Emergency Preparedness

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
 
"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. "

One vehicle is parked outside the garage on the driveway at all times for that quick getaway.
 
Here in New Orleans, hurricanes are our most common disaster. So, we usually have more time to prepare than those of you in wildfire regions.

I keep a list of what to take when evacuating on my laptop. If a major hurricane is threatening, I pile what I will need to take with me, right by the door.

Then I get gas and money, and listen to my weather radio or other news/weather reports, start making lots of extra ice, and start grilling and refreezing steak and hamburgers (I can put them in a cooler with ice for the evacuation). After losing my refrigerator to Hurricane Katrina, I will never again evacuate without throwing out any remaining frig/freezer contents.

Ugh, I hate this! :LOL: Honestly we really haven't had any significant hurricane hit us since Katrina, in 2005. The only time we have evacuated since then was for Hurricane Isaac in 2012. It caused damage but was no Katrina.
 
Dodging some tornado warnings as I write this. Niece's husband spotted a funnel cloud about a half hour ago about 15 miles north of us. That storm has moved east, but more to come.
 
Ronstar said:
Dodging some tornado warnings as I write this. Niece's husband spotted a funnel cloud about a half hour ago about 15 miles north of us. That storm has moved east, but more to come.
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Take care, Ronstar! Hope the weather calms down soon.
 
Teacher Terry said:
Running, we have wildfires and by the time someone is knocking on your door you are lucky to get out with your pets. That’s all I care about. Some good friends survived the paradise fire and managed to get their dogs but the cats hid. They decide to never rebuild and are happy living in a 2 bedroom apartment. They were planning to downsize. It was sad to lose everything but they didn’t lose their lives.
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You don't often get the warning in a wildfire as you do a hurricane, but there are some that are fairly distant but you watch them to see if they are growing or if they are in control. Those are the kind where I feel like I'd have time to get my list and load up my car. My point is, if you have a list, you can likely get what you need if you have 15 minutes. But it's easy to be fooled about how much time you have, since my neighborhood may be fine but I could easily be cut off from getting off the mountain, so if they said get out NOW, I'd grab the cat, my phone, and my wallet, and be in the car and get out of dodge.

We've had two fires of concern this year.

First was a condo fire. It started as a small fire that got put out, but flared but up 36 hours later either due to high winds reigniting a hot spot, or an arsonist who came back to finish the job. Investigation was inconclusive. The fire chief said he nearly gave an evacuation order. They try to give a advisory first, then precautionary warning (voluntary evac) and then mandatory evac, but this one started spreading quickly and jumped a road and warranted voluntary evac. They had already evacuated adjacent buildings, but not the whole mountain. But as they were completing the decision process the winds had already shifted and the fire quickly came back under control, and they re-evaluated and decided to monitor. Perhaps risky, but they were right, and considering the age of many residents here it's more likely we would've had heart attacks and accidents from panic driving so maybe the evac would've been the risky call. So, I woke up to find that danger had come and gone.

Then there was fire on an adjacent mountain. It seemed in control, but I did get my list out, and got things organized, but did not put them in the car. We were told there was no threat to us but until I heard it was under control, I didn't relax.

So that's my plan. In an advisory situation, I get my stuff together and monitor however I can. In a voluntary evac, I take the few minutes to put all my stuff in the car and leave. I guarantee if I didn't have a list I'd miss something I'd regret. In a mandatory evac, I'm gone, hopefully with my phone, wallet, and cat. Hopefully I'm somewhere else by the time it gets mandatory, but some fires don't give you that warning. Of course the only thing of real importance is to get people out, and hopefully pets, but with just a little pre-planning you can make the aftermath more bearable.

We had a fire when I was in high school, in a furnace closet in our apartment. I remember putting on shoes, pants, and a coat (it was winter) and the whole family got out, with the dogs, and knocked on the other 3 neighbor's doors and got them out. It stayed in the closet and the fire department put it out. Seemed like I barely woke up and I don't even remember the thought process but I bet if I had my wallet it was only because it was in my pants.
 
Here the fires tend to be on the outskirts of town and not right in town where we live. We had a small fire at night in the winter when my kids were little and my husband was out of town. I didn’t take anything but the kids. Didn’t have pets back then. We ran through the snow to the neighbors with no shoes and our pj’s on.
 
Thanks Runningbum, great write up. We need to get a list for fire. We live at the edge of a national forest and fire is a concern. Last year's drought really scared us. The 416 fire was closer than I'd like and our area was bone dry. I can rake all the pine straw around but if big trees go up like torches it's gonna be bad.

We experienced a new threat last winter. Our emergency exits, bedroom and kitchen became blocked by the immense amount of snow we had. The doors would open but once you were outside there was 10 feet of snowfall, reduced to 4 feet of depth that we would have had to crawl through, over, under or whatever. It would be very difficult to do, then add two small dogs and....

20190222_143204.jpeg
 
Another Reader said:
"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. "

One vehicle is parked outside the garage on the driveway at all times for that quick getaway.
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Yup, that'll work. Good common sense solution. Thanks!


ERKevin: "Good Starting Point Here:

https://www.fema.gov/media-library/a...ocuments/96123"

Nice.
 
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Another Reader said:
"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. "
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I have to do this too. If the main road is blocked, the alternate route requires walking out about 300 yards to a parkway, where they are supposed to get buses to take us out.

One vehicle is parked outside the garage on the driveway at all times for that quick getaway.
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Why outside the garage? Are you worried about a power outage? Every garage I've seen has a red handle you pull that detaches itself from the chain, so you can easily lift it manually.
 
RunningBum said:
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Why outside the garage? Are you worried about a power outage? Every garage I've seen has a red handle you pull that detaches itself from the chain, so you can easily lift it manually.
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++
Exactly what I was thinking.

Even if you have taken off the red handle rope to thwart thieves, a little pole with a hook will pull the lever and the door lifts easily.
 
RunningBum said:
I have to do this too. If the main road is blocked, the alternate route requires walking out about 300 yards to a parkway, where they are supposed to get buses to take us out.


Why outside the garage? Are you worried about a power outage? Every garage I've seen has a red handle you pull that detaches itself from the chain, so you can easily lift it manually.
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Earthquakes mean the door may be off the track or the building may no longer be level (or even standing). In a Paradise type fire scenario, the rate of fire travel might mean seconds determine if you survive or not.
 
Like Sarah in SC we live in the country with a well. Our most common "emergency" is loss of power. When the power goes out, our water supply is limited to whatever is left in our pressure tank. That's usually fine for short outages, but for long outages we run out of water for flushing toilets. So I keep a couple of 5 gallon containers of water in our pump house. They have a tiny bit of bleach in them so theoretically would be drinkable if needed, but my main goal is to be able to flush the toilets. 10 gallons of water wouldn't last very long, but with proper "rationing of flushes" we might get an extra day or two. After that peeps gonna poop in the woods. :)

We have a wood stove for heat during power outages. We can and have cooked on it when the need arises.

Power usually goes out during the winter. If it's off for more than a few hours, we can box up the food in the fridge and put it outside where it's probably colder than the fridge anyway.

I do have an assortment of battery banks, battery radios, and whatnot to charge up phones or monitor news reports for many days.

We don't have to worry about floods or hurricanes, and tornadoes are extremely unlikely. Earthquakes and forest fires are our two biggest threats. We built our house with shear walls and seismic anchors that should survive most earthquakes, but if it's big enough none of that will matter.

We try to maintain a defensive zone around our house in case of forest fires, but if we have one the only real option is to leave. Most of our belongings could be replaced (though the sentimental loss would be horrible). Our important photos, financial documents, and other personal records are all kept on my computer. I always keep a backup in our safe deposit box at the bank. So even if we're not home when a fire comes through I know our personal documents are protected.

I usually have more than a weeks worth of bottled beverages on hand if we were stranded at home. Beyond that I could melt snow on the wood stove or walk down to the nearest creek for water.

Unfortunately, we're not very good about keeping an emergency food supply on hand. We could probably scrounge together this and that to last a few days, but it wouldn't be pretty. We really need to plan ahead better for emergency foods.
 
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 big shout out to the National Weather Service, wireless companies, and the local media. The tornado warnings were timely and specific. I got warnings automatically on my cell phone and the AM radio gave details on specifically where the tornadoes were touching down and where they were moving.

If what I saw was typical, this warning system works very well, way better than what was in place just a few years ago. And apparently it paid off--despite some pretty horrific (but localized--Celina, OH was hit hard) devastation, there has been just a single fatality reported (let's hope that holds). I'm happy that so many people did the prudent thing and got their families into a safe spot and just had a little patience--I've lived in places where the attitude would have been different.

Boy Scout Motto: Be Prepared!
 
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had a tornado come through our city about 20 years ago. It was weird because although the major inconveniences of many roads not passable, and many area's without power...
there were many areas WITH power. I remember for a while the neighbors across the street did NOT have power, but we did. So some folks were running fairly large cords from house to house... and other's just drove and bought generators (which ran out quickly along with chain saws). Fortunate for us, the power was not even out long enough to spoil our food.

The community was an absolute mess though...and anyone that was around will remember. I had to take shelter in a Taco Bell (all glass windows) wasn't very smart idea. The gas station was full though and no where to park. This was after driving under a fallen big Interstate Marking Sign that normally spans 4 lanes of traffic. When that thing let loose I just hit the exit.

Never forget people were coming in with pelt marks that were really bad. I was lucky I parked under a tree that saved my car...but the power pole dropped over the top of it and I couldn't leave without being assured the power was cut and meneuvering my car around it. Many smashed windows in cars and houses and some homes roofs were ripped off. Lots of trees felled onto homes etc. The summer of chain sawing. I'll never forget.

Some kids that went to my high school were without power for over 8 days. These guys lived in the hardest hit areas...which are always the last to get power restored. I understand they restore in order of magnitude, so if they can go to an easily accessible area and restore 1000 homes, they will do that over the harder accessible area that only restores 750, etc.
 
samclem said:
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 big shout out to the National Weather Service, wireless companies, and the local media. The tornado warnings were timely and specific. I got warnings automatically on my cell phone and the AM radio gave details on specifically where the tornadoes were touching down and where they were moving.

If what I saw was typical, this warning system works very well, way better than what was in place just a few years ago. And apparently it paid off--despite some pretty horrific (but localized--Celina, OH was hit hard) devastation, there has been just a single fatality reported (let's hope that holds). I'm happy that so many people did the prudent thing and got their families into a safe spot and just had a little patience--I've lived in places where the attitude would have been different.

Boy Scout Motto: Be Prepared!
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So glad you are fine and were not in the path of these awful tornados! I have been reading about them on the news this morning and apparently they were quite severe. Best wishes to those affected by them.
 
During hurricane season we have flashlights and candles placed all over the house and I have a fire proof portable safe with important papers and pictures . We did evacuate two years ago .We packed a duffle bag with clothes , medicine and chargers . I also packed an insulated cooler with water, food,paper plates and utensils . There were no food stores or restaurants open so I was so glad we had the food . It was scary to see everything shut down .We luckily escaped with just minor roof damage .
 
We are in what is starting to be called "Tornado Alley East". I've lived in this area for over 30 years and the tornadoes we get seem to be getting stronger. A few years ago, an F5 took out power to most of the county for over a week due to an oddly placed hit to the power supplier and chewed down the line of towers for miles. Those in rural areas were without for up to two weeks in some cases.

What we added to our emergency plans after that were things that hadn't come up before in our previous, smaller storms:

Keep some cash... once stores got generators in, they opened but only took cash. Helping someone buy a bag of ice for $1 was quite eye-opening. Most people didn't have any cash. I now make sure to have at least $100 in low bills/quarters. Even the stores didn't have the ability to make change for more than a couple of days.

Fill up the car. At the time of the F5, we had four cars at the house, and all were about 1/4 full. Had we wanted to leave, we wouldn't have been able to. Now, when my tank (SUV) gets to about half, I'm filling it up.

Keep whistles in the safe room/emergency bag. There were several stories of people trapped in their crawl spaces after their homes were directly hit and they fell down into the crawl spaces but couldn't yell loud enough for rescuers to hear. I got a box of 12 on Amazon for around $5. I have some in the cars, too. They even came attached to lanyards.

Mostly, those were the big tweaks we made to how we prep. Here, the only threat is tornadoes. In a couple of years when we RE, we will be moving to hurricane country and will adjust our plans & preps accordingly.

Something I got from another board I frequent is to institute the PLOP plan when severe weather is mentioned.

PLOP is Prepare for Loss Of Power. That means, like others have mentioned, clean the house (our house/floor was filthy after two days of no power), do the laundry (including bed sheets!), make ice, etc, etc. If you have time, go buy extra shelf-stable food and make a few meals that just need heating over the BBQ as opposed to full-out cooking (preserves propane). Most of our big storms have a few days' warning, so this is possible with those.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's tips. I find that being prepared is a mental stress relief. :)
 
I don't bother anymore. Hurricane Sandy put 8 feet of water in our single story house. Now we are gone. Water stored was useless as it was floating in salt water. Evacuate is best solution.
 
SumDay said:
What are your must haves - edible or otherwise? I'm thinking peanut butter, crackers, Ramen noodles, applesauce, baby food in those squeeze pouches, some dried meat things.
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We are just past the anniversary of four tornadoes, three EF1 and one unrated touching down here in CT. Unheard of for our part, it was definitely a learning lesson. Luckily our house was spared but we were without communications and power for some time.

I learned pretty quickly how to power up our generator as my husband was traveling. We had a gas grill and woodstove to cook on but now know to always have a propane tank filled (tornados, unlike hurricanes, don't provide much advance notice).

A aircard might have come in handy since many of the cell towers were down I had to walk a block to get any signal for calls. Since I already stockpile, food was not an issue and an extra freezer kept cold for the duration. A power bank for charging cell phones can come in handy.

Sadly, this seems to be a (climate) trend across the US. Here's hoping we never have to deal with the likes of that again...it was a war-zone for months
 
For emergencies a good food supply is Wise Foods (wisefoodstorage.com). We have a year supply of dehydrated packets, and they don't take up much room for what they are. If you sign up with the site, you will get coupons for as much as 50% off from time to time. They have at least a 25 year shelf life, and are very tasty. They will send you a sample or two if you ask. Guns, ammo, and cash go a long way too.
 
We live in a tornado area but no hurricanes, earthquakes, or wildfires. That makes a huge difference in how we prepare for trouble.

We live just outside a town on the fringes of the suburbs. When we moved here 38 years ago, I told my wife “Out here, you need to be prepared to be your own policeman, fireman, and doctor; for 30 minutes. And prepared to live without electricity for 3 days.” So we have acted accordingly.
Anything longer, we can leave for a while or it’s a nuclear war.

We’ve escaped any major calamity and gotten through the smaller ones with ease.

Just think about the possible problems and come up with solutions. Then actually do the preparation, don’t just talk about it.
 
We live in earthquake, wildfire and debris flow country in a relatively geographically isolated area. We've also just gotten notice that, as we live in a designated hire-wildfire-risk area, we should "not consider our electrical supply reliable." Like many of you, we've evacuated multiple times due to disasters (wildfire).

I'm CERT-trained, but I'm also a Disaster Service Worker for the County (I work for the County), so our emergency plans have to include my not being available to our family after the first 24 hours of an emergency -- I need to report to work for assignment wherever they send me.

Here are our plans:
1. Cars always have at least half a tank of gas. In our County, only two gas stations (the local government ones that serve the Sheriff's department) have generators, so if the power goes out for any reason -- nobody can get gas.

1.5: Generous stash of cash hidden in both cars at all times, at least 48 hours worth of living, eating and driving expenses. Cars also both have emergency gear -- a good first-aid kit, wool blankets, food & water, maps, flashlights.

2. Wildfire: we stay as close to home as possible during fire weather and red flag warnings. We were 10 minutes away once and nearly couldn't get home in time to evacuate during a major wildfire several years ago, as they cut off access to our neighborhood without warning (due to wind-driven firestorm activity). With kids who can't drive but are often home alone (young teenagers), we want to make sure that we can get to them and get them out in an emergency.

3. Evacuation list is printed on a clipboard that hangs inside the door of the front hall closet. The most important thing on the list is at the top, with items listed in descending order by importance, along with where they are stored. This way, anyone in our home who can read can grab the list and start working down it, putting things in the car as they go. When we've evacuated, we start at the top and work our way down until we're out of time. Then we go, knowing we did what we could. Deciding what to take in advance has been critical for us -- during our first evacuation, we had enough time to think about what to take -- and found that we could not make good decisions about what was important while under that sort of stress (wildfires are terrifying). So we've decided in advance, when we can think about what is really important to us. Top of the list: 1) kids. 2) dog 3) My purse 4) computer & backup hard drive 5). Cats (they hide and one is really hard to catch -- we may not be able to afford to burn 20 minutes getting him out from under the bed. List goes on from here. We're specific about where things are located (for example: Watercolor art on closet wall in bedroom. Wrap in a clean bath towel and put in a large laundry basket.) When under that sort of stress you just cannot think critically or quickly. We've tried to do as much of our thinking ahead of time as possible.

4. In the house, we have a pretty decent first aid kit, plenty of shelf-stable food, stored water, Coleman stove with fuel, full tent camping setup, emergency radio, flashlights, extra batteries, etc. With the new power outage warnings we are considering getting an inverter generator. We focus on food that does not require rehydration or cooking, because there is NO surface water available here most of the year and fuel/power may be extremely limited or absent -- we'll need to conserve our stored water for drinking only.

5. Our evacuation plan is get out early and DH and the kids will stay gone until more-or-less normal life is restored. I'll come back within a day or two to work as a Disaster Service Worker. If there's an earthquake, we will not be able to leave town because the bridges and roads will all be impassable -- so we'll be camping (hopefully on our property or at my work). We're assuming that we will be on our own for 3+ weeks, due to the difficulty in getting anything to our area when the roads are out (we have an airport, but it's built on an estuary and is prone to flooding. I kid you not).

During our last major disaster, I was out in the community helping residents and people who had been affected. People are NOT prepared, even here after multiple fires and earthquakes. Our preparations include what extras we can provide for our neighbors, and take into account that the longer we can take care of ourselves, the more capacity our local first responders will have to help those who really have limited capabilities to care for themselves -- elderly, tourists (we have a lot of both), medically fragile, etc.

I hope we never have another disaster, but odds are good we will. Good luck out there, all!
 
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