Re: Y2K & Cohousing
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 11:13:59 -0600
The best effect of Y2K meetings and published materials here on the 
Olympic Peninsula of Washington has been increased consciousness of 
disaster preparedness in general. This is not misplaced, as we are in an 
area with significant danger of a large earthquake (and very little 
consciousness of that, compared to California, where I used to live) as 
well as being vulnerable to power outages in winter time-- we have 
several each winter, and they can last several days, even with nothing 
worse than a storm to blame. So it is a good thing that people are 
getting to know their neighbors, learning where their shut-off valves 
are, taking First Aid, and checking their pantries. We are also heavily 
reliant on the Hood Canal Bridge, which has been out of service in the 
past, and will be again, inevitably. 

As cohousing, we are already ahead of the game, in knowing our  community 
neighbors, feeling free to borrow from each other and ask for help if 
needed, knowing who might have special needs. 

A project I am working on would give our community a job in our greater 
area. I learned that the Red Cross is always short of trained Shelter 
Managers. A public school building near us is a likely Shelter, with 
back-up power and heat, and construction likely to survive an earthquake. 
I am working to get a group from our cohousing project to take the 
shelter-managing training together, and make a group commitment to staff 
the school-shelter at a certain level, if needed. The training is 
probably the same in your area too, with a self-study video, then a few 
evenings of class. The local organizer said if we got 10 participants, 
they'd run the class for us, and adapt the schedule to our preferences. 

This can be valuable community building for your group, and a good 
resource for your larger community, and a way to contribute the skills 
you have. Probably could get you an article on your community in your 
local newspaper, too, for that matter. 

Our common house is not built yet, but we are surely going to have a 
non-electric heat source, propane cooking and heat, so that would make it 
a gathering place in an outage.

 We are on city water, but also have a well for our gardens. We are 
looking into what it would take to use a generator to pump water from our 
well, if city water were unavailable or unsafe, in an emergency. 
Something called a "transfer switch", which costs some hundreds of 
dollars, seems to be needed, to use a generator on a system which is 
already hooked up to the regional power grid. 

Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA
where we are working on a 2-lot deal with Habitat for Humanity

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