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Alva Press, Inc.
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
The Volunteer EMR Corps in Your County Needs You!
Are you a volunteer in your county's volunteer emergency medical
response corps? If you're not, you'd be doing yourself, your family, and the community a great service were you to join.
Remember how a few blogs back I asked you to check off whether or not you paid the barest minimal attention to being
prepared for a mass emergency event? I think I listed five things you should be ready with at any time and I promised I'd
check back to see if you had at least done them? Well, today's the day I check. Do you recall what the five things were?
So, for instance, is your gas tank full? Have you an emergency stash of cash in case the grid goes down? Do you have a
working battery-run or rechargeable radio? A rechargeable flashlight?Two gallons of water for each member of your
family--enough to last 48 hours? Do you all know where would be the best place for you to shelter--depending on the kind
of emergency?
The list goes on: Do you know two routes out of your home? Do you have an agreed upon place to meet outside
should your have to leave? Have you someone who does not live near you who in the event of an emergency is willing to
take phonecalls from all the members of your family and to relay messages to other members?
Being able to answer
these questions affirmatively--and other reasonable preparations--are part of the discussion for any EMR team. Why? Because
a prepared citizen is the key to a prepared community. Yes, before we look to others for help, we must first look to ourselves.
And now that I am back in Dutchess County, it is for this reason I have again signed on as a member of the Volunteer Emergency
Medical Response Corps of Dutchess County.
Oh, sure you think as the speech language pathologist (SLP)
and hence an allied health professional that I am of course I can respond in some way in medical emergencies. True,
except the reason I qualify is not because I am an SLP. Rather it is because I am an adult county resident interested in protecting
myself, my family, and my community in times of mass emergencies. There is so much to do at such times. And surely you could
help.
Needed are child care workers, animal care providers, interpreters, guides, people willing to help with
intake and organizing and and setting up. Whether it is shelters or PODs--PODs are Points of Distribution--whether
it be for food, medicine, clothing, or water. Needed also are drivers. Surely there is some way you might help and, in
the process, prepare you and your family to be personally better emergency responders and therefore, safer.
If you have read Jolt: a rural noir then you have had the chance to observe how a whole community all becomes involved
in such a response. Everyone from the carpenter to the hunter to the granny. Jolt: a rural noir is available on Amazon.com
or through this website. A great book filled with lively characters and much good stuff woven into a story that keeps you
wanting to know how it will all end. Readable. Informative. Entertaining.
But
back to the key question: To join or not to join an EMR Corps?
The Dutchess County Volunteer EMR Corps is
proud to state that it has 306 members and was the 44th of 933 MRC units established in the country. In 2006 it became affiliated
with the County. If you are from Dutchess County and have questions, call Cathi Tegtmeier. She is the MRC Coordinator. The
Volunteer EMRC of Dutchess County is supported through the Dutchess County Department of Emergency Response and the Dutchess
County Department of Health. It is located at 392 Creek Road in Poughkeepsie, New York 12601. Office 845-486-2487, Fax 845-486-3998.
Talk to anyone who answers or leave a message for Cathi.
And, wherever you are, if you are really motivated and would like to be certificated, you can also sign
up for the free Incident Command System (ICS) classes. They are given quarterly at the address above, but can
also be taken online. They are ICS 100 at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS100A.asp and ICS 700 at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is700a.asp In-class courses last either two or three hours and meet just
once. The classes, however, offer only certificates of participation as testing is only done and the results certificated
online.
Hopefully this has offered you good information and encouragement to look into the opportunity to serve
as a part of a volunteer EMR Corps. So do sign up to serve wherever you are. And do let us know how you find the experience.
RMR in Po-Town, Takin' Care of Business
11:47 pm edt
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Jolt: a rural noir: Remembering 9/11
Today, the ninth anniversary of 9/11--a day which shocked and saddened all
of us--gave us pause--and moved us to be better informed and psychologically more sophisticated in our knowledge
of mass emergency response and acts of terrorism. It even melded us in such a way as to keep us alert to the possibility
we might on some odd day be instrumental in preventing terrorism. And so because of that dark day, for what it is worth, I
belief we are all not only wiser, but safer.
It the ten years since the destruction of the Twin Towers, the
event propelled me to write Jolt: a rural noir. And indeed I did write it with the intension of providing
a reader-friendly source of well-researched information on effective personal and community response and survival
in the event of a nuclear meltdown or mass emergency.
If you have not read Jolt: a rural noir,
order it today on this site or at Amazon.com. You will not be disappointed.
Roberta in Po-Town, Remembering
9/11
10:11 am edt
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Make Jolt: a rural noir your book club selection of the month
Jolt: a rural noir places survival
questions central to the love story and action. Have you read it yet? If you have, to whom other have you recommended
it? Or does talking about survival make you uncomfortable? Well, you're not alone. Talking about survival, especially
nuclear survival, makes many people uncomfortable. However, such topics need to be readibly discussed. Not only
for our mutual safety, but for our mental health for, in my experience, the better informed one is, the more secure one
feels. And the less worried.
The desire to make survival more speakable lay as a major motivation behind my writing
of Jolt: a rural noir. Involving a variety of well-developed characters caught in real life conflicts
as well as the question of survival, Jolt: a rural noir is an excellent read: There are the lovers, Natalie and
Thaw, entangled in the differences caused by their contrasting cultural backgrounds; Dody, the inexplicably complex
but impulsive dad; the Matters family, with boys and parents caught in different locations at the time of the
terrorist event; and the inhabitants of the tiny lakeside village of Locklee lying high in the distant Tannenbaum Mountains
only to be overrun by fleeing forced emigrants.
Because of its rich content and story, Jolt: a rural noir
is a great fund raiser or book club selection. Orders of ten or more copies are available at a 30% discount
to non-profit discussion groups. To obtain the discount, however, it's necessary to by-pass larger distributors such
as Amazon.com and order directly from the publisher of Jolt: a rural noir at Alva Press, Inc. at http://alvapressinc.com.
Comments and questions are welcome.
Just click on the Sign My Guestbook button type located to the right of this blog and enter what you
have to say. I'll be sure to get back to you in the next couple of days.
Roberta in Po-Town, Looking forward to
hearing from you.
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Roberta M. Roy incorporated Alva Press www.alvapressinc.com on October 5, 2004. The express purpose of Alva Press, Inc., was to ensure a safe venue for
the publication of her works and those with similar focus. As such, upon the completion of the science
fiction novel Jolt: a rural noir, Alva would immediately publish it. Further Alva Press, Inc., would offer a
venue for Roy to publish her children's books, including Yell'n'Tell. (At this point Yell'n'Tell needs
only design as the watercolor illustrations by Dan Dyen are complete and the text fully edited. But then there is also Wedding
Ready, complete, but in need of an illustrator talented in the art of drawing forest animals. But all that anon.)
Currently, until the soft cover version of Jolt's Library of Congress Number
is in, Jolt waits to go to press. Usually the LCN takes but a few days after which will become available in hard cover
at $24.95 and Trade paper at $14.95 (plus $5.50 mailing).
Jolt
was some five years in the writing; its research took longer. It's scientific basis for nuclear survival has been
carefully reviewed by oncologists and experts in the effects of ionizing radiation for accuracy of representation. Jolt
is a fast-paced novel that spans two years in the lives of a group of diverse urban, suburban, and rural residents brought
together in an imaginary part of the northern United States. There in Locklee, the small town to which those who are forced
emigrants flee, they become mutually caught up in the necessities associated with post-nuclear survival.
Check www.alvapressinc.com for a more thorough review of Jolt as well as the most recent updates on its publication
and availability. And should you be so inclined and care to help defray the last payment of its first printing, a check
in the mail to Alva Press for your very own pre-publication autographed copy of Jolt: a rural noir would be a
great help.
Thinking of self-publishing? Emergency response? Send your questions, comments or ideas to RobertaMRoy@alvapressinc.com With your permission, we may choose
to publish on this web site, questions posed of particular interest to the community with your or our
answers. |
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If you
haven't ordered your prepublication copy of Jolt: a rural noir, now is the time to do. Go to www.alvapressinc.com
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1) If you walk out uninjured from a nuclear event, you probably will survive. 2)
The
bywords to survival from
a nuclear event are TDS: Time,
Distance, Shielding. 3) Use regular soap and water to decontaminate from fallout.Strip and shower or cleanse as best you can. Use bread. 4) Nuclear fallout contaminates open water and plants.If there is fallout (ashes),use bottled water and canned goods. 5) Babies as well as adults can take Potassium Iodide (KI) to protectthe thyroid against ionizing radiation. 6) There is no plume with a nuclear power plant meltdown. 7) A large event may seem ‘over there’ if you can’t define its impact.Ionizing radiation is invisible. 8) A family needs an escape plan. 9) A community can respond as a team to mass events. 10) After a mass event, a communitymay heal changed but well.
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Alva Press, Inc., PO Box 2089, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA Telephone (919) 239-3791 Phone/Fax (845) 454-5200
http://alvapressinc.com/id50.html
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