, or the Famous Grouse, just for medicinal purposes, of course!