Survival: Prepare Before Disaster Strikes. Barbara Fix

especially if you live in the city, while your emergency kit is stored uselessly in your basement. I rest my case.

      Emergency kits are meant to provide food, emergency shelter, communications (wind-up or battery-run radio) and basic medical supplies to get you past the initial confusion and gridlock that comes with a disaster. They are nothing less than a lifeline that will see you through a disaster until you’re able to make it home or to your getaway location safely. If you take prescription medicine, it is important to have extra medicine tucked away in your emergency kit. For those of you who commute or carpool to work, it is wise to keep an extra emergency kit at work.

      Time for an Escape Plan

      As reflected in the scenario presented at the beginning of this chapter, it is important to find out what the emergency plan for your child’s school is, or if applicable, their daycare. Will your child be evacuated to another location in the event of a weather related disaster, or an earthquake, or a terrorist attack? If so, find out where that location is. Ask if you will be allowed to pick up your child and if you can appoint a designated contact person to pick them up in the event you are unable to reach them yourself. If so, be sure to give the school or daycare their name and give your signed consent to your contact person.

      Select an alternate designated contact person who lives outside your immediate area who is unlikely to have experienced the same emergency as your location. If for any reason you become separated from a member of your family or group, and landline and cellular service is operable, the designated person can relay messages to help calm any fears over the safety of those missing.

      Having just discussed designating a phone contact, it is important that you do not rely on your cell phone’s storage capabilities to access emergency contact numbers (more on this later on in the chapter under When Communications Fail). Here’s where nagging is perfectly acceptable. Make sure everyone has the designated person’s phone number written down and available at all times. Unfortunately, procrastination is a fact of life for many of us, but procrastination does not get along well with a crisis.

      If your area takes a direct hit in a disaster, it is possible your neighborhood will be under evacuation orders. If this occurs, police and military personnel will be evacuating people out of the area and you may find yourself unable to get past roadblocks. Most of us have watched newscasts of residents forced out of their homes during a wildfire. And we’ve seen those same residents arguing with authorities to let them return. To my knowledge, none of them came out the victor. This situation highlights why you must have an emergency kit available for each member of your family or group.

      You should select an alternative meeting place, away from home, in the case of evacuation. Each member must be familiar with the chosen location and a dry run, much like a fire drill, should be practiced. If things go wrong during the exercise, you’ll have plenty of time for re-do’s.

      Familiarize Yourself with Breakers & Shut-Offs

      If you’re woken in the middle of the night to mayhem; grab a flashlight (always keep one at your bedside) to make a home inspection. If you have natural gas lines running into your home, never flip on a light switch or use a candle or a lighter to inspect your home. This can be the vector to ignite built-up gas fumes.

      Here’s an example: in the 80’s, two men from the gas company were sent to inspect a gas leak in a derelict building. Most of the bare light bulbs in the hallway of the building had been broken out; so one of the men flicked his Bic lighter. The result made him a candidate for the Darwin Awards.

      Natural gas has an odorant added to it so it is easily detected. Natural gas must have the right concentration of fumes for it to be life threatening, but don’t risk it! If you detect a gas leak, get everyone outdoors, pronto, and keep the door open on the way out to let the dangerous fumes escape.

      If you have propane appliances or a heating system, it is important to understand that unlike natural gas, propane is heavier than air, and does not dissipate into the air as readily as does natural gas. The same rules apply for a propane leak as they do with natural gas—get everyone outdoors, leaving the door open. Propane will settle to the lower levels of your home such as the floor, a basement, or crawl space and it will take longer to clear out of living spaces.

      Familiarize yourself with the location of your natural gas or propane shut-off, and in the event of a leak, turn it off immediately. Propane will have a service valve on the tank, whereas natural gas shut-off valves are located on the meter, which is typically installed outside against the foundation of the house, but this can vary. In the event of a leak, turn the valve to the off position.

      Some emergencies require turning off the power to your home at the electrical panel. Circuit breakers are typically behind an easily identifiable panel. Every member of the family old enough to be of help in a crisis should be taught about utility shut-offs to your home.

      Water main shut-offs aren’t always as easy to find, especially in older homes where they can be buried in an obscure corner of a basement or crawlspace. I speak from experience. Having just finished renovations on a Victorian home, I was showing off the years of hard work to my brother and sister-in-law. Suddenly the wall in the entryway began to spout water (reminding me about the consequences of pride). It looked as if someone had turned on a showerhead at full force as water gushed down the stairway and onto the foyer. My brother ran to the netherworlds of the 1890-era basement to look for the water shut-off with the spiders and the other creepy-crawlies, and my sister-in-law and I began frantically sweeping the worst of the flood out the front door and onto the frozen veranda.

      Ten minutes later, the torrent had only grown stronger as it blew out the newly installed drywall and I ran for the phone to call the fire department—hey, plumbers can take hours to reach—when we heard a muffled voice calling triumphantly from below; “Found it!”

      It turned out the water shut-off was hidden in a crawlspace, tucked away from the finished basement where a century’s worth of old doors and trim lay. My advice is to take the time to find out where your water shut-off is located now, before an emergency, so you won’t be floundering in the dark wondering if you’ll ever find it.

      When You Are the Fireman

      You should purchase several ABC fire extinguishers for emergencies. Why specifically an ABC model? They use monoammonium phosphate, designed to put out liquid fires, combustible material fires, as well as electrical fires. So cover your bets with an all-inclusive extinguisher.

      Remember, your local fire department may not be able to reach you in the case of fire or other emergencies during a full-blown crisis. Landline and cell phone coverage may be down or jammed. With the use of candles, oil lamps, and cooking with an unfamiliar heat source during a power outage, the possibility of fire increases.

      If your home has a fire-burning devise such as a woodstove or fireplace you will need chimney fire retardant in case of a chimney fire. If the chimney flu hasn’t been cleaned recently, it should be checked for creosote buildup. Make sure your wood heat stove or wood cook stove has a protective, non-flammable barrier installed behind and under them such as cement board, sheet metal, or ceramic tile.

      Keep Your Car Emergency Ready

      It is important to keep your gas tank as full as possible for reliable transportation in the event of a crisis. Gas pumps may be inoperable due to power outages, and even when the grid is working, the pumps will soon run out of gasoline. Any auto repairs that have been put off should be addressed as soon as possible. Be sure you have a dependable spare tire and keep a can of Fix-A-Flat or something similar on hand. The donut tires supplied with newer cars are not meant for long drives, and they certainly aren’t designed for the off-road driving you may find yourself having to perform when navigating around stalled cars. Keep extra motor oil, jumper cables, a jack, lug wrench, a basic toolkit, and a battery-run air pump stored in your car. You’ll find a suggested list at the end of this chapter

      Keep important documentation accessible: Birth certificates, last will and testament, health insurance documentation, health records, inoculation records, marriage certificate,