Why, yes, I am avoiding work. My job this week is to facilitate layoffs of my co-workers and friends, so I hate myself and my job.
Here’s a four-part poll:
What is the most likely disaster to strike the place where you live?
What disaster is less likely but still worrisome?
What preparations have you made for such a disaster?
If you’ve made no preparations, why not?
Answering my own questions:
Tornado.
Earthquake.
Mrs. Rhymer and I have stockpiled supplies of food, water, & meds to last up to a week; we have agreed on two different persons outside the area to contact in the event a disaster strikes when we are not together; we have a designated place to rendezvous if the house is destroyed while we are parted.
Bug-out kit in truck, emergency kits in classroom and at home, at least 30 days supply of food, medicines, cat food, etc. on hand at all times, enough weaponry to outfit a small 3rd World country, training in disaster management (me) and medicine (the wife’s an RN).
You betcha. Earthquake/fire, like silenus and for the same reason. There’s something like a 70% chance of a major earthquake in my area in the next 30 years. Having small(er) earthquakes helps me remember to update the supplies and continue adding to them. This year I added a small shovel for digging a latrine.
I also have kits in my car (including walking shoes, warm clothing, blankets, maps and water) and at work so I can walk home (I’m assuming all the overpasses and bridges will be down).
1: Earthquake
2: Explosions / Fire / Hazmat release from nearby refineries or military weapons depot
3: We’d be OK for a few days on a seal-and-shelter-in-place at home with the food in our pantry and freezers. 50 gallons of fresh, hot water is available in the garage. There’s also a few gallons of room-temp bottled water. Fortunately, shelter-in-place is usually an atmospheric issue, and utilities will probably not be affected.
The evacuation scenario involves a 100-mile drive to where our RV is stored. This is distant enough that fresh water and power is probably available at that location.
Coordinated Terrorist attack/nuclear first strike.
Significant Natural disasters are not typical of this area. There have been some fairly severe Nor’easter storms, generally the worst these do is knock out power but even those do not usually affect services overall very much.
We keep our canned goods current, and have some water in the event of a water outage (NYC uses a positive pressure water system, no pumps, so the water stays on when the power is out. I have never experienced a water outage in my lifetime) We also have a basic first aid kit which we keep current, non flame light sources, candles, and a hand-crank/solar radio.
They keep threatening that the local active volcano could blow and while it’s spewing lava and ash, it could also trigger an earthquake and a tsunami so that three happened at once. But that probably won’t happen.
no
Because I’m kind of lame. I keep meaning to get around to it, but then something else comes up.
Food and essentials for three weeks minimum. Very extensive medical kit.
Landfall-imminent plan for: drinking water, gasoline, and evacuation.
Bug-out bag and smaller medical kit in car, with cash and xeroxes of important documents.
Tree saw, machete, prybar, tool kit, visquine, tarps and ropes for storm damage.
Playing cards and poker chips, Scrabble and backgammon for our traditional storm tournaments.
Around here? Everybody has a storm plan. Whether it’s good or crappy or downright foolish, everybody’s got a plan.
Earthquake, with the danger level heightened by lack of adherence to building codes, limited public resources for dealing with an emergency, and bad traffic)
Civil unrest
Several things:
a) We have a “grab and go” folder in the safe that includes emergency cash, passports, and (in past times of real concern, not at the moment) open plane tickets to Singapore.
b) We could live for quite a while (I’m guessing a month, easy) on the non-perishable food supplies in our house, even without electricity or running water. (Having a pool is nice, because we would be able to flush toilets for a while.)
c) We have all basic first aid supplies stocked.
d) We have a flashlight in every room of the house.
e) On my list of things to do is to put together a bag, to be kept near the door, that would have backpacks for each family member containing passport copies,small flashlight, a bit of cash, a bit of food and water, change of clothes/jacket, and a few first aid supplies.
f) We have a couple of meeting points established that we will try to get to (actually, we don’t anymore, but by this evening we will - thanks for reminding me) in the city in case we are separated as a family and all communications are out
pretty much n/a, but to the extent that there are weaknesses in the above (haven’t checked the flashlight batteries lately or actually put the bag together), it’s just like everything else on my to-do list; life is busy and I don’t get everything done as fast or well as I might like.
Nothing really. We don’t have real earthquakes or tornados or anything like that and there is nothing really dangerous nearby. In the city center by the river they have semi-regular harmless but annoying floodings - on the hills where I live, not so much. So I have only the usual background risk of things like fire, plane crash or meteor strike.
We have some bottled water and enough canned/dry food to last a few days.
Mostly laziness combined with a sense that “it won’t happen to me” even though I’ve been working on my church’s disaster preparedness committee so I should know better.
Flooding, tsunami, chemical spill, and being a major port, terrorist attack
None other than making sure my flashlights work
I’ve got all my camping gear (stove, etc.) so I would be fine for awhile. I have a friend who’s got a whole basement full of food that would probably feed 20 people for a week so I would hike over there if need be.
Meh, I’m fairly prepared. I’ve got enough food, water and prescriptions to last me a month, minimum (then I go shopping for more). Flashlights, candles, a fireplace. I also depend on the assistance of my neighbors, and I’m ready to lend a hand as well. I have a chainsaw, assorted handsaws, axes, hatchets, and a maul, a hoist, come-alongs, hydraulic and mechanical jacks. I have an assortment of eight shovels, 3 kinds of picks, and a half-dozen hoes. There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. We’re ready to hack and dig our way out of anything that doesn’t kill us. I have 50-100 lbs of charcoal and a half-cord to two cords of firewood on hand at any time. My drinking water might run out if we lose electric for too long, but about 75% of my neighbors have generators and will be happy to share their well water with me - just bring containers over and fill’em up! I have more than enough gasoline in the vehicles and gas cans to share if need be, although there are several small or midsized farms around with tanks on-site up to a couple hundred gallons. My neighbors are familiar with my house and know where to look for my body if the house is destroyed. There are a couple of neighbors who are RNs. My next door neighbor is armed heavily enough to push back a major zombie invasion. If we ever got into something longer than a month, he’s a hunter. Luckily for me, he doesn’t like to deal with the animal after the kill, so I can offer my knives and butchering services in trade for a leg or something.
I’m not kidding about my neighbors. They’re great. After our last tornado, everyone was helping everyone else. When the storm let up enough to go outside - it was still blowing over 50 mph and pouring rain, but I couldn’t see the house next door, and I wasn’t sure if it was still there, so I went to check on them - and the guy from the other side of them came by to check on them too. Their house was damaged, but their barn was GONE. Then we all started looking for the missing horse (we found him and he was fine although the barn had blown away around him).
55 gallon drum full of stuff. 24l of water in the freezer. Lots of canned food. Always keep the truck full of fuel, and have at least 10G in cans in the garage
Two bug out bags. Wow, till this thread I did not realize how well prepaired I was!!
1. What is the most likely disaster to strike the place where you live? Prairie blizzard
2. What disaster is less likely but still worrisome? I’m in northern North Dakota. Winter happens, but not much else.
Maybe a tornado could ruin my day, but one big enough to do more than superficial damage is unlikely. Anything else and we’re wandering into the realm of bad fiction. The Yellowstone Caldera asploding. Captain Trips. Zombies. I suppose it is remotely possible that the local Air Force base could get nuked. Actually, given the local AFB’s last few inspections, it’s not-very-but-slightly possible that an errant ICBM is one step higher on the “possible” list than a tsunami, and one step lower than an F5 tornado.
3. What preparations have you made for such a disaster? Common sense, "winter weather gear (blanket, candles, water, non-perishable food, first aid kit) in the well maintained vehicles, and water, a very well stocked pantry and alternative (non-electric) heat source in the house. Chainsaw, woodpile, gas, diesel, tractor, guns, front-loader, etc, are just “how we live” and I forget they are also “survival gear.”
Severe storms, up to and including tornadoes - we had one miss my home by about 2 or 3 blocks a couple weeks ago. That would also include blizzards in winter.
Um… earthquake? We had one in April, but it didn’t do any damage but there is historical precedent to be affected by a Big One.
Chemical spill from either the refineries around here or from the hazmat shipping by road and truck that goes through here.
Downwind of a couple nuclear power plants
For storms, we have many battery-powered lights and one oil lamp that can light up an entire room. For winter, we have many blankets and can close off all but one room of the place and use body heat to help keep warm. We have styrofoam coolers and “space blankets” to keep things like milk cool enough to be safe for a day or so. The house is well insulated - it could easily remain habitable, if chilly, for several days even in extreme cold.
With the recent tornado and accompanying power loss we did find that we hadn’t really prepared for cooling, but now have two battery powered fans. We also found our water preparation was inadequate. We have well water, so when power goes out, so does the pump. While we can get into the tanks (well head reserve, water heater) doing so makes restarting the system awkward at best. Our upstairs nieghbor “helped” by repeatedly flushing her toilet (“THERE’S NO WATER PRESSURE! TRY IT AGAIN!”) until the entire building system was drained. Next time, when the power goes we shut the water OFF and ration it, and the hung-over biker chick upstairs can just bitch in her own stink… but I digress. Toilet flushing was an issue, but we were able to get water for a couple flushes a day from other sources. I’m considering storing water, but space is an issue. I do have more empty containers, so next time it looks that threatening I’ll try to fill 'em up while power is on. Our freezer stuff remained frozen for 40+ hours, but we pitched the refrigerator stuff just to be on the safe side.
I have quite a bit of food in the house, a couple week’s worth if we stretch it, and much of it could be eaten without cooking, although a hot meal does wonders for morale. With the garden going at full tilt we have a LOT of food - we’ll just get tired of cucumbers, beans, and turnips. We also have food for the pets, and the husband usually has several weeks of his meds on hand. If he had to, he could go a couple days without though obviously it’s better if he doesn’t. We have a lot of first aid supplies.
I keep the vehicles at least half full of gas at all times. For the car, that could enable us to drive 150-200 miles before needing refueling, enabling us to relocate, or simply drive on necessary trips for a couple weeks around the local area. In winter there are survival kits in the back of each, just in case someone gets stranded on the road, as well as battery-powered light and CB’s to call for help on. We also have cellphones. Both radios and phones can be powered by the vehicles.
I’ve consolidated the Important Identity Documents so if we ever have to Bug Out we can grab it and go.
Sort of not applicable, but additional things I’d like to do:
Perhaps obtain a small generator sufficient for well pump and freezer or heater (if it’s winter, we use nature’s freezer and run a heater. If it’s summer, we use nature’s heater and run a freezer). However, money is pretty much absent for such a purchase.
Better water storage. Although this time we were able to purchase ice and drinking water, and “borrow” enough toilet-flushing water, I’d like to handle it better next time.
Alternative cooking - my last grill died (I buy cheapos) and I just can’t justify buying another. Our stove was usable (had to light it with a match as the electric pilot was out, but no biggies) but it heats up the house - would have been nice to cook outside. A camp stove might be nice, but again, money is an issue.
Otherwise, we weren’t too bad off for having no power.
As for the “unlikely” disasters… earthquake is possible but unlikely. Storm preparations would probably serve us, unless the building collapsed, in which case food and water supplies might be the least of our problems, but the odds of a Big One in our lifetimes is (apparently) quite small.
Our local disaster planners seem to think it unlikely we’d be affected by a refinery accident. I had more concern when I commuted to Chicago as there was a refinery across the street from the train station I used. There was a “release” one day, but it was pretty minor and they hosed down all our vehicles before we got back from the city that day (and offered to pay for an additional car wash for anyone who wanted it).
We’re 70-80 miles from the nuke plants, which have modern containment buildings. We’re in a completely separate watershed. I don’t perceive a huge risk there, either.
The final piece in my “disaster” kit would be a Bug Out kit. It doesn’t feel like high priority, as our most likely problems would lead us to stay put at home, with time to assemble necessities if conditions deteriorate. However, I feel true preparedness would have the Bug Out kit, or at least easily accessible pieces of one. A train derailment with hazardous materials could require evacuation.
What is the most likely disaster to strike the place where you live?
Nor’ easters. Horrendous traffic due to snow; people stuck in cars on highways for hours.
What disaster is less likely but still worrisome?
Nor’ easters. No power for up to a week.
What preparations have you made for such a disaster?
Little car emergency kits; coffee cup, candle, lighter, chocolate, whiskey, books
Hotel, books
If you’ve made no preparations, why not?
For other emergencies, our only plan is to drive northwest and try to stay in touch by cell phone, We don’t keep the house stocked, because in a serious emergency we would have no power, no way to cook, and frozen food would thaw and rot.
