From the “I’m ashamed to admit this,” thread: “Retired workers and trained volunteers would be needed, if only to distribute information and help with triage.” by Dem
First, for those of you who will isolate, for whatever reasons…children, poor health, etc… this isn’t a denouncement of your decision, we all make the best decisions that we can. But for those of you who are willing to be volunteers during this crisis, what types of things are you willing to do?
Possible Community Needs: Deliver meals to home-bound sick? Start a neighborhood check-in to see who is too ill to care for themselves? Pick up and bag up bodies? Drive a truck (moving supplies)? Provide citizen security? Work directly with the ill? Clean laundry in a hospital or field hosptial? Pick-up and dispose of trash? Run a backhoe for burials? Work at a food distribution site (if there are any)?
Depending on how bad it is, this list could be very long. I am just wondering how many folks think about the ways in which they are willing to work for the greater good and what skills people will be bringing to the endeavor.
Again, for those who choose isolation, for whatever reason, this is no slam against your decision to hunker down… but I am not planning to isolate and have a personal belief that when it is my time to die, I will die, regardless of the preparations I have made (and I am a prepper.) So, I am curious as to how others have envisioned being of use to their communities.
My plan is to provide neighborhood health care and training. I’ve also spoken to my family doctor and have offered to make `house calls’ on his behalf. He seems interested.
Beyond that, I expect to help organize classes at our local community center on nursing, infection control, and other necessary skills.
I also anticipate being part of the neighborhood watch.
Beyond that, I’ll see what my community needs. I’m a bit too `over the hill’ to engage in the daring do of my younger years (spirit is willing … knees and back are less so <g>), but could probably fill in on the local ambulance if I had to.
I also expect I’ll be helping with the collection of the deceased. Dirty job, but I’ve some experience in that. (Maybe shoulda studied my paramedic manual harder <g>)
My Dad, who is 81, will probably join the neighborhood watch. He would probably also help deliver food, check on neighbors, and anything else he is capable of.
Most of these jobs, while essential, will not be glamourous. Many will not be pleasant.
Like the guy whose job it was, when the cirus came to town, to follow the parade and sweep the streets of elephant excrement. When asked, why don’t you quit?
His response was, “And what, give up show business?”
Yes, I figure I’ll be doing some very unglamorous work too…like laundry, setting up field hosptial beds, grunt work. I think I’d be a good phlebotomist as I am not afraid of blood, have very sensitive hands and could easily be trained, if needed. We have a large elderly population who rely on Meals On Wheels and I imagine they’ll be in a world of hurt unless someone shows up. Basically, anything that needs to be done that I am capable of or can learn I’ll be doing. But most likely, it’ll be the laundry…
Even people who choose isolation are useful, Montanan. My immediate neighbors and I must isolate in order to protect high risk members of our families. But there are plenty of risk-free things we can do to help others. The most important is organizing ways to communicate. We have our phones, computers, and walkie-talkies (thanks Fla_Medic for that hint) and worse comes to worse we can put signs in our windows and relay messages. Although only a handful of us have agreed at this point, we do plan on eventually including our entire development if there is an ordered or de facto quarantine. We recognize the need to be aware of each other’s situations. Just being able to reach out and talk to someone will ease lonliness and fear. This is especially true for the neighborhood children, who will be the first victims of cabin fever when they find out they can’t go outside on nice days, or play over their friend’s house when they are all healthy. Setting up webcams will allow the kids to see and talk to each other, do schoolwork together, even play interactive games. If we are notified a family has a non-infectious problem - such as running low on supplies, a plumbing leak, unexpected allergies - someone will be able to leave a few cans of soup or a bottle of benedryl at their door. When it comes to more serious issues, we can minimize exposure by having one or more low risk, properly PPE’d volunteers deal with the problem. Instead of all of us wondering why old Mrs Smith isn’t responding this morning, but afraid to go find out if she needs help, 55 yr old batchelor Mr Jones can suit up in Tyvek and a mask and knock on her door. If the pandemic runs on for a long time, I can definitely see our community becoming more self sufficient through cooperation. We have playgrounds and fields that could be turned into vegetable gardens, we have lakes that are full of fish and fresh water, and residents have a variety of skills and talents. Rather than 100 families locking themselves behind their own doors to insure the children survive, if this thing goes from months to years, it may be 100 homes locking the gates to the community and living as one extended tribe.
Its interesting but, just by talking to my neighbors, we’re all starting to consider each other more right now. I’m putting extra things by in case someone needs another can opener, or toothbrush, and my neighbors tell me they are doing the same.
flourbug – at 10:01 good points. Its interesting but, just by talking to my neighbors, we’re all starting to consider each other more right now. I’m putting extra things by in case someone needs another can opener, or toothbrush, and my neighbors tell me they are doing the same.
Yes, you are building your community infrastructure now. Will be very helpful in the future.
Not sure - I work in horticulture/agriculture so staying at work and growning food may well turn out to be the best thing I can do (and comparitively low risk I might add especially as my boss is on board and has distancing ideas to keep us safe at work!) but basically I will do whatever is necessary. I am not scared of “getting my hands dirty” and am prepeared to move bodies etc if that’s what it takes. I figure that if things get that bad, although it might increase my and my daughter’s risk a certain amount, the risk from having people dying and bodies lying around will probably be greater.
I have always been a doer, and figure I could probably cope with most things that would need doing as long as they needed doing. Probably have a nervous breakdown once it was over and I could stop though!!
sorry pressed the wrong button - was going to say that I don’t think I could sit knowing that there were ill people needing care or kids needing food. That said - it depends how bad it is!
sorry pressed the wrong button - was going to say that I don’t think I could sit knowing that there were ill people needing care or kids needing food. That said - it depends how bad it is!
Woah! (bumped)
bumped again. What’s with the Woah! lugon, any ideas yourself?
I’ll work within my community, either for the MRC (medical Reserve Corps) or in one of the local hospitals. There won’t be a shortage of work, but I do expect a shortage of workers.
Considering my husband and I are both high risk the best thing I could probably do is phone calls to check on others and neighborhood watch. Considering the nature of my husband’s company if he can safely work he needs to. What they manufacture may be vitally important to the medical community. Problem is he works an hour away from home so if communities are quarantined he may not be able to get to work. This is something that could be a big problem in our community as probably half or more of the households commute to the San Francisco Bay Area or Silicon Valley.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the most vital utility that needs to remain up and running during a panflu would be cable/internet service. Generators could provide the electricity for at least a few hours a day of computer time. When health, mental health care, telephone communication systems are unavailable during panflu, we will need The Web. (I think the only way Charity Hospital in N.O. got thru to the outside world during Katrina was via computer to contact CNN.)
I can open cans of tuna…
anonymous – at 22:33 Yes. You can open cans of tuna while you count the toilet paper rolls under your bed. It will be a good use of your time and skills.
Fla Medic and Grace RN: I wish you were in my local community. You seem like gems.
EWO-
They are in your local community. Just a few keystrokes gets them right in front of you 24×365.
Poppy - Your point is well taken. About ten years ago we had a huge blizzard up here, and for the first time in anyone’s memory, the governor closed the roads for anything but emergency traffic. Our neighbor, who was a Respiratory Therapist was urgently needed in his hospital. When he attempted to get there, he was intercepted by police who essentially told him they didn’t care what he did, the roads were closed and if he didn’t go straight home right now he would be arrested.
I dar say we’ll see a bunch of that kind of behavior going on as well.
Grace RN – at 21:59 I have been thinking about this too. We who visit fluwikie are very used to having up-to-date information whenever we want it. News & communication to inform, keep people calm, etc…will be essential to our mental well-being during a quarantine.
I can picture myself, after the worst is over, out in the empty lot stirring a big pot of soup that everyone contributes to. I think I might be of use to young moms who can’t get doctor’s help for a sick baby, since I’ve raised a few myself. You never really know till something happens how you’ll respond, but it doesn’t hurt to visualize a little I guess.
I have mentioned this on another thread but it looks like it goes here also.
My wife and I have signed up as emergency foster care for children. Call your social service (here it is called “children youth and family”). If this gets bad, there will be “orphans” that will need a place to live, some children that will have to wait for next of kin, and so on. They will need a safe and pre-approved place. We are keeping one extra “prep” just for a child if needed. It takes a “home-study” and training but when it is over, you can be approved for foster/adoption/ emergency care. The Red Cross and others can’t just put kids anywhere. They need approved people and it takes months to get approved by the state. Try emergency childcare if you want a rewarding volunteer effort.
I wonder if anyone around here is a firefighter? Our little volunteer fire department east of Athens, GA will have its own calls during an emergency. But I’ve also been wondering what other functions it could serve in a rural county during an emergency.
Transporting of supplies (except water!) isn’t too efficient - fire trucks usually don’t have much empty space on them.
I’ve talked to our fire chief a bit about this but she wasn’t much interested - still have to work on that. We have a member who’s a nurse but so far I haven’t been able to get her to think in that direction.
Excellent, DennisC. Excellent.
I wonder if Doctors and Health Care professionals will be willing work without Monetary Compensation, I mean they sure charge alot right now, even though many today have to make sacrifices between care, medicine and food.
Psalms:41:1: Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. Psalms:41:2: The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
DennisC – at 23:21 I agree with Fla_Medic – at 04:53 Excellent.
Wayne – at 04:53 transporting water may be very important, keep working on your boss…
Poppy “phone calls to check on others” yes, for those who are at home this could be a very essential way of helping. Plus knowing someone is going to call and touch base that you are okay could be a blessing to anyone alone.
Wayne Yes, water is life. You may consider having a water-filling site instead of delivery. Here (we have a volunteer fire depart.) we have linked to churches (we have forest fires) for water delivery. They come in, take delivery, and then take it to people. Normally we have water donated by places like Albertson’s.
In my city we have neighborhood associations. I plan to check with the city government about what the associations could do in emergencies. There are quite a few “original settlers” in my development who are now in their 80s who probably aren’t prepping and would need to be checked on daily. Other neighborhoods have many more families with young children and would have a different set of needs, such as people willing to watch/teach children if schools are closed and the parents have to work.
Mari, if you aren’t careful; isolating from their families the people who come and go, watching/teaching kids may just spread contagion. The whole point of closing schools is to keep kids at home away from each other, since they are so good at spreading illness and seem to be a vulnerable age group. Getting learning supplies/plans at home now, and talking on the phone or internet/local tv might work during pandemic. Schools should be working on “distance-learning” now, (but most aren’t).
Anyone able to go out and help, why not ask if “just in case of pandemic” people who don’t know how can be shown how to run the backhoe, or truck, or how to run something essential.?
Are they going to leave written instructions up for their replacements at essential plants? If it gets to volunters picking up the dead, please try and keep records/id, ect.
There should be community & provider contingency planning meetings already; maybe they could focus on different aspects each week like, Electricity, Communication, Water, Waste, Home first aid and nursing, Fire prevention, Food, Security, Stress, Infection control, ect.
crfullmoon - There are people who will HAVE to work either because they have little or no savings or because they are “essential workers”. There are many single parents out there. What are they supposed to do about their kids if the schools are closed?
Some people’s regular jobs probably won’t have customers, essential workers might have to make arrangements for their kids to be cared for but no close contact, if they have a job they can still do reasonably safely. Otherwise some of them may be staying home anyway, especially if their job site didn’t prepare and fails in the first couple of weeks. “Carrying on as normal” and then everyone getting sick does no good in the long run.
The whole economic difficulties individuals and families and business and municipalities and nations will be facing if we have a deadly influenza pandemic are a whole can-of-worms problem, and I don’t hear any discussion of how anyone will swing that.
It would cause premature effects to the economy if it was being publically discussed (even those with savings and investments; those are at risk) and I’m not sure there are any good solutions -are any being discussed secretly by govts? There’s various banking/personal economic threads on the Wiki.
Parents are working to support their kids; they want their kids to stay alive through an influenza pandemic. If the parent gets sick and possibly dies, or, if they are at work and their child(ren) are being cared for in an infectious setting and they catch the pandemic and possibly die, how are people going to cope? It only takes one person to bring it in. Right now it doesn’t look likely we’ll have a mild pandemic, nor any vaccine; planning needs to be thinking “worst-case”. No easy answers, and no knowing when or how we might have an influenza pandemic, but it is beyond our normal experiences. Reading about 1918 gives an idea.
Still trying now to get better plans and preparations made locally, while there is still time.
Families in Africa and Asia are doing their own risk/benefit analyses, and even when they know people who have come down with bird flu appear to be choosing feeding their children today vs. possibly coming down with a fatal disease sometime later. Many of us (me included) haven’t ever had to make that kind of choice.
We are growing tons of garlic in our garden to distribute with directions. I’m going to pass out information in the neighborhood on health care and isolation techniques. I wish I had enough sambucol and the rest of what we’ve put aside for the whole town but garlic will have to do. I have used it for years with better results than antibiotics and antivirals so I am hoping it will do some good. We are also planning on organizing a town watch. Right now no one will listen to that aspect of things but eventually they will so we have a plan in place to offer when needed.
Mari, I feel for you, this is such a stressful situation to look forward to. I know you and all of us are trying to do the best for our families that we can. We can do no more than our best. I consider myself so lucky that I work at home regularly and my job will not be affected by a pandemic so I dont have to worry about my kids not going to school. In fact, I will probably pull them out before a school closure is announced. Other options I can think of might be extended family, a small group of parents trading child care days vs a large group, it would mean more days on child care duty than a large group but also less exposure risk, maybe even just one other parent who works opposite hours from you. I definately agree with the previous poster who said carrying on as usual will not help.
I’m a little frustrated by my inability to figure out a way to get involved if this thing hits.
I am retired, but my former work isn’t the sort that going back to would help in a pandemic or other emergency situation.
My town has no CERT, no Red Cross.
The nearest city (half a tank of gas away) does CERT training but you have to commit to coming all the way into that city as a volunteer for apparently a lot of events per year. And what good is being trained to help out if the people who would call on you are not your community but a city four towns away, half a tank away in a probable gas shortage period?
Some of the churches got active post-Katrina, but churches apparently as church group activities, no advertisement to outsiders to come help convoy food to Mississippi coast.
There is no neighborhood community, maybe partly because a lot of it is rental, and partly because most of the older folks own a farm or ranch or a summer house up north, so maybe this isn’t home in as solid a way as for those who live somewhere permanently full time.
How do those of you who lack any entrepreneurial streak find ways to get involved in the community? Seems to me one has to be involved NOW in order to be on someone’s radar as help to to call on in an emergency.
LizB,
Find out who your local public health officer is and get in touch with them. They’ll have ideas for you.
LizB,
just a thought but you could do what Dennis?? is doing and volunteer to be a foster home for children who are from homes where both parents are essential workers. There are a lot of husban/wife teams out there who both work for a fire department, or one is a fireman and one is a paramedic or something like that.
Another idea is that if you have the room, you could volunteer to take in pets that have been abandoned due to illness or due to the same reason above. An agreement to hold them temporarily for up to 6 months might be necessary to make certain that you don’t end up being the ‘country pound’.
Just a thought.
My assumption is if I look at zero degrees as being no effect and 180 degrees being worst case scenario I have to plan based on evaluating what I hear, read and decipher as what is current reality, short-term reality and long-term reality. My husband & I were discussing using the “degrees”. I think most people are at the less than 5% level of “this might happen”; I’m probably around the 40% level. Then how serious will it be. Then my degree jumps to 70%. If that were to come true I don’t see people leaving their kids except to scrounge for food and water if they haven’t prepared. I personally have prepared and don’t have kids to be concerned about. I am unable to comprehend why parents wouldn’t protect their kids by preparing but they make sure their kids have everything they want today. That’s another subject. Some can’t afford to plan because they are overcommitted to feeding and housing today. My thinking is I will look after my household and because kids are more likely to spread the virus I specifically plan to keep them distanced from my home. But if you are only at the 25% degree of seriousness chances are you will make a different decision. This is not just child care its child care in the worst possible scenario which could endanger your family. We each have to do what our heart tells us.
Prepping Gal – at 15:50 …which could endanger your family
Part of the volunteering to take in a child is a personal matter. If I were younger, or if I still had children at home I would not take anyone in nor would I suggest it to those who are. But I am “old”, my children are married and 1000′s of miles away, my wife teaches middle school and would likely have to contact such children anyway. SO…..
There is not a single correct answer for everyone. But different answers for different people. Someone suggested taking in pets, but for me that is risking my life for an animal and I will not do that (cats and dogs can get this flu!). But risking my “old life” so a young person can have a chance at life- I would do. I am not going to go looking for such children, but if some child I know has lost their parents - I know what I would do and am ready for that. Parents not prep’ing is one thing, children who have lost their parents and relatives cannot travel is another.
If you were a child who had lost his parents what would you want. If you were state welfare worker and needed to place an orphan in an emergency- what would you need/want. And for older people living alone, taking in someone might be better than trying to survive alone.
Since I can mostly work in my office I plan on working for as long as we stay open. I run the food service / kitchens at a local Gospel rescue Mission. We have about 160 men, women & children that live full time at the ministry in substance abuse treatment plus run anywhere from 50 to 150 homeless that stay overnight and/or eat with us depending on the time of year, time of month and weather. Right now no matter what I say, no one is listening but I have slowly been building up our food stocks, means of sanitizing water, etc. I just talked a local water business into donating a semi-load of bottled water to our ministry, I’ll ration it our very slowly but hold the majority of it in reserve. I’ve even been able to procure a few hundred masks with some “slush funds” I have wrangled. The time will come when the board & other staff will want to know what we can & should do, at what level we can stay operating and all that stuff so until then I’ll just keep putting together information and what supplies I can. I anticipate at some point we will have to just close the doors but when I have no idea. As to what “trigger” I will decide to start using all that sick time and vacation I have saved up, not sure on that either.
I can only tell you what I will do; I offer no advice solicited or not. I stand by what I said without accepting anyone’s judgement. My point is to share my decision so that others feeling like I do will have comfort in their decision and know they aren’t alone. If someone comes to my door I will give them a care package of food/water but they won’t be crossing my threshold; in fact they’ll need to keep a distance. They will be sent on their way. If my daughter and family show up, they will be offered the same & but in addition they can set up temporarily in our heated garage but again no access into our home. We have planned for self-quarantine. This has been discussed with my husband and we are in agreement. Tough yes but we’re looking at the long term. We’ve informed ourselves, prepared and sacrificed to do so; those choosing to carry on with their lives and ignor the warnings will need to be responsible for themselves. I don’t know what others want to do nor would I tell them what they should do; I just want them to know its okay.
If my neighbors daughter showed up at my door and told me her mama died, I would let her in and take care of her, I don’t feel as if I have a choice. They have no family and I have known her since she was born. OF course if I can get them to prepare now and take this serious, it may not come down to that. If my son showed up at the door after TSHTF I would take him in, and deal with the repurcussions…I’ve worked hard at keeping him alive and healthy, tho i have demanded and received a promise from him to get his butt in gear and get here before that. We each have to make decisions that we can live with, no one is right or wrong. I have first aid training and have holistic health background will it do any good? I don’t know; all I can do is do what I can do.
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