Exactly. Thinking about disasters is the first step in dealing with them. What's important? How do you establish contact with the rest of your family? How do you get home? Will you have food? Will you have water?Do you need electricity? Will you freeze in the cold? Do you need medication to stay alive? In our case, in Northwestern Oregon, we have a plan for all of this, we are expecting the "big one" anytime after right now. You will not be able to depend on any public infrastructure, don't bet on any telephone working for a few days, and plan on it being dark at night. Our family has a plan to contact each other using ham radio, and our home has backup power with enough diesel to last at least a week. With power, we can run our well, water is good! If I'm at work, I'll drive toward home as far as I can, and then walk, it's only 16 miles from work to home. We are armed, competent and willing to kill to defend our selves...... Better living through ham radio, "Radio" was the first merit badge I got. Knowing about radio, and industrial equipment in general has served me well all my life. The things you know will save you..... learn about radio, learn to weld, learn to work on engines, learn to fly, learn to scuba dive, build model rockets, learn about shooting, learn about horses, learn to run a chainsaw, learn every thing you can..... every geek skill you can get will help you to learn to think in a disaster.

Actually, you're right...... claiming that I'd abandon my post after the "Big One" was mostly to make management think about how much they really needed to "bank away" for disasters, that's what drills are for. In truth, my wife and child are as capable of caring for themselves as I am. We are capable of establishing communications after the disaster without any need for any equipment that we don't control ourselves...... Better living through ham radio! In Oregon, if you haven't got a plan, in the back of your head, for when the big one hits, I have no sympathy or use for you. I'm working for a semiconductor manufacturer now..... when I feel the first jiggle, I'm sprinting for the door, when I worked for the government, I'd have stayed...... and complained about it later.

Believing that they can depend on the loyalty of their underlings, allows management to get away with reducing staff and spending less on emergency preparedness. This is also true in other fields like ambulance crews, fire fighters, cops, and even down to the technical support staff. I worked for a city government agency that supported radio communications for public safety. When we did drills for the "Big One" it was just assumed that the support staff would work 24 hours a day until they dropped dead. They were not amused when I pointed out that when the big quake comes, I will care far less about a point to point microwave links than I will care about my family. At the beginning of the "drill" I explained that I'd be back after I checked on my wife and kid..... see you tomorrow.

I think this is a great idea, I get to pay for my Fascist propaganda right up front!. My parakeet thinks it's a stupid idea, we still have to pay for it, and he ends up with no place to crap.

10 seconds on high should be plenty

If the police abandon their equipment by attaching it to my property does it become part of my property? Any good geek would want a nice new GPS reciever with a magnet on it to play with, wouldn't they? I've had run ins with the cops in the past, I inspect my vehicles from time to time. So far I haven't found anything new, but who knows?