Disaster

Whether it’s for a college applications or high school graduation requirements, nowadays kids everywhere are volunteering community service hours. On Monday, a group of boys were doing that very thing when they stopped by the Bayview Landing Senior Apartment Homes in Newport Beach to hand out disaster kits. Except they weren’t keeping a precise tally on hours for school credit; they were doing it just because. “It feels like more of an accomplishment than when you’re doing it for a job. When you’re working for the money,” said 15-year-old Nick McGuiness, a freshman at Corona del Mar High School.

Newport Beach Sunrise Rotary has answered the call from Rotary International to provide Haitians with desperately needed housing. Club President Tim Brown received a check for $5,000 that paid for five “Shelter Boxes,” emergency kits made by a United Kingdom-based nonprofit. “The club members individually truly stepped up and demonstrated the Rotary Way,” Brown said. The Rotary Clubs of Newport-Balboa and Newport-Irvine gave enough money to buy one Shelter Box each.

Editor’s Note: This week’s column and the next will describe how the Carnett family came to Newport-Mesa in 1942. When Hitler’s army invaded Poland in 1939, it precipitated the deaths of tens of millions. It also brought about the existence of millions who wouldn’t have been born otherwise. My mom and dad first met at Santa Ana Army Air Base in 1943, were married in 1944, and had their first child — me — in 1945. My maternal grandparents, William M. and Effie Fay Thomlinson, moved to Southern California from Coffeyville, Kan., in 1936.

Despite mankind’s supreme technological advances, we are still at the mercy of Mother Nature. The recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile shocked an already horrified world reeling from the earlier disaster in Haiti. Americans can be proud of the fact that both government agencies and private citizens have donated manpower, life-saving food, water and medical supplies and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Haitian relief fund. We are now stepping forward to assist Chile as well.

GET READY at the City’s Disaster Preparedness Expo The Huntington Beach Fire Department, coordinating with the Emergency Operations Center, is sponsoring a Disaster Preparedness Expo on Saturday, February 20 at the Central Library from 10:00 am-2:00 pm. Learn from experts what types of City resources are available, at this first of an annual event.  The event is free and will include fun and exciting demonstrations, information about local disaster volunteer organizations, disaster preparedness vendors (no sales only literature)

Despite a public outcry and the district attorney’s investigation into its recent activities, the Orange County Fairgrounds Board of Directors voted 5 to 1 Thursday to give Steve Beazley, the president and chief executive, a roughly $7,000 raise. Through his 5.17% merit raise, Beazley’s annual salary increased to $143,539. Trustee David Padilla cast the lone opposition vote. Trustee Mary Young was absent. “Our employees are on furlough, the CEO is supposed to act in looking out for the property, and I don’t feel that was done,” Padilla said.

Newport Beach residents learned basic first-aid techniques and grabbed freebies like small emergency kits Saturday at the city’s first Disaster Preparedness Expo. The event took place at the Central Library in honor of National Preparedness Month. “I hope this event will just make the community aware of what we have available to them,” said Newport Beach Fire Chief Steve Lewis. “Maybe some of the people here will realize ‘hey, I might not be prepared.

Imagine it’s in the middle of a hot, dry afternoon in the fall and the Santa Ana winds are in full effect. Firefighters are on their toes because it’s fire season when suddenly a massive earthquake rumbles thousands of feet below the city along the Newport-Inglewood fault line. Power lines fall, sparking fires in Bonita Canyon, and buildings are severely damaged or crumble. People everywhere are injured. Would you be prepared? That worst-case scenario is just what public safety officials want Newport Beach residents to be ready to survive, and are offering tips on how to do that Saturday at the Central Library, 1000 Avocado Ave., near Fashion Island.