Saturday’s West Seattle Bee Festival offers much to look forward to, including the first-ever Urban Survival Skills Fair. Cindi Barker says it’ll be a fun way to find out about disaster preparedness. Here’s what else you’ll find at the USS Fair in a big tent in the north end of High Point Commons Park, by the Bee Garden (Lanham/Graham), during the 10 am-2 pm festival:

The Urban Survival Skills Fair offers an opportunity to gain a variety of preparedness-related skills and useful knowledge from experts. Topics may include:

Amateur Radio — Learn about one of the few communication tools that do not depend on the internet.

Develop a disaster communication plan — Communication is critical during a disaster. What should you consider when making your own plan?

Learn some useful camping hacks and share your best hacks with us!

Build an emergency toilet! We’ll have 50 free toilets to give away (first come, first serve). Learn what to do if the sewer lines have broken or if there is no water.

Prepared Communities — Learn more about the network of Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs and about the West Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs.

Prepared Families — Take some high impact, low-cost steps that can help your family and household make it through any situation.

Prepared Neighbors — Learn about the City of Seattle’s SNAP (Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare) program.

Prepared Pets — What steps can you take to make sure that your pet stays safe in a disaster?

Prepared Schools — Do you understand the “reunification process” that schools may implement following a disaster?

Smartphone Emergency Apps — Take steps before a disaster to download useful tools…many will function even without a cellphone signal. Do you know of other apps?

Utilities — Do you know when or if you should shut off utilities such as gas, water and electricity, and how to do so safely?

Water — Do you know how to properly store and purify water? Following the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, people were without running water for over a year.

This should provide a great opportunity for people who attended our “Is West Seattle Prepared?” events last fall to get more detailed information and hands on skills for preparedness. For those who were not able to attend, videos of those events were just completed and are available at the following links:

Introductory comments, October 7, 2018:
Glenn Farley, KING 5 News

Keynote Speakers, Nov. 3, 2018:
Dave Nichols, WS Resident, Certified Professional Emergency Manager and ShelterBox Response Team Member
Sandi Doughton, and author of “Full Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest”

Keynote Speakers, Oct. 7, 2018:
Ken Neafcy, WS Resident and Certified Professional Emergency Manager
Harold Tobin, Director, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. University of Washington Professor, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences

City of Seattle and King County Public Health – Role of Government in Disasters, Nov. 3, 2018:

Seattle Fire Department – Lt. Andrews, Station 29
Seattle Police Department – Lt. James Britt, SW Precinct.
Seattle Office of Emergency Management – Melanie Cole, Outreach and Training Specialist
King County Public Health – Carina Elsenboss, Preparedness Director

Skills Training, Nov 3, 2018

Scout Troop 282
What should be in your disaster kit
Water purification
Disaster Sanitation

MacGyver Tips – what you can do with a garbage bag.
Brian Nozynski

As for the rest of the Bee Festival – look for that preview Thursday!