"We can all joke about this on Monday, but until then this is a matter of life and death." -- Mike Bloomberg, Mayor NYC.

In 2009 I became interested in emergency preparedness and joined my local chapter of the Community Emergency Response Team or CERT. I was trained in first aid, search and rescue, incident command structure and saw the inside of New York's massive OEM command center, with Wargames-style giant map screens and the whole bit. And now I have front row seats to Irene.

I just spent six hours with other CERT volunteers and NYC city workers helping set up my local hurricane shelter, hundreds of cots, a first aid station, pet care facilities, and two tractor trailer trucks full of boxes of MREs and water to unload. I am sore and tired and the weekend's just getting started. They are expecting around 300 people at this facility and there's 60 shelters set up so far, some bigger and some smaller, with enough room for everyone in the evacuation zones.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going back to assist some more. They're pretty understaffed there, although everyone's doing the best they can. Each shelter can open up additional nearby schools and so forth as needed, as it gets near capacity.

The shadow of Katrina looms very large over this storm and NY is determined to handle this a lot better (although just about anything is better than what happened in 2005). Even still, like any large effort of this kind there's bureaucratic snafus, etc, and staffing problems, but it makes me feel pretty good to be able to participate in this kind of thing.

This thing is also going to hit Philadelphia, Boston, etc. pretty hard and I haven't seen much about the preparedness efforts in those cities. If you're in the path of this thing, be safe, get a few days worth of food and water together, and sit tight. Be safe everyone.