Natural Disaster Prep & Nursing Gala
š¤·āāļø ESTIMATED READING TIME: FIFTY FIVE MINUTES
Disclaimer:
Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isnāt to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. Iām not here to act as a definitive firsthand sourceāreaders should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). Iām not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!-
Two events, one theme: we're not ready. The disaster panel was full of expertsāand one guy who just started the job. The gala? More like a ghost town asking nurses to fund their own celebration. Iām concerned. You should be too.
š Key Takeaways:
Major earthquakes are expected in Washingtonāsome with up to an 85% chance in the next 50 years.
Escape routes exist, early warning systems are improving, and some hospitals are prepping for 96+ hours off-grid.
Most fire risk is human-caused, and AI tools are now helping detect wildfire smoke faster (but you have to opt in to receive alerts.)
Budget cuts are limiting help to the most vulnerable communitiesā¦ itās just the way it is.
One panelist didnāt know what he was talking aboutā¦ and admitted it on stage. Heād been in that role less than a year.
Nurses were asked to fundraise for their own gala, and they could barely raise $14K. The event was sad, empty, and I left early.
Biggest red flag? If we canāt fund nurse trainingā¦ how are we going to handle a disaster?
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Topics: Natural Disasters, Nursing, Pageantry, Appreciation, Reactions, Preparedness, Communication Flows, Logistics, Leadership Communication, Prevention Training, Blood Loss, Fundraisers, Nursing Students, Scholarships and Tuition.
What a day and oh, so weathering. First, we will learn from a fancy group hosting a fancy lunch for people who paid money to attend. Myself included! Letās find out how to prepare for upcoming weather disasters. Just casually at a lunch, no reason. NEXT! The nurses are having a gala. A break from their routine to be celebrated, right? Nursing is arguably the most understaffed and challenging, unappreciated jobs on Earth. They carry so much stress and pressure. I want to see how the industry treats them at something like this. And how can we help more, as people on the outside? Other than taking good care of our health, of course.
Why Attend? Well, duh!! Maybe this specific niche event will cover some super useful info!! Letās find out. Time will tell š. And as for the nurses, I think the entire nation is lonely, but especially nurses. So, I just feel like maybe there is some way in the future we can 1. help nurses more so they have more time off and 2. just have more āthird placesā in general where people can meet. Plus, this event will let me get an idea of how Iād celebrate nurses, should the day ever arise!!
Event Ratings: Venue (2/5), Food (3/5), Speaker Content (2/5), Networking (2/5), Likeliness to Return (3/5)
Photo Collage and Commentary
NOTES FROM THE EVENT
and yes, Iām now FIVE EVENTS BEHIND. Like, my blogs now, I have 5!! That are āmore info coming soonā. Iām sure by the time you read this theyāll be updated. But yes, at the time of writing this, thatās where weāre at in life hahahah.
In the past, I wasnāt as āworking quite so hardā on my website - so I could even do āevent weekā two or three weeks ago which was a blog a day. But now I am spending A LOT of my time on my website and small parts of it. The merch store, the glossary, SEO-izing, un-bounc-rating, etc. Legitimizing my business locked and loaded I believe.
Iāve got a great order to thingsā¦ and motivation, soā¦. if youāre wondering, next week Iām taking a good 5 days off and working to catch up. I think I wrote that last blog, if not that last TWO!! After that, WOW, this website should be sparkeling.
- Iāve got a lot of fun updates to make and Iām so exicted to do them all. Just each takes time, attention, and effortā¦.
NOTES FROM THE EVENT: (organized soon)
NATURAL DISASTER PREP LUNCH
Speakers come from the military, medical center, etc.
Lots of people here and a moderator.
Energy, banking, ai You shook me all night long is their walk on music.
Are they making fun of earthquakes?
The emcee compliments this song.
The audience mumbles and laughs a bit.
They introduce themselves.
The panelists. Ai, grids, tech, data centers, Ai,
Big delay on the screen.
So when you watch it and hear her talk it doesnāt match up.
Experts today will help plan be ready and work together in the case of disaster.
Today we talk about natural disasters.
She reads the bio about these guys if if her phone in her hand.
The guy is really happy to have his bio read.
Then we have a military perspective. Former chairs of trauma committees, etc.
First question: give an overview of your job slash research and how often do you all work together?
This mic on? No? It is.
Now he speaks and itās super loud. I wish I had my KT headband - protection of selection with me! Amateur move KT :)
He helps across the state to get ready. And coordinating state response to supoort local first responders and others to deal with the situation.
When necessary partner with FIMA to team with federal assistance to help the state.
The link to the military is we are one of 17 states where emergency management is (idk) nat guard?
Idk what he said Military can be brought in if the response warrants it.
Do you work with the fellow panelists on the stage?
Absolutely. Weāre joined at the hip dealing with issues.
With fire, sizemic.
That guy, heās a customer of the services we provide.
Successful disaster and responsive recovery depends on relationships pre disaster.
To add, at the university , I wear two hats.
I have research interest as a sizemolgist.
We operate more than 700 stations that are streaming data to us real time.
Every earthquake, you hear of; thatās us.
We feed that info into the survey.
Even now we have the early warning system.
Itāll warn your phones if a large earthquake is coming. That happens if itās coming. Weāll talk more about that. It puts us again, all the time. It puts us all talking.
We have a lot of agreements and plans for the aftermath, aftershocks, response and recovery. If itās magnitude 3 or more, we have to call emergency management and we have a responsibility to the state.
As a hospital for all persons of all ages, we are in convo with a larger network. A coolition, preparing and networking.
Earlier this week we had an exercise. Constantly thinking of what itād look like to be on the receiving end.
Mobilize and care for hundreds and hundreds of patients.
Public lands positions is elected.
This agency is responsible for management of state owned public lands. Steward them responsibly.
We manage 2mil acres of timber, wheat, aquatic lands.
Two critical functions: we are responsible for wildfire prevention and response.
All wild lands public and private throughout the state.
We house the geological survey and services at our agency. That part provides support to emergency management. As well as engaging primary in research and public education programs. Risk maps.
He says heās just under half a year into this job so still seeing things -
why did they pick this guy to talk here!? He doesnāt know anything. lol.
Earthquake hazard scenario? What to expect? This can happen any time.
Grapple with that reality. Earthquakes are a fact. We will see them in the future. Cough. Um. Iām a teacher so let me survey.
Whatās the most damaging earthquake?
One near us! Back (year). We are at risk.
We have huge annualized losses that came out in data. For us itās 1.4B dollars yearly. California has more. They tend to have 4-5 that lots of people feel. We tend not to have those. But the likeliness of a damaging earthquake is real.
We estimate one like that last catastrophic one will be here next. Itās deep in the crust beneath us. That 2001 earthquake was in 1949 and 1965.
85% chance in the next 50 years. Could be equal, could be worse.
Very likely. We have hazards from other two types of earthquakes. Offshore earthquakes. Potentially level 9.
The likes of Japan 2011 tsunami earthquake. Impacts on the coast would be huge, versus the sound. The likeliness is 15%.
Then the Seattle fault is the black swan. It runs across the islands.
Regions south of here. We could have a 7.5 on that fault that could be damaging they happen every 1000 years but we donāt have a grasp on that timeframe. So there is all of the doom and gloom of this scenario.
One thing: weāve seen big earthquakes and itās not like the movies.
The damage depends on what we built in our society. Some in our field says there are no natural disasters. We know how to build.
Our job is to come through the earthquake and do well in the recovery. -
The guy sitting to my left laughs to himself aloud.
I didnāt get all that guy above comments down.
But yeah basically he said we build some buildings well; some less well, there are no natural disaster we joke in this industry. Idk his industry. -
The fires and floods we deal with every season, were going to find out whatās going on and then build situational awareness. -
We will get word back from elected representatives and those who know whatās happening out there.
Then we will call our people. The the federal gov. Then kick into high gear to support locals dealing with the situation. -
Theological hazards, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides. We all support and inform each other. We are concerned with continuity. -
Where we play the largest role is responsibility for wild land wildfire response. -
When a fire breaks out someone calls and the closest fire fighters respond. Whether itās a fire department or a local agency. Then the command team takes over the site to coordinate resources on how to put out the flyers
Decisions for evacuation are diced by local government. We provide info that helps them make the decisions. We work with the federal gov, local gov, and resources out of state that come in as well. We roll in when communities, pets, animals, families, we come in to take care of it. If the federal canāt help fun it, we run that process as well.
(Btw this is three speakers all talking now and Iām mixing their comments, just writing this in handwriting as fast as I can hahaha, and eating lunch.)
We donāt provide economic assistance for communities to get back up on their feet. After fire can lead to landslides. So we work on replanting trees.
Okay Iāll eat now. Write less notes.
Theyāre talking about patient care. Vs preparing.
How do we prepare staff for this? We educate doctor, learner, members and annual training to know what the plan looks like.
Recall individuals and match their speciality and ability to care with what is coming in. Match the people coming in with the staff who can deal with their specific needs. Their speciality.
Letās say we lose power. A cyber attack. Or a natural disaster.
We will have to function for no help for 96 hours. Enough water, generators. We need to see that when battery backup fails; we can have 4 days of energy.
We assume some resources can make their way. We have enough personnel. Think about it all.
We will be an island. Then the communications tower to connect with the region and emergency management agencies. If telephone systems go down, most of our hospitals moved to some hard lines in critical areas. Standard code practice across most hospitals.
Everything our infrastructure depends on is power. If we are talking about this, itās power.
What sources of power do we have?
Get power back on qnd fix multiple layers. Make sure we have good systems on paper. But an entire generation of providers have no experience working off electronic health records Earthquake or other type of disaster.
Volcano, mudflow, other hazards. We have 72 hours of backup.
Public alert systems: where are the gaps?
And how can private companies like the ones here today reach people.
Communication network is traditional. We rely on media, social media, and public info officers. Iām new so idk the names of the formal networks we provide so other participants and such can share.
The key is the preparation side.
The more we do to prepare wildfire ready on website.
We share escape routes. Partner with Ai companies that can detect smoke faster than Ai. 30 cameras scattered with a public private partnership. Stopping one disaster pays for itself many times over.
Providing info to inidividuals when fire is coming down on them or waves. So we have a federal system, that gives everyone from the federal gov to state level to get messages.
Targeted areas. Helps us get info out. An alerting system that helps us put out state wide info. Weāve got it at a county level. A local level to reach out and provide alerts and warnings.
I ask everyone in the room, theyāre depending on your opting in to receive them.
Work with your providers and local management to be aware of their system and opt in. Gaps? The federal system stops at the state and itād be very helpful for counties to jump on board. Itās an uphill battle.
And in some cases smaller counties may not have alerting capabilities that we may not have at larger counties.
We have gaps weāre working to develop. Itās a resource issue and we donāt have a statewide common standard.
As much as Iād like itād , id like to plug that gap going forward. The state of science today says we can not reliably predict a earthquake that it would work.
All the people online are tricky( the make it look good, but trust me, they canāt predict it. It is no better than what we are doing.
The internet is much faster than sizemic waves.
We can give up to 2 minutes of warnings. Where itās offshore and far away. We have sizemometors.
It works like this (he explains): āBro! You got this text, now you got 2 minutes to get to safety! Thanks for signing up for our app. Youāre welcome.ā
Ahhhhh hahahah. Geeze. What?
For some reason, our app is better than whatās publically available. Better than the federal system. So thatās all there. It will tell you drop cover and hold on.
Use those few seconds to maybe move away from a hanging chandelier. Connect it to elevator. Trains, etc. schools. We can shut things down and automate it.
Or alert to shut down operations. Household. What to do? What is reasonable? Back in 2016 we learned itās going to take a while after a major event to get help in western Washington.
Two weeks ready is our basic level of preparedness we suggest for everyone. Water, food, medical supplies. Itās going to take a while.
Beyond that, you may want to be looking at 4. 8 or even longer. Priority when youāre isolated is for urban core more than outlying. Even fkr smaller disasters, have supplies on hand. Individuals and communities need to be prepared.
The emcee jokes there are Tums. If anyone feels stressed.
Does anyone have questions?
How can individuals prepare and respond? Now letās talk about wildfire. You donāt think about the risk. But people live under constant fear for loss of lives and property last time we had more fires in the west now as climate and weather changed and most fire is human caused.
What happened in California could happen here. In the east side communities. Itās an all of Washington issue. Wildfire ready gives you all you need.
How to remove debris. Etc. what steps you can take to prevent loss of your property.
Recognize this is a core basic function of government. Investments in these programs save us a lot of money. If we donāt get more money, we will increase our risk.
We need more money for emergency preparedness response.
He jokes he needs his lobbying plug. How much is infrastructure and how much is training personnel? Donāt wait for the disaster to figure out how to get the work done. How do we get the right patient to the right hospital at the right time? Ultimately itās funded by the state, but this year it didnāt make it through the budget.
Now on July 1st that will go away.
That system is how we prepared for when disaster arises.
We have relationships established across the systems.
Two questions from audience; expand on learnings from Covid.
Any blinds spots? - it was in the cdcās plan decades ago.
No one activated it. We had seen examples of this where I trained. -
How do we use hospitals with smart efficient systems? -
Itās a giant track board we know the operating, staffing, beds. -
But now the system will be extinguished.
Now we have relationships with the hospitals.
We used to be in competition and now because the crisis the relationships established
Iām like awww cute. hahaha.
Putting patients in new spaces.
lol the guy sitting next to me is cleaning out his photo album on his phone lol.
Okay now speaking of more with less, what do you wanna say if we didnāt touch on it? And also one more question; How can civilians help in mass casualty events?
Yeah, take home message is; we know what big disasters can look like.
We can build more resilient systems all the time.
Around the world they do better than the us. The recovery of societal systems globally are amazing.
We can do much bettter here and keep tackling it.
We donāt know if itāll be tomorrow or 100 years from now. Every one of you is a first responder.
The number one place people will help is neighbors helping neighbors.
Iād reach out to all of you to reach out to emergency management. Community emergency response teams. Strongly recommend you participate in those. Itāll give you tools techniques and knowledge on how to serve your community and help neighbors.
Donāt only take antacids, but likely weāll be at work and the kids will be at home. But I created a kit.
Two weeks of food and water. Itās reassuring to me.
If Iām not there they have a plan.
The number one cause of death is bleeeidng to death. Get training to learn how to stop the bleeding. Learn to stop bleeding. Training can be done. We will come to whenever. It takes less than an hour and you trained someone to save a life.
Volunteer firefighter, you can do that.
Also remember the folks that have no access to internet, cell phones.
Wildfire uses federal grants but changes at the national level around policies are making it so we canāt help the most vulnerable communities.
Lately there are a lot of layoffs, grants disrupted. We are staffed up, we have assets positions. We will do what it takes to keep this state safe.
But into the future we canāt if legislature doesnāt step up.
Alright.
Panelist over.
Up is the closer to speak.
A president of something.
Mic not working at first but then it does.
How do we select these topics? Itās up to what Iām interested in. I feel itās topical. Glad to see people here from emergency management all over the city.
Now before we go, upcoming events. A big bank will speak (lol! A bank that stole our character??? inside joke for me, but geeze).
Then also thereās a nonprofit event. Small nonprofits they celebrate. At gardens itās a showcase for small nonprofits in the community. Itās a happy hour.
Then a gala celebrating a sport thatās famous internationally.
But not famous here in the USA.
But now CEOs are joining the local team.
Fabulous panel, one more round of applause.
Walking out āwe didnāt start the fireā plays.
Their exit song.
This event was insane. Just feels like some of the most common sense stuff is not being done. And now their plan for natural disasters isā¦ sign up for an app so you get an extra 2 minutes or warning, and get on the good list so youāre mentioned in the chain of communication right? And trust the leadership. And yeah. Wild event.
NURSING FUNDRAISING GALA:
ā¦ notes soonā¦
this event was so depressing. It was so not fun and strange and I even left early, cause I was so tired and not in the mood for their auction. Iād seen enough.
They couldnāt even raise 14k hardly and they were asking all the nurses to pay for it. And it was so empty. So, Iāll write about it soonā¦ Iād hontely forgotten I didnt finish this one up, but now i realize itās not surprising at all. Itās not fun to face and os much to explain. I hand wrote notes there (was a nonlaptop notebook time). but. Idk what to even say, I havenāt looked back at my notes yet from The Notebook.
This world needs an overhaul in priorities.
HOW WILL WE BE OKAY FROM THESE NATURAL DISASTERS IF WE CAN EVEN GET FUNDING TO TRAIN NURSESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
NURSING FUNDRAISING GALA:ā¦ notes soonā¦ this event was so depressing. It was so not fun and strange and I even left early, cause I was so tired and not in the mood for their auction. Iād seen enough. They couldnāt even raise 14k hardly and they were asking all the nurses to pay for it. And it was so empty. So, Iāll write about it soonā¦ Iād hontely forgotten I didnt finish this one up, but now i realize itās not surprising at all. Itās not fun to face and os much to explain. I hand wrote notes there (was a nonlaptop notebook time). but. Idk what to even say, I havenāt looked back at my notes yet from The Notebook. This world needs an overhaul in priorities. HOW WILL WE BE OKAY FROM THESE NATURAL DISASTERS IF WE CAN EVEN GET FUNDING TO TRAIN NURSESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
ć°ļø
NURSING FUNDRAISING GALA:ā¦ notes soonā¦ this event was so depressing. It was so not fun and strange and I even left early, cause I was so tired and not in the mood for their auction. Iād seen enough. They couldnāt even raise 14k hardly and they were asking all the nurses to pay for it. And it was so empty. So, Iāll write about it soonā¦ Iād hontely forgotten I didnt finish this one up, but now i realize itās not surprising at all. Itās not fun to face and os much to explain. I hand wrote notes there (was a nonlaptop notebook time). but. Idk what to even say, I havenāt looked back at my notes yet from The Notebook. This world needs an overhaul in priorities. HOW WILL WE BE OKAY FROM THESE NATURAL DISASTERS IF WE CAN EVEN GET FUNDING TO TRAIN NURSESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS ć°ļø
Okay - it has been a few weeks and Iām ready to talk about this. Unfortunately, Iām away from my notebook for another 48 hours, so I can update at least what I remember of the experience.
First of all, when I realized it was not very crowded at all - and very bright!! And it was mostly just people standing around talking, but not crowded at all. So, I realized everyone would be like, āWho are you?ā and then Iād have to explainā¦ um, Iām just here to observe how nurses are/arenāt celebrated. LOL. Just here to learn more about the industry on a sociology level, kinda.
Yeahā¦ not going there.
So, I ran to the bathroom and decided to say, āI work in education and love nurses!ā lol. Fan of nursing and thought Iād come to this event.
After that, I went out and checked in. I got my name tag, and, yes, the moment I walked in, a woman asked me about myself. What was I there for? Was I a part of this organization? Etc.
- I smoothly explained myself
Then she asked if I wanted to buy raffle tickets. I said, āno thanksā. And she was surprised and disappointed.
I was surprised and disappointed too, who cares that I donāt want to buy a raffle ticket, right? Is that your only job here, lady? To sell to me?
Then I walked over to see the raffles and was very disappointed with what I saw. Why? It was all insanely unhealthy and escapism. It was like 200+ of pizza, 200+ of wine, 200+ of spa daysā¦. nothing of any substance that will improve the lives of these nurses. Just unhealthy, hangovers, and hgiher standards.
You know what feels better than a massage? good-thorough stretching!! for real. It does wonders. And its free.
So, I was very disappointed with this raffle. It was superficial (with something like 20+ years theyāve hosted this event) it was lazy.
To be honest, I almost didnāt even attend this event, but I knew itād be worth it no matter what, and they promised some good food.
I arrived very hungry. The lunch was not too big from that natural disaster event (and stress makes you hungry, sometimesā¦ and that natural disaster event as very stressfulā¦ so, I was just super hungry).
The event advertised that theyād have lots of appetizers to begin and then a huge meal laterā¦
But I only saw one guy walking around with any appetizers that made it to me. It was one single shrimp that had been cut in half and had some sorta something on it that was hard to pronounce.
There was a bar, too, with $10+ drinks. Even the mocktails, I thinkā¦ but I didnāt spend much time over there. I just was not in the mood to spend more money on top of the ticket Iād bought to attend this.
This building was very beautiful. Seemed to have a lot of history (with lots of pictures telling about decades and decades of time at this place). And outside was a lot of wildlife. Of course, there were many nautical birds and even some seals swimming around. They kept popping up in the background while one of the presenters was speaking, though most people didnāt seem to notice, hahah.
Besides the lady trying to sell me raffle tickets, only one other person talked to meā¦ another person trying to sell me raffle tickets.
Eventually, I found a place to sit, with some nursing students. One of hte raffle people asked if I was a nursing student, but I said I wasnāt.
We sat at table 8 or whatever, then the lady goes up to announce this eventā¦ how great it is to be here, itās been going on for 20 or 100 years or whateverā¦ and how nursing is so important. This group has helped with so muchā¦ and now their goal is to raise 14k.
I WAS LIKE WTF? 14K???????? Thatās it!?!??!?
why? dawg - go read my event that was a lunch and learn trying to raise 200k for a museumās off-site workā¦ and they raised 500k. AND ALMOST EVERYONE THERE WAS OLDER - at the other lunch.
HELLO!!!! WHAT DO OLDER PEOPLE NEED????? NURSES!!!!!!!!!!!
Omg this was insanity to me.
THEN they start calling the tables to go eat from the buffet. She calls table 12345 - BUT THEN she calls table 9, just for fun.
Then another table yells at her they want to go next, so she does!! She breaks the order again and starts feeding people based on her preferences. And she laughs about it, saying you need to cheer, dance, or beg to get fed next.
THESE NURSES!!?? WHAT VIBE IS THIS.
So tables 1-5 were big donors (how much each, geeze, $200 or something.) and then the rest she just mocked for being hungry.
Our table was called relatively early, but still, even in line people were laughing and bragging about how they had good connections with the EMCEE and got the rest of their table fed first.
I ate my food and stayed for a bit. Later I can write down the notes and facts they said, but I couldnāt get myself to stay for the rest of it.
The rest of it was going to be a live auctionā¦ and I mean, it was like 95% nurses thereā¦ trying to get them to spend their money on their students!?!? Their colleagues? It was insane to me. Cause nurses are famously underpaid, too.
I didnāt want to stay for an auction. I didnāt want to see people spend all this money on random stuff.
It was frusterating how they were glamorizing this activity, especially when this event was so dependent on attendees to raise the money they needed.
And again - this was 14k to pay for nurse scholarships!!! letās see if they even finish school
OVERALL EVENT REVIEW FURTHER EVALUATIONS:
DISASTER PREP LUNCH
Venue (2.5/5) - fine - nice size and easy to enjoy.
Food (4/5) - good but lite. not heavy.
Speaker Content (NA) - woof. i mean, idk how to respond to this.
Networking (1.5/5) - no, no time to talk to anymore or meet. no worries.
Likeliness to Return (4/5) - yeah. insanely informative, but insane.
NURSING
Venue (4/5) - the venue was gorgeous, amaizng views, wildlife, vibes, lighting.
Food (2/5) - gimme a break!?!?!? all i got was half a shrimp for the entire first hour that was supposed to be filled with appetizers. the dinnerās food was good, but that was so lame.
Speaker Content (1.5/5) - depressing and rude. it was making others the butt of the joke and just likeā¦ idk. I have no clue what happened here.
Networking (1/5) - like i said, the only people who talked to me wanted to sell me things, and then got visibly frusterated that I wasnāt buying more.
Likeliness to Return (1.5/5) - idk. i saw enough and would like to return and see things have really improved.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if thereās no other reason to go. Letās see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. š
