Lake Balboa Emergency Preparedness Update

Happy New Year, Everybody!  Hope your holidays were your best ever, and along with all the celebrating, you got the chance to enjoy the peace of the ending year with thoughts of pride and accomplishment.  We did, but with ideas for furthering some goals in the new year.  Come join us in this fun endeavor!
Our first EP Meeting is this Saturday, the 11th, 9:00 AM at the Flyaway at the NE corner of Saticoy and Woodley in Van Nuys.  Click here for the Agenda.  David Bear, Author and Nuclear Physics Technician at many Nuclear Power Stations throughout the US, including Three Mile Island as an instructor, will be our speaker.  Now's your chance to ask all those questions about the melt-downs at TMI, Chernobyl and Fukishima, as well as about local 'problems'.  Should prove to be a most interesting morning!
Also, please bring your FRS/GMRS/Walkie-Talkie radios!  We're going to have an on-line check-in at 9:45 AM on Sunday, 1-12-14.  Now's the time to find out how to select channels (Channel 5 for this check-in) so you can be part of the fun!  Remember -- this and ham radio may be our only forms of communication after a disaster!  Connect after an earthquake - Check on your neighbors and find out when our bins and local shelters are open, etc., etc., etc!
As the 20th Anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake approaches next week, are you better prepared for an upcoming quake than you were for that one?  R-E-A-L-L-Y?????  Let's talk!
Northridge 20 Symposium on the Quake at UCLA, Thursday and Friday, Jan. 16-17.  $50. and $25 for students.  Deadline to register is Monday, Jan. 13th.  Website:  northridge20.org.
Friday, January 17th, Councilman Mitch Englander will hold  "After Stories", Commemorating the Northridge Earthquake at 6:00 - 8:30 AM (yes, that's AM!) at Northridge Recreation Center, 10058 Reseda in Northridge for the community to come together and share their experiences of the quake.  Luminarias will be made available for persons wishing to share their stories.
Saturday, January 18th, 9:00 to 10:00 AM, a brand new EP Committee begins in the West Valley with Lucie Volotzky.  More information later!
Also, 12:00 - 2:00 PM on January 18th, Brian Tessier, Bill Hopkins, and I will be hosting a FREE Map Your Neighborhood Orientation Class at SOS - 15705 Strathern, Unit 11, Van Nuys.  Call (818) 909-0131 to register.  This is the logical follow-up to your CERT Training, though you do not have to be CERT trained to get all the benefits!  This is how to secure yourself, your family and your Neighborhood (block) before and after a disaster!  I promise you will be so pleased you have learned the 9 Steps to do this!  This is the 2014 Kickoff for this program and we want to take it Valley-wide.  We have all the materials needed to come to YOUR house and make this presentation so YOUR block is one of the first to be READY!!!  Find out about it now -- we can do the presentation in your neighborhood any time later in the year!
New Project:  Please bring the name and street or online address of your favorite places to shop for EP supplies.  We're building a list to share, based on personal recommendations and will make this info available to other EPCommittees.  Or, you can just send it to me via email and I will add it to the list.  No, your name will not be attached in any way.
Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday and starting the year off right -- being together with like-minded friends and making plans for getting ALL of us better prepared in 2014 for the inevitable!!!
Linda Pruett and Brian Tessier, Co-Chairs, Emergency Preparedness Committee
Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council
Questions?  Call me!
Linda (818) 345-9809