Emergency Preparedness

[Koolau]

Well, if I've learned nothing else, I guess I should stop saying I live in "Paradise." But seriously, we are currently in tornado alley for a few months before we return to Para (oops!) Hawaii. Here in the midwest we have a cellar for tornados and the water heater (in the cellar) has 40 gallons of water (plus the bottled water we keep - and cans of pop, etc.) We always keep lots of staples and canned foods, etc. Probably no place to evacuate to unless it is to relatives in the area.

Back in Hawaii, there's also no place to evacuate except shelters. Our concrete egg-crate condo would likely survive any hurricane, though the windows might be problematic. I'm surprised how few people are prepared for hurricanes. The mention of a hurricane empties all shelves in a matter of hours. We don't even bother as we're ready with food, water, flashlights, batteries, etc.

Fortunately, no matter which place we occupy, we don't worry about heat or AC (though the midwest can get uncomfortably warm if the electricity goes out.) We have made up our minds that we'll never again put ourselves in danger of a snow emergency, so there's that. :cool smiley: YMMV

 

[samclem]

On a somewhat related note: I live near Dayton and we had a few tornadoes spin up last night, they rolled right through my town among others. We're fine, but about 50,000 people in our region are without power due to winds.

A quick follow up-- yesterday I was driving across town and happened through the tornado track. Amazing devastation from this EF3 tornado-- entire neighborhoods where all trees were snapped off or uprooted and tossed onto cars and homes, missing siding, roof sheathing, and entire roof/truss systems lifted off, collapsed walls, etc. This tornado was on the ground for 20 minutes and travelled 10 miles. Another nearby EF4 twister traveled 19 miles and left a path of destruction 1/2 mile wide.

We see this on the TV all the time, but it is much more shocking if it is a place you know well.
My house was less than a mile away and we hardly got any wind or rain.
Folks are pitching in. The roofers, debris haulers, etc are very busy, and the intact nearby infrastructure makes things very different than after, say, a hurricane or a bad earthquake.

 

[ncbill]

A quick follow up-- yesterday I was driving across town and happened through the tornado track. Amazing devastation from this EF3 tornado-- entire neighborhoods where all trees were snapped off or uprooted and tossed onto cars and homes, missing siding, roof sheathing, and entire roof/truss systems lifted off, collapsed walls, etc. This tornado was on the ground for 20 minutes and travelled 10 miles. Another nearby EF4 twister traveled 19 miles and left a path of destruction 1/2 mile wide.

We see this on the TV all the time, but it is much more shocking if it is a place you know well.
My house was less than a mile away and we hardly got any wind or rain.
Folks are pitching in. The roofers, debris haulers, etc are very busy, and the intact nearby infrastructure makes things very different than after, say, a hurricane or a bad earthquake.

We had one of those last year..fortunately in the middle of nowhere.

But if one of those went wandering through one of the 5 major cities in my state...

 

[LOL!]

We've survived a few hurricanes, power outages, and when before I was married a tornado that ripped through the neighborhood.

Unlike many here, we have only a minimal kit of what works.

1. Relatives living in geographically diversified places that we can get to by driving either before a hurricane or after sheltering in place for a day or so of a surprise disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or fire.

2. SUVs that can drive through flooded roads filled with small debris. They are gassed up if we know something is coming, but rarely running on empty anyways.

3. Bike helmets to wear inside the house during tornado warnings.

4. Rather than fill bathtubs with water, we fill those rubbermaid food-grade 30+ gal garbage cans and put a lid on them in the showers and tubs. That way, we can still use the showers for showering without contaminating our potable water. When not filled with water for this purpose, they are filled with the rest of our "kit":

5. Blue tarps, hammer, nails, and minor outdoor rapair stuff.

6. Wooden window coverings for high winds.

7. We have plenty of camping gear, so food, cooking will not be a problem. What will be a problem is lack of air conditioning in 95+ degree humid weather. Freezing temps are not a problem with our winter camping gear, down jackets, and down quilts.

8. For food, we have plenty of rice, canned beans, canned tuna, oatmeal, nuts, etc. in our normal course of meals, so no need for anything extra. We aren't going to starve before we drive out. We don't need bread, ice, meats.

9. We don't take perishable medicines, so we don't have any need for that. We don't need batteries because we won't have a need for much night time lighting. We have headlamps for a few hours of lighting that can be USB-chargeable in the cars as are laptops and phones if needed.

10. Documents: Passports are easily accessible, but pretty much everything is online nowadays, so just bring along a laptop to wherever we intend to evacuate to.

11. Mostly we have the sense of calmness and lack of anxiety that have come from experiencing many disasters without damage to life and limb -- only damage to home and property.

Spouse is also member of local CERT.

FWIW, a friend's parent refused to leave home in Paradise. Dead.

 

[tb001]

I just wanted to thank OP and all who have contributed here. I'm in the process of updating the family emergency plans, and this thread (along with 2 older threads on this topic from a number of years ago) has been helpful. The biggest things prompting the updates are:

1) Recent email from PG&E notifying customers, who have emergency notifications registered with them, that they now have a plan to preemptively shut down power when certain high fire risk conditions are present anywhere near the grid, and that areas not even close-by could lose power for many days (up to 48 hours after the conditions no longer exist). As a result, I'm upping our "shelter in place" plans from 72 hrs to 2 weeks; and

2) Realization that our existing plans don't take into consideration the potential need to include my mother at my house. She lives in an assisted living apt. complex approx. 7 miles away. Their current plan is not likely adequate beyond 3-5 days, and could require evacuation if unable to receive commitments of food/water from local relief agencies, or if communications are completely down. Mom's capabilities have diminished since the last time we updated the plans and she can shelter in place fine for a few days; but if it's a shelter in place incident that turns into a longer event or an evacuation, I think I would want her to come to my house (and she has indicated she'd want that as well), rather than hours away to another of the company's apt complexes. Thus, better to plan for this ahead; and

3) Realized that several of our friends have relocated far away or passed away, and extended shelter in place plans that included them are now weaker (for both us and them - those still with us). Need to make sure we're coordinating with friends who are within reach.

Of course, all existing plans requiring an immediate evacuation are being updated, as well. We plan for both a "with auto" evacuation, and a "without auto" evacuation, in the event the car is rendered inoperable by the incident, and we have to evacuate immediately for safety reasons.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to all who are sharing.

NL

Nature lover, thank you for posting this. We received a similar alert from our SoCA power company, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we may end up being out for several days.