Bird Flu Spread To Date

MSNBC has a really nice flash animation showing the spread of Bird flu across the world from December 2003 to October 2, 2007.

I can't recommend the BBC program on Bird Flu I posted the other day highly enough. A couple of the key takeaways from that show:

1. It is only a question of when, not if, Bird Flu is coming.
2. Once H5N5 mutates so it can be transmitted human to human, it will take 3 months to spread across the entire country. Expect the pandemic to hit in waves that last for about 3 - 5 months.
3. There is very little the government is going to do - you are on your own.
4. Plan ahead - you need to be able to isolate yourself as much as possible from others. Prepare to teach your kids at home, chart family members’ blood types and allergies and find out in advance if you will be able to work from your house.
5. Be Prepared - when the pandemic hits, you need food, water and medicine. You'll have to have enought to last you at least 4 months (when the peak infection rate will begin to subside) or you'll have to have a way to get food at a time when many folks will not show up for work, schools and businesses will be closed and utilities may fail.

Be sure to check out the Flu Wiki for more information.

Risk II

The BBC on Bird Flu

National Response Framework and US Army Terrorism Guide

The National Response Framework provides a comprehensive, national, all-hazards approach to domestic incident response. The Framework presents an overview of key response principles, roles and structures that guide the national response. It describes how communities, States, the Federal Government and private-sector and nongovernmental partners apply these principles for a coordinated, effective national response.

A poster over at Daily Kos has written an excellent two part summary of the framework: Part I and Part II. Any thing I would write would be duplicative and I recommend you read these posts over (Daily Kos is political site but some things go beyond politics and this topic is one).

Finally, another reference you may want to examine is the US Army Guide to Terrorism in the 21st Century.

Risk

Over the next few days there will be several posts regarding why suburban survival preparation is important. One of the keys to understanding what to prepare for is to assess the risks that various catastrophic events might have should they occur and what the potential effects could be to the suburban survivalist.

To that end, here's an interesting news story from today's newswire regarding the potential damage that could be done to the U.S. power grid via a cyber attack. According to the article, government researchers have produced a video to demonstrate the effects of a cyber attack to the electrical grid:

commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent reaction that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke.
...
The electrical attack never actually happened. The recorded demonstration, called the "Aurora Generator Test," was conducted in March by government researchers investigating a dangerous vulnerability in computers at U.S. utility companies known as supervisory control and data acquisition systems. The programming flaw was quietly fixed, and equipment-makers urged utilities to take protective measures.
...
President Bush's top telecommunications advisers concluded years ago that an organization such as a foreign intelligence service or a well- funded terror group "could conduct a structured attack on the electric power grid electronically, with a high degree of anonymity, and without having to set foot in the target nation." Ominously, the Idaho National Laboratory—which produced the new video—has described the risk as "the invisible threat."

How likely is such an attack? The article goes on to state that while possible, probably not very likely. But if it should occur, one of the key questions is how much of the grid is affected and for how long? Its just a guess but this type of attack would most likely not be too severe - perhaps the equivalent of a major winter storm or hurricane that knocks out power for several days. Still, are you prepared for loss of all electrical power for 3 days? How about a week? Two weeks? Two Months?

The Suburban Survivalist should be sufficiently prepared to assess and handle exactly this type of situation. He or she should be able to handle the loss of refrigeration, lights, heat and communications (TV, Phone) for several months and, be able to obtain or engage an alternate source of power for electrical needs.