When Disaster Strikes, What Do You Need?

Updated 11/1/07

With the Calaveras Fault shaking the Bay Area with a 5.6 magnitude reminder of it's presence this week, it seems appropriate to re-examine our readiness for a major earthquake. This preparedness should cover not only life after The Big One, but what to do during The Big One. And experts agree: with certainty, it will happen; but when ( and which fault) is a matter of statistical probability.

Preparedness

• Insurance - often overlooked, insurance for your house and belongings is something you need to investigate with your insurance broker. With extremely high deductibles ( that is, the amount you need to contribute before the insurance pays) and cost, most homeowners do not think it worthwhile. At this writing, the State of California is attempting to make coverage more affordable.

• Supplies - without a doubt, the Bay Areas' infrastructure will suffer, certainly for hours, perhaps for several days. Check to make sure you have the tools and survival supplies to last for at least three days.

• Training / awareness - review what to do during, and immediately after, an earthquake - include not only yourself but your children as well. Duck and cover is still the mandate - don't run outside, especially in a city environment; falling bricks and debris claimed several lives in the 1989 Loma Prieta 'quake.

• Have a communication plan in place for your family, and a known meeting place if appropriate.

During the event
• Knowledge and training will help supplant fear; realize and accept what you're experiencing, and react with your training!

After the event

• Assess injuries, if any;
• Assess structural damage and turn off utilities if your assessment calls for it. The how to and tool(s) to shut off water and gas are part of your preparedness supplies ( see above).
• Implement your communication plan; the 5.6 Calaveraas shaker demonstrated that both cell and land lines will be overloaded ( and unusable) for some time; however, text messaging on cell phones ( which uses much less bandwidth than voice) seemed to be unaffected.

Picking Up the Pieces
Long term recovery depends on how affected you are by the event; tough to plan for when your dealing with only a statistical probability to start with! Insurance could possibly help,as could disaster loans and grants, but the best bet is to expect to rely on your own resources. That could be in the form of savings, retirement funds or stocks.

Additional sources of information concerning you and Disaster Preparedness (mostly earthquake issues)can be found by going to the links below.

The threat of earthquakes and to a lesser extent, tsunami, are predicted to occur at some point in time, and quite real. When the Big One strikes, what do you need to survive, and restart a life of normalcy?

Survival of the actual event depends on your training, state of mind , physical circumstances and luck. Survival of the post earthquake and restarting your dally life hinges on your preparedness. As recent experience indicates, help may not be forthcoming until days after the initial disaster; you should be able to survive on your own for at least three days. A visit to www.ready.gov, and www.redcross.org will give you a basics of putting together a disaster preparedness kit and will advise you on how many gallons of water per person, and how many MRE's to have on hand. It's worth noting that these supplies need to be in a place that will be accessible after a disaster - worth some thought.

Nothing like a good light in an emergency situation! Using common D cell batteries this is advertised to last ten days thanks to modern LED lights, and generates little or no heat. It features a dimmer switch, a built in handle and a water resistant case. (www.hammacher.com)

Additionally, a supply of cash, your drivers license, credit / ATM cards, phone numbers and vital medicines need to be taken with you as you head out the door.
A good idea is to collect birth certificate(s), marriage license, insurance policies, will/ trust documents, house deed or mortgage information, photos of your house and contents, papers that document your pensions & IRAs ( at least the name and advisor of the institution that services your pension / IRA), backup CDs of data from your PC and store them into one location, be it a box or bag, that can be scooped up without a second thought. The Financial Planning Association recommends a lockable, fireproof box, light enough to carry. These are the types of documentation that will make restarting your life much easy.

Widgets that can help

Taking an electronic copy of your checkbook, investments and family memories is easier than ever, with backups made to cd's. But even quicker are the advent of USB portable hard drives and flash memory based 'thumb' drives. Thumb drives are small enough to clip to a key chain, are accessible via a USB port and are available in sizes to 1 Gb. These are available at Amazon.com, Fry's, Office Depot, Staples, and similar retailers.

Making sure that you've got always fresh batteries in your kit is a pain. A better solution is to buy a radio and flashlights that get their power by a hand crank. A good example of such an emergency radio is the FR300 Multi-Purpose Radio. For about $50 you get a five band radio (AM/FM/TV1/TV2/NOAA weather), and a cell phone charger to boot! Two minutes worth of cranking translates into about an hour of operation. (www.hammacher.com)

And in the emergency lighting department, a hand cranked LED flashlight works in a similar fashion. A minutes worth of cranking generates 30 minutes worth of fairly intense illumination from the Durabrite LED flashlight. I bought a pair of these at Costco and they work quite well!(www.amazon.com)

Cell phone service seems to be a weak link in disasters, but probably will be more useful after an earthquake than a hurricane (shaking vs. flooding). Oddly enough, the text messaging feature of a cell phone often seem to work when the voice features do not, so don't write off the cell phones potential usefulness. But keeping a charge in the phone might be difficult if there is not a source of line power to recharge the batteries.

To the rescue is the Cellboost, small disposable cellphone rechargers. Made by Compact Power Systems (www.cellboost.com), they will power your phone for about 60 minutes of talk (or 3 days of standby). Priced at about $8 (depending on model), the company also makes disposable chargers of iPods, camcorders and portable electronic games.

Additional sources of information concerning you and Disaster Preparedness (mostly earthquake issues)can be found at the following sites:

San Francisco Earthquake Info / The San Francisco Office of Emergency Services
Localized information: explicit on what to do during a shaker

California State Governor's Office of Emergency Services
What to expect from the state, as well as planning.

Governor's Office of Emergency Services Earthquake Preparedness Tip Sheets

Disaster Resources for People with Disabilities
Covers topics not generally explored; good reading and resources for those impaired or caring for those with disabilities

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
Earthquake basics and educational material; geological and historical information; links to professional and amateur organizations; online access to earthquake data and more.

FEMA Earthquake information
Disaster response from a federal perspective

Pacific Disaster Center
Presents updated "World Hazard Briefs" focusing on Asia , the Pacific rim and the Americas.

The links mentioned in this article reside off the ATDFCU website, and are neither maintained nor verified for accuracy by ATDFCU.
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ATDFCU is not responsible for the contents of these sites.
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