PPS-Safety

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”

– Plato (427-347 B.C.)

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I spent the morning in a 77,000-man tent city that was occupying what used to be a country club golf course. The irony of the once manicured lawns now housing Haiti’s most desperate was not lost on me.

To describe what a tent city is like is next to impossible, at least for me and my limited literary skills. The heat was unbearable as we struggled up hill after hill making our way down tiny alleys between the makeshift dwellings constructed of plastic tarps, dirty sheets, and sticks. Children played in the filth and dust as parents sold packs of gum or candy in front of their “tents”. Inside, behind the plastic, were the family’s entire possessions; a mud-covered mattress, a handful of dented pots, and some soiled blankets.

The smell of rotting garbage, urine, and human and animal feces all combined in the baking Haitian sun to form an oder like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime. Flies picked at my face and body until I couldn’t take it anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to think about were the flies had just come from. The children smiled but the adults mumbled the same pleas for help over and over, reaching out to you with dirty, emaciated fingers trying to touch your arm to get your attention. This is a degree of misery that I’ve never seen before, and have vowed to not soon forget. No words that I can craft are capable of describing the human suffering witnessed today.

Written by Eric on 20 Feb 2010: Reused Here with His Permission Read more from Eric at his blog, “Zen Traveler”.

Many of the tenets of survival and self preparedness could, and I’m sure are being exampled from the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. We all need to look up this event and consider “would I be ready if something similar happened to me?”. What would you do if a massive earthquake or hurricane the size of Katrina interrupted your life? What if a wildfire or nuclear plant meltdown caused you to evacuate and relocate your family on a moments notice? Would you be ready for the challenge? Could your family endure without massive outside intervention? How long would it be before that intervention arrived with assistance?

Do you have the basic necessities in a back pack or foot locker to survive the initial period, until help arrives?

A little pre-planning may save your life and the life of your family…

Find an Emergency Preparedness Pack Here.

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Small size multiple functions and affordability are what make the UFO Alarm a great home and personal protection tool.

On location, you would never guess this UFO is an alarm at all. Measuring 2.5 inches wide, it is available in mint green, soft pink, silver, black, sky blue and white. The UFO Alarm boasts and ear-piercing 120 dB siren and super-bright LED flashlight.

Minimal assembly is required. It comes with a mini screw driver so you can install the included 12-volt Battery and keychain attachment. Reassemble the alarm and use it as a burglar alarm, door/window alarm, drawer/cupboard alarm, personal alarm or use the light to find your keys or unlock your house. Included is a load of accessories for the different functions as well as in depth picture tutorials for using the UFO Alarm.

Patented and innovative design allows the alarm to be armed from the outside using the alligator clip and rubber shim.

Finally, the price is what makes this alarm so appealing. This six-function home and personal alarm is available for $35.00. This is great news for someone that doesn’t want to have the money to spend on a professional alarm system or monthly monitoring fees. My wife loves taking this alarm along with her on business trips now. She uses it in her hotel room at night and when she goes to the hotel gym early in the morning. This alarm combined with her favorite Pepper Spray keeps her safe while traveling.

View a Great Animation on How the UFO Alarm Works!

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Picture yourself on a business trip in a city you’ve never been to. You are staying at a local hotel, nothing spectacular but not the worst you’ve ever seen, either. It is clean and adequate, but a little older, so it doesn’t have great security or locks, which doesn’t make you feel too safe.

You are ready to go to bed and feeling a little uneasy, but you put together a trap to foil any intruder. Your suitcase and the desk chair are wedged by the hotel room door so they will at least slow down any intruder, and you take a wooden hanger from the closet and jam it into the window track and use it as a pin so that the window (hopefully) can’t be opened. You struggle to get some sleep before your big meeting in the morning, but you are up and down all night, with every little noise, checking the door and window.

Let’s look at this situation again but include a personal alarm. The 130db personal alarm can be used on any door. It has a unique clip that has dual contacts on it. While the contacts are touching, there is no noise. The instant that the contacts are moved apart - such as when someone attempt to open the door - the alarm will sound piercingly sufficient to wake up anyone in the area. An alarm this loud will also do another thing: since most intruders don’t want to call attention to themselves, the alarm will usually cause the intruder to flee.

In addition to keeping you safe in your hotel room, the personal alarm is small enough (like a pager) to carry with you and use if you are in an unsafe situation. You can set the alarm in such a way that all you need do is pull the pin on it when you need to draw attention to yourself.

This may be one of the most important self-defense tools you ever buy. It is dependable, effective and affordable. It is also much more lightweight than your suitcase and a hotel chair to keep you safe. Don’t leave your safety to chance.

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Here are a few travel tips to remember:

1) Traveling Internationally:

a. Register with the U.S. State Department upon arrival into any new country (this will allow you to be contacted in case of an emergency at home or in case of a crisis in the country you’re visiting)
b. Make sure someone has your itinerary

2) Medical:

a. Keep your medications with you. Don’t put them in your luggage. Always pack enough for your entire trip.
b. Know where the nearest medical facilities/hospital is where you are traveling.

3) Airport:

a. Never leave your bags unattended
b. Carry your purse close to your body and your wallet in a front pocket

4) Hotel:

a. Keep your door locked at all times while in the room
b. Verify visitors by using the door viewer and call the front desk to ask them if they sent anyone up if you have an unannounced guest.
c. Become familiar with emergency exits
d. Keep valuables in the room safe

5) BE AWARE:

a. Being aware of your surroundings is one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself safe.
b. If something seems unusual or out of place, it probably is……..Trust your instincts.

* Always carry a Personal Alarm, Whistle or other attention getting devise with you .

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The police in Mumbai would not shoot, and the photographer wishes he had a gun. For those who do not know, firearms licenses are very difficult to obtain in India.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article14086308.ece

Mumbai photographer: I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back
Jerome Taylor talks to the photographer whose picture went around the world
Saturday, 29 November 2008

It is the photograph that has dominated the world’s front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India’s most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D’Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city’s Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. “I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn’t get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by,” he said. “They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but theydidn’t seem to care.”

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D’Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. “I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said.

“With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

“Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop,” he recalled. “The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down.”

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D’Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. “I couldn’t believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn’t run, we told them to stay put.”

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D’Souza added: “I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.”

There is no reason to deny people the human right of self defense - ever.

A gunman walks at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals and a crowded train station in coordinated attacks across India’s financial capital, killing people, taking Westerners hostage and leaving parts of the city under siege Thursday, police said. A group of suspected Muslim militants claimed responsibility.

AP / Photo By SEBASTIAN D’SOUZA

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If the truth be known, there are only one or two hotels in every third-world city where westerners and high-value locals stay or do business in. Clients prefer to stay in the nicest hotel that the city offers and often wrongly assume that because it’s relatively luxurious or a known U.S. chain that it must be secure. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Hey, this is the hotel that the U.S. Embassy uses for its guests, so it has to be safe”. This is faulty logic and lazy protection in my view.

Some consideration should be given to staying in second tier establishments and remaining relatively hidden and low-key. All of these hotels have some semblance of security and the adroit protector can vastly augment that with a little planning and preparation. I contend that there is great security in staying away from the one or two fat, obvious targets in the city and keeping a low-profile. Sure the spa might not be state-of-the-art, but what are you really there for anyway?

This is what 1300 lbs of explosives packed into a truck will do to a building even with considerable stand-off. The photograph lends perspective when you’re doing your next hotel advance.

Written by Eric, and Reused Here with His Permission
Read more from Eric at his blog, “Zen Traveler”.

Authors note: This is the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad Pakistan the day after is was bombed.

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