Disaster Tip of The Week: Learn How To Treat Water

After a disaster water is both extremely scarce and important to your survival. In some cases you may run low or even completely exhaust your supply of drinking water be things return to normal.

If this is the case you will need to know how to treat any available water before using it to cook, drink or brushing your teeth.

Here are some quick tips for treating water:

1. First, if you can't find clear water or the water is cloudy you should filter the water through clean clothes, towels or other cloth. If nothing is available to filter the water allow the water to settle and draw off clear water for boiling.
2. Next, if possible boil the water for one minute. Then allow it to cool and transfer to clean containers.
3. If you are unable to boil water, you can use house hold bleach (use only regular bleach, do not use scented or color safe bleach, these contain other chemicals that may be harmful) add 8 drops or 1/8 of a teaspoon for each gallon of water to be treated. Let stand for 30 minutes and then transfer to clean containers.

This should cover the basics but if you want more information see the links below which are PDF's from the EPA on the treatment of water.

EMERGENCY DISINFECTION OF DRINKING WATER

Desinfección de Emergencia del Agua Potable

DÉSINFECTION DE SECOURS DE L'EAU POTABLE

Red Cross Survey 1 in 5 Adults Going to Work With H1N1

A recent survey conducted by Caravan Opinion Research Corp. on behalf of the Red Cross, indicates that in one out of every five U.S. households, someone has gone to work or school when they were presumed to be sick with the H1N1 virus.

"People who have the flu should stay home from work or school to help prevent passing the illness on to someone else," Sharon Stanley, chief nurse of the American Red Cross, said in a statement.

"Each of us has the responsibility to be a good neighbor. To help keep others from becoming sick, do your part by washing your hands, sneezing into your arm, using hand sanitizer and staying home when ill."

The survey also shows that woman are taking the risk of becoming ill with the H1N1 virus more seriously than men.

For more see Red Cross Survey.

Flooding of Green River In Washington May Cause Disaster

As we are nearing the rainy season on the Northwest Coast officials are warning that flooding of the Green River located in King County, Seattle, Washington could leave about 800,000 residents without sewage treatment for months. 

County officials fear the river may flood because the Howard Hanson Dam upstream has been weakened, which according to the report may be due to over-development in the area.

China's Cyber warfare Capabilities Highlighted in Report to Congressional Commission

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report which was produced under contract by Northrop Grumman's Information Systems Sector highlights the Cyber warfare capabilities of China.

The report also includes basic information on China's capabilities to conduct other Unconventional Warfare such as EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attacks, using kinetic energy weapons against satellites, and its use of Laser dazzling to disable U.S. satellites.

Though the report focuses largely on China's cyber warfare capabilities, it does make the point of how the country plans to use the other means mentioned to dominate information warfare arena.

The report also mentions the collaboration between China's military and the private black-hat hacker community. This is not the first time this relationship has been written about as other reports have made mention of this relationship, and have spoken about how the Chinese hacking community feels that it is their duty to help wage this unconditional warfare.

According to the report here are some of the actual attacks through cyber warfare that have been conducted in recent years:

• In May 1998, anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia sparked a series of Chinese hacker attacks on multiple Indonesian Websites.
• Following the accidental bombing of the PRC embassy in Serbia in May 1999,
  Chinese hackers mounted their first large scale attack on the White House led
  by the group Javaphile according to one of its founding members, who uses
  the “screen name” CoolSwallow.
• The 1999 comments by then Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui that Taiwan
  deserved to be treated as an equal state by the PRC catalyzed massive PRC
  hacker attacks on the Taiwan National Assembly, Presidential Executive Office
  and many additional government Websites, according to Western press
  reports of the exchange.
• In May 2001, the Honker Union of China claimed that it had attacked over
  1,000 US Websites—approximately the same number that US hackers
  claimed they attacked in the PRC—following the collision between a US EP-3
  surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter.
• In 2001, following a large scale denial of service attack against the White
  House, the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party,
  issued an editorial in its online edition that decried the Chinese attacks as
  “Web terrorism,” and said that the attacks by the Honker Union of China on US
  Websites were “unforgivable acts violating the law," effectively withdrawing
  Beijing’s tacit and explicit support from the hacker groups’ campaigns.

The Loss of a Key Employee Can Be Devastating To a Business

Many businesses have Key Employees who are the only people responsible for specific duties, and often these are critical, core functions to the business. Often these employees will also have the only access to certain information that may be needed to perform some of these critical functions and operations.

The impact on the business after the loss of a key employee can be severe and can include but are not limited to the following:

• The distraction of other employees, resulting in missed opportunities and deadlines, deteriorating morale, and internal conflicts

•  The loss of confidence from employees, managers and financial backers of the business and can include both suppliers and customers

•  The business may suffer a weakening of their credit rating.

•  The financial cost (in time and dollars) to find, hire and train a replacement.

•  A need for immediate cash to fulfill promises made to the deceased employee's spouse or family, such as salary continuation or deferred compensation or other incentives promised.

• The business might also fail to capitalize on important business opportunities because cash reserves are being used to recruit and train the new employee(s) or pay out compensation.

Fortunately there are a number of things you can do to mitigate these issues the first of which is consider key employee insurance. Documenting the processes acurately that the Key Employee is responsible for is another.