Community Safety and Disaster Preparedness

Oh boy was this week awesome! This week we got to work with Rich Saito, a former San Jose Police Lieutenant and current JCCsj Disaster Preparedness Coordinator. Rich started the week off by asking us two simple questions: what is safety and what is preparedness. My answer for safety was obviously wrong in the sense that I answered what is preparedness. Rich told us that safety is the state of feeling safe, or feeling as if no harm can be placed upon you. Preparedness is being ready for for something that could happen in the future, or basically being ready for an event like an earthquake or tornado and knowing what to do Before, During, and After. I am not the best person at explaining things so I will stop and let the professionals inform you when you go to a preparedness class like the ones Rich hosts every year.
This week unfortunately I did not get many photographs, or good photos so using your imagination will take place of my photos. After Rich talked to us about safety and preparedness he took us to one of the main San Jose Fire Department Stations near downtown. We got to see the firetrucks and fire-engines (there is a difference) as well as where they eat and workout. This was awesome because the last time I got to take a tour of a fire station was when I was little. The firefighters told us ways that they would like us, the people to make their jobs easier; things like keeping hallways clear and clearly marking the utilities so that they can shut them off would be nice since it just makes life easier for them. I am being serious about keeping the hallways clear since if you need to be rescued and you have junk cluttering the hall and they can't get in quickly, you are only hurting yourself. Our tour was pretty brief but informative and fun, unfortunately they didn't let me slide down the fire pole...
After the fire station we went to the main SJPD station to meet with Captain Ciaborrow (sorry if your name is spelt wrong). The Cpt. talked to us about being safe and ways to prevent or deter crime in the area. Things like simply communicating with neighbors about suspicious activity does a lot at preventing crime. Also he talked to us about the fact that SJPD is getting smaller because of what the former mayor did (cut benefits) so many firefighters and police are leaving and going to better departments. San Jose is down to just around 800 police officers for a city of 1.1 million. Rich told me that response times have doubled due to the smaller police force. San Jose is such a big city with a large population, but is only being protected by less than one percent of the total population, thats great, I feel safer (sarcasm). As a criminology-law enforcement major I feel strongly about the safety of people and knowing that the police force is only getting smaller concerns me.
Anyways, on Wednesday we went on a ride along with Rich and drove around the city in an unmarked police car, patrolling like real police officers. Fortunately or unfortunately nothing interesting went on so the day was spent just driving around. I thought it was fun though since it gave me some insight about what one of my future career paths could be like.
In all this week was fun, just because I got to meet with people who are in law enforcement and public safety and since that is my future career goal I was able to gain valuable information from very important people.

-Alec Matsumoto 7/17/2015