Community preparedness is represented by the activities of organizations such as the Barron Park Emergency Preparedness Committee (www.bpaonline.org) and the Palo Alto Office of Emergency Services. Activities fall under the general categories of education, inventory of emergency equipment, and emergency response training. Palo Alto has an excellent training program (PANDA) to provide a cadre of trained individuals to supplement and support the Palo Alto Fire Department, whose resources will be overwhelmed in a major disaster, and whose efforts of necessity must be directed towards facilities of highest priority (e.g., hospitals). The Barron Park Association has been a leader in preparedness education, having worked closely with the City of Palo Alto in the preparation of "Living with our Faults—an Earthquake Preparation guide."

Household preparedness boils down to the ability of each household to provide for its basic needs for at least several days to a week, without any assistance from an outside government or private entity. In a major disaster, each household will be on its own. We can anticipate disrupted water supplies (remember that the Hetch Hetchy water pipeline crosses right over the Hayward Fault!), absence of electricity and gas, and perhaps significant structural damage to our dwellings. We all need to have sufficient emergency supplies to tide us over the period until outside assistance becomes available and utilities are restored.

The essentials of any cache of emergency supplies are water, food, a battery powered radio and first-aid supplies. Excellent guidelines for emergency caches are presented in the 3rd edition of "Living with our Faults", published in 1994 by the City of Palo Alto— www.cityofpaloalto.org/fire/earthquake/ (see table of contents). For those who choose not to build their own emergency caches, the American Red Cross sells a wide selection of Disaster Preparedness Kits that are described in detail at www.paarc.org/supplies/cat_disaster.htm.

How well are we prepared?
Some Barron Park households are well-prepared, but most are poorly aware of the potential disasters and consequently are ill-prepared. Although precise statistics are lacking, perhaps 80% of our households fall in the unprepared category. In the case of a major emergency, what will this 80% do for the basics of existence? For the first week after a disaster, none of us can expect any help from government agencies, utilities or other outside entities. If those who are unprepared depend on the good will of their prepared neighbors, their neighbors' preparedness is reduced from one week to just a day or two, and then everyone is in trouble.

Hence, the major goal of the Barron Park Association and its Emergency Preparedness Committee is to greatly increase the percentage of households prepared for a disaster. The first step is an awareness of our vulnerability. The second is each household taking some simple steps to assure adequate supplies of emergency water, food, etc. for a week without assistance.

To this end, we strongly encourage you to fill out and return the form provided in this newsletter. This will achieve two things: (1) provide the Barron Park Association with a better inventory of the resources available in an emergency, and (2) encourage you to think about the steps each individual household should take to prepare for the disaster that someday surely will strike Barron Park. The on-line form is at www.cyberstars.com/bpa/emergency.