If I Had An Emergency Preparedness Icon, I'd Be Using It
So.
I've lived in California: The Apocalypse State for well over a decade now. I am a transplant. I moved out to So Cal *after* the Northridge quake, so yesterday's "small earthquake (as Kate Hutton called it), was my first significant quake. (Sure there was that first 3 point something bigger than 4 that woke me up in the first year or two that made me wait until 6 am east coast time to call mom and tell her I'd survived the first one, but that doesn't count. How do I know it doesn't count? When I go through a 3.something these days, I usually don't even both to check usgs to see if it was a quake or a truck going by.)
Yesterday's quake was the real deal. Complete with me thinking "Hey, you know, the building was moving this way, but now it's hey, no fair! You're not supposed to feel like a plane landing on a snowy runway and skiing to the side, damn it! Do not mix my weather metaphors!"
It is an excellent reminder to update your earthquake/other disaster preparedness kits (which I will do tomorrow, which is pay day).
But it's also a chance for the government and our private infrastructure to do the same.
NPR this morning is telling me that the big lesson from yesterday is that our phone system can't handle the surge that happens after an earthquake. All the reports are coming in that the phone companies has not anticipated a surge that big.
To which my brain says WTF? Seriously? Have you people *met* Angelino/s? We don't go food shopping without being on the phone? What did you seriously think people were going to do?
As soon as the shaking stopped, I made a quick call to my mother back east because she is not a computer person and I know what the media does. (National news and out of market news headlines tend to be "Major Temblor Shakes Los Angeles!" No detail about the epicenter, not that Mom would know where Chino Hills was relative to where I live. No detail about Kate Hutton calling it a small earthquake. Plenty of photos of the stores where everything fell off the shelves without any info for my mom that those stores are 25 miles from where I live.)
Yes, it always helps to educate people that text messages are a better bet for those who can use them to leave phone lines open for emergency calls.
But people panic. People want to reach out and make sure their pets/friends/family are okay, and they are going to call people.
How, I ask you, could a phone company *underestimate* call volume in a cell phone culture?
I think it's less underestimation and more didn't want to spend the money.
:;headdesk::
I've lived in California: The Apocalypse State for well over a decade now. I am a transplant. I moved out to So Cal *after* the Northridge quake, so yesterday's "small earthquake (as Kate Hutton called it), was my first significant quake. (Sure there was that first 3 point something bigger than 4 that woke me up in the first year or two that made me wait until 6 am east coast time to call mom and tell her I'd survived the first one, but that doesn't count. How do I know it doesn't count? When I go through a 3.something these days, I usually don't even both to check usgs to see if it was a quake or a truck going by.)
Yesterday's quake was the real deal. Complete with me thinking "Hey, you know, the building was moving this way, but now it's hey, no fair! You're not supposed to feel like a plane landing on a snowy runway and skiing to the side, damn it! Do not mix my weather metaphors!"
It is an excellent reminder to update your earthquake/other disaster preparedness kits (which I will do tomorrow, which is pay day).
But it's also a chance for the government and our private infrastructure to do the same.
NPR this morning is telling me that the big lesson from yesterday is that our phone system can't handle the surge that happens after an earthquake. All the reports are coming in that the phone companies has not anticipated a surge that big.
To which my brain says WTF? Seriously? Have you people *met* Angelino/s? We don't go food shopping without being on the phone? What did you seriously think people were going to do?
As soon as the shaking stopped, I made a quick call to my mother back east because she is not a computer person and I know what the media does. (National news and out of market news headlines tend to be "Major Temblor Shakes Los Angeles!" No detail about the epicenter, not that Mom would know where Chino Hills was relative to where I live. No detail about Kate Hutton calling it a small earthquake. Plenty of photos of the stores where everything fell off the shelves without any info for my mom that those stores are 25 miles from where I live.)
Yes, it always helps to educate people that text messages are a better bet for those who can use them to leave phone lines open for emergency calls.
But people panic. People want to reach out and make sure their pets/friends/family are okay, and they are going to call people.
How, I ask you, could a phone company *underestimate* call volume in a cell phone culture?
I think it's less underestimation and more didn't want to spend the money.
:;headdesk::