Category Archives: Emergency Preparedness

An element of the Foundational area in which the most basic short-term needs are planned for under a variety of potential emergency situations.

Lessons from Japan

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I haven’t written anything about the Japanese earthquake so far. It seems almost mean-spirited to try to and find things they did wrong. The biggest lesson, really, is this: Sometimes it just doesn’t matter what you do.

I’m sure there were people who were prepared. They may have had a significant reserve of staples and emergency gear. But the quake hit in the mid-afternoon, when many of them were away from home. The tsunami followed the earthquake so quickly that unless they had emergency supplies with them (a car kit, perhaps), they wouldn’t have much chance of getting to them.

Afterward, even assuming their homes were still intact, much of what they had would likely have been ruined, washed away, or contaminated. Most of them would just be thankful to be alive–entire towns weren’t even that lucky.

No, the Japanese who would benefit most from home storage and emergency preparation would be those outside the tsunami zone and in other parts of Japan. With rolling blackouts and severe shortages, there will be many caught without adequate reserves. It may be weeks or months before their lives return to normal.

One emergency preparation step that cannot be emphasized enough, however, is having a communication and meet-up plan should families be separated or cut off. With the quake coming when it did, I’m sure quite a few families were forced to evacuate without knowing where all their members were.

With communications so severely interrupted it would be quite some time before families would be able to contact each other. Having a set meeting point would become vital. Having set family members outside the area they would all know to contact as soon as they could would help get connect families more quickly.

There will be many lessons to learn from the Sendai quake. The biggest is probably this: plan for the worst–and then imagine worse, and plan for that.

Emergency preparedness for your pet

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Many people know about 72-hour kits and have them for themselves and their family in case of an emergency evacuation. But what about your pet? Are you prepared to take care of your pet if you are forced to leave your home for several days? They need an emergency evacuation kit as well. Some things to consider:

– Food: This is most obvious, and easily arranged. Ziploc bags with enough food for several days can be prepared quite easily.
– Bathroom: This can be a little more difficult to manage, but there are a few options.
– Dogs: Keep a good supply of plastic bags (grocery bags or smaller-size garbage bags) handy to serve as “pooper scoopers”. Additionally or alternately, a stack of old newspapers can also come in handy.
– Cats: A low box with the top removed, or a plastic paint roller tray, filled with an inch or two of litter can work in a pinch. Keep the litter in a ziplock bag right along with the container and you’re ready to go.
– Medicine: If you pet takes any regular medicine or other treatments, keep a small supply set aside for emergencies.
– Comfort items: Retired toys or blankets that they are familiar with can help them feel more at home in unfamiliar surroundings and give them something to do.
– Shelter: Keep a pet carrier of the appropriate (or larger) size handy to grab if you need to evacuate. Most pets deal better with unfamiliar situations or places when confined in a familiar carrier. Other people where you evacuate will also appreciate you keeping your pet controlled.
– Spare leash: Keep a leash handy for taking your pet for walks when permitted.

Your pet is like one of your family, yet can far too often be overlooked when making emergency preparedness plans. Take some time to make sure their needs are accounted for as well, and everyone will be much happier.

Practical Christmas gifts

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When I moved out on my own my parents gave me a going-away present; a basic tool kit, with a small hammer, tape measure, pliers, box knife, and a adjustable screwdriver. Those simple tools saw a lot of use. Though in the years since then my tool collection has grown considerably and I’ve gone through several larger toolboxes (and still don’t have one big enough), I still have some of those original tools. They were a godsend on many occasions.

I also picked up for myself a basic car safety kit. It’s contents have long since been scattered to the four winds, but I believe it included jumper cables, a tire pressure gauge, a small first aid kit, and some reflective hazard markers. I know the jumper cables at least came in handy–until I loaned them to someone and never saw them again.

I believe parents should consider giving one or both of these simple kits to their grown or near-grown kids. More importantly, they should make sure they know how to use each item in them.

I remember a time in college (stop me if I’ve told this story before) when our church group was heading from one activity to another. Along the way I noticed my tire had gone flat, so I pulled off into a nearby parking lot to change it. Pretty soon a fair number of girls from the group had stopped–initially to see if I was okay, and before long to watch me work. None of them had ever seen someone change a tire before and wanted to see how it was done.

As ego-boosting as that was for me, I can’t help but think that some fathers had been negligent in their duty. Possibly even more important than teaching their sons to change a tire would be teaching their daughters. The last thing I’ve ever want for my daughter, at any age, is for her to be stuck on the side of the road somewhere, all alone, unable to change a flat tire. As soon as she’s old enough to drive I intend to teach her that and a few other basic car repair/maintenance tasks.

And yes, I’ll teach my sons, too. If they’re anything like their dad, the automotive tinkering gene is recessive, and such things won’t just come naturally. They’ll need to know how to check the oil, jump the battery, check air pressure, etc. And they’ll need to know where the tool and emergency kits are in each vehicle. And when they do leave home, it’ll be with tool kits of their own.

Emergency dental care

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Does your dentist always send you home with a free toothbrush, a sample tube of toothpaste, and a sample spool of dental floss after each checkup like mine? What do you do with them? If you’re just throwing them away, make I recommend you put them into your emergency evacuation (72-hour) kit? If you ever need to evacuate for a time you’ll have brand new items, usually with more than enough of each to get you through the crisis. And it’s free (sort of)!

Roughing it – or not

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Last year our kids developed an interest in camping, so we thought we’d try it–in the back yard. They had a blast. We vowed never again. Of course time heals all wounds, or soothes all stiff muscles, and we tried it again last week. My conclusion? We are not ready to rough it. Or rather, we’re not prepared to make roughing it less rough.

For one thing, all we really have is a tent. The kids, who are young and flexible, sleep on blankets. We tried using an air mattress this last time, but it leaked, so by morning we were sleeping on the ground and in a banana shape. And, to be honest, sleeping isn’t entirely accurate for the waking-up-every-half-an-hour I did all night.

We need decent sleeping bags at the least. We had quilts, and it didn’t colder than the 60’s, but we were all chilled in the morning. Sleeping bags would likely have provided more padding than our blankets and quilts, too.

We need the means to cook outside. We ate all our meals in the house and only slept outside. We need a cook stove or something at the very least.

We had a couple flashlights, but nothing more than that. And that was rough enough, as our dog loves to chase flashlight beams. The mere presence of flashlights made her crazy and try to jump all over sleeping people. I’m hoping a good lantern would provide much better light without making the dog nuts. That may be too much to hope for.

There are, of course, lots of other little items and amenities that we would need were we to try camping completely independently of our home. Even if we never try camping in the wilderness, even if we had to live in an evacuation camp we’d be in pretty bad shape. The fact that we can’t even camp comfortably in our own back yard is probably a good sign we’re not quite prepared in that area.

 

Survival Tips from Popular Mechanics

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The weekend’s earthquake in Chile, following so closely on the heals of the Haiti quake and a lesser publicized quake in Japan, really emphasizes the importance of emergency preparedness. Popular Mechanics has been tackling this issue for awhile now, and has prepared a special section full of interesting articles. Go there to learn how to Survive Anything.

Glenn Reynolds, one of my favorite bloggers, has long been an advocate for emergency preparedness as well, and recently wrote this piece for Popular Mechanics.

 

It’s 10:00. Do you know where your personal records are?

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Keeping track of personal records is one area that is very important, but usually overlooked. Nothing makes this more clear than a house fire, but anyone who has ever applied for a mortgage has also experienced the panic that comes from not being able to find key papers that were “right there, I know it!” Or has even gone to the emergency room with a minor injury and had to admit you don’t remember when your last tetanus booster was.

Perhaps the most important step in preparing for emergencies is to locate the most critical documents and put them together in a single, easy to grab repository–a binder or small box, perhaps. This way you know what to grab if you ever need to evacuate your home in an emergency. But good management of personal records goes way beyond dealing with personal disasters. It’s an ongoing process that takes some time and effort to begin with, but becomes almost effortless the more you get into it.

Managing (including risk management of) personal records is a favorite topic of mine. I’m starting a series discussing it in more detail over at Taxidrivermom’s collaborative blog, The Knot in the Rope. Rather than post in two places, I’ll post each installment there, and link to it from here. Meanwhile, check out Knot in the Rope. It’s got a little of everything if you’re interested in personal preparedness and self-reliance.

 

Keeping sufficient gas in your car

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To continue on the theme of the last post a bit, I believe it was the same person who first taught me about disaster kits who told me that you should always keep at least half a tank of gas in your car at all times. The reasoning, he said, was that in an evacuation you don’t want to have to stop to fill up. Even if you are not in any physical danger at the moment, you could encounter long lines at the gas station of those who do need to gas up.

It’s better, he said, to keep at least half a tank in your car. That way you can drive quite a distance before you really do need to fill up, and that should usually be enough to get you out of the area of danger. Gas stations farther away will not be as busy, as well.

I have always tried to heed this advice, at least most of the time. But thinking back on it, is it really necessary? Is it over-thinking things? Like the disaster kit it’s something that doesn’t really make sense until suddenly it does. But then, how many disasters are going to require that you drive 100 or more miles to escape?

What do you think? Is keeping half a tank of gas in your car a sound practice, or just needless fuss?

Disaster Kits

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Some people may question whether or not you need to stockpile food and supplies enough for long periods of time, but very few will argue that you don’t need a disaster kit. Disaster kits are portable supplies of food, water, clothing, and other essentials to last about 72 hours, or three days. That is usually the amount of time it takes to restore basic services in the event of a disaster.

Disasters can take on many forms. For example, the area where we live is known to have earthquakes. There is also the possibility of severe winter storms. Add to that, we live about a quarter mile from a major road in one direction, a quarter mile from a rail line in the other direction, and about half a mile from a major freeway. We are also not far from several industrial areas. An accident resulting in a chemical or oil spill could easily result in our evacuation.

Of course unless a disaster is very large in scope very few will be in a position where they cannot simply go stay with friends or family. But even then, if you catch them unprepared it may be better to have at least some basic supplies for yourselves.

What goes in a disaster kit? A lot depends on you, but Jodi and Julie over at Food Storage Made Easy have a good page dedicated to the topic of disaster kits. They also discuss different approaches to getting a kit here. The main thing is to get one. We bought small plastic totes and put together a tote for each member of the family. Once a year we go through them and rotate the food and make sure the clothing still fits. We have three children, aged nine and under, so we should probably update our kits more often than that.

Waterproof things when you can. During one recent inspection we found that a can of liquid had rusted through and leaked into one tote, making a stinky, sticky mess. Several other items were ruined by the moisture. If it is absolutely essential that some items be dry (such as matches, candles, or important documents) it’s worth putting them in a sturdy zip-lock bag, or even sealing them in durable plastic with a vacuum sealer.

Another very important factor is location. Disaster kits should be stored where you can get at them quickly during or immediately following an emergency. If you had ten minutes to evacuate, would you be able to get everything you need into your family vehicle in time? Store your kits near the most likely escape route from your home. Ours, for example, are right next to our garage door. I can have them loaded in the back of our mini-van in the time it takes to get all the kids into the van and buckled in.

It’s true that disaster kits take time and money to maintain, but if you ever need them they will be valuable beyond estimation. Just ask anyone in New Orleans during Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami, or the Haiti earthquake. Three days of basic supplies can literally be the difference between life or death.