Page 2 - Sonoma County Gazette Juy 2019
P. 2

Dear Readers,
   Happy SUMMER! I was hoping to write about readers’ favorite picnic spots - I have a LIST! But quite honestly, preparing for fire season is just more important! There’s so much to LEARN and so much TO DO!.
ALSO incredibly important is inspiring people who want to enter bodies of water to KNOW how to SWIM! Elisabeth DeGoff researched every place to learn in Sonoma County. Find her list on page 21. It could save your life!
I am always amazed that people get into canoes and floating devices on rivers and lakes without life jackets and with no knowledge of how to swim
or save themselves in moving water. And that goes for playing in the surf at a beach as well. Don’t turn away from the surf is just ONE rule to keep in mind at all times! Romping in the waves can pull you under and out to sea faster than you can think. It happens every summer.
People assume that if the water is shallow they will be OK. We all hear that babies can drown in an inch of bath water, but we assume that since we are no longer helpless babies it can’t happen any more. Think again.
People drown every year, especially on rivers, and especially under the influence of mind-altering substances...like beer, which goes great with tubes, friends, and picnics. So please THINK before you go into water and LEARN to SWIM. Learning to SAVE people could be useful as well.
And then there’s emergencies. Not just FIRE. We had flood over the winter, fires everywhere last summer and fall, and we KNOW that just around the corner is the predicted EARTHQUAKE. It’s just a matter of WHEN...not IF.
 So GET READY. This Gazette has Part 1 of articles we are running to help you through the process of getting prepared for anything. And then
there’s everything else. Keep this issue around until you have read everything. It takes time to get ready for emergencies. Just DO it!
         2 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 7/19
























































































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