Thunder and Lightning and Wildfires! Oh My.

Today's disaster preparedness item is sort of Biblical, dedicated to thunder, lightning and wildfires. Hopefully wildfires will stay contained until after RantWoman's next cycle of faith community volunteer gig opportunity to Get Out of Town, but let us not get ahead of ourselves
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#Natlprep   #npm2013 #preparedness

Last night's spectacular and sort of Biblical thunder and lightning and deluge put RantWoman in the mind of ..... SEVERE WEATHER. The storms also put the region in mind of power outages, per something on Twitter and, per news delivered live by a neighbor, a motorcyclist struck by lightning, and RantWoman is not really tracking what all else.

But what says weather better than...a Cliff Mass Weather Blog?
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
RantWoman also notes links to several other good websites, in particular the National Weather Service, as well as various opportunities to sign up for alerts. RantWoman fuirther digresses with fan mail about calling out a school board candidate's support ffor better math teaching!

The Post of the Day http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/09/impressive-rain-totals.html does not really do justice to the glorious symphony of thunder and lightning RantWoman attended last night, so readers will have to use their imaginations.

More vexing on the #accessibility front: RantWoman appreciates all the cool graphics but RantWoman also thinks it would be possible to tag them with something a TAD more descriptive than a long string of numbers. See for instance



Map of Puget Sound showing Rain Bands, Data from....

Now, as to wildfires, time is again upon RantWoman for one of her semiannual  "this volunteer gig guarantees a need for a trip to the mountains" journeys. These journeys happen fall and spring at fixed points in the applicable months and take RantWoman to a wonderful venue over by Ellensburg, Lazy F Ranch, http://www.lazyfcamp.org/  . On the #accessibility front, RantWoman spent a spell reading the site and discovered both big improvements over previous experience iwth this site AND wonderful articulate, interesting, descriptive tags on pictures!

RantWoman did not look this time but also knows that improvements over several years have included a number of excellent #accessibility features. Look, it's the WOODS. There are some fine smooth concrete paths but things are not going to be perfectly level. Some buildings have stairs but no ramps. Some restrooms are tight, but others are wonderful. Work with it, Breathe. Enjoy.

Breathe? Wait, it's wildfire season.

RantWoman has some links to experiences last year below. RantWoman also, a few days ago, heard in passing a radio report about a wildfire sparked by lightning in the area of her late month destination. In the vicinity means miles away as the crow flies, though RantWoman thinks smoke may fly further than flames.

RantWoman herewith offers a link to incident updates; RantWoman chose a link relevant to her specific venue and assumes that. although much lingo and process is probably the same for other fires, other links might take one to ways to look up fires in different ways,.
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/3697/21339/
And here is the searchable Incident website for all of WA.
http://www.inciweb.org/state/49/
Yeah #accessibility features!
What does #preparedness mean around wildfires?
Links stowed for possible reference though RantWoman always recommends search engines for updated and refreshed lists:
http://www.readyforwildfire.org/wildfire_action_plan

An interesting item from the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association about Wildfire evacuation plans:
http://www.rmiia.org/Catastrophes_and_Statistics/evacuation_plan.asp
#Accessibility whine: RantWoman wishes this site used headings and actual descriptions on some of its links. RantWoman complains cautiously about the latter if only because she currently posts a lot of bare urls that are only slightly more friendly than what JAWS finds on this site. Sigh.

RantWoman was going to include something generic from her search engine about fire evacuation plans but search string yielded results too generic for the likes of RantWoman in a car with someone else who may or may not have read anything about evacuation issues and wildfires. Worst case: if evacuation were ever to be needed, there would always be the option of "shut up and just follow directions."

Now as to last year, one account of RantWoman's experience last year.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2012/09/smoked.html
Here is another account of the same event. This item is ful of the language of RantWoman's faith community. Readers are invited to submit questions if the general gist needs clarification.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2012/09/not-smoked-especially-younger-kids.html
RantWoman includes it here because she still finds the community psychology group decisionmaking issues interesting. Hold that thought with more questions than there is time for today.