GET A GO-BAG
There are about three hundred firefighters on duty in San Francisco at any given time. In an emergency, these firefighters along with police officers and sheriff deputies must cope with helping as many as 1.2 million people which includes daytime commuters. The key to your personal survival during and after a disaster is planning in advance to help yourself and your family.
Without specifically itemizing your personal disaster-survival plan right now, we’d like to strongly recommend that you have a minimum of supplies on hand to get you through the aftermath of a major earthquake as comfortably as possible. There may be no supermarket standing, let alone open for business. There may be no electricity, gas, or water flowing. Our dedicated but strained network of public servants will be busy putting out fires, protecting your property and personal safety, and rescuing the seriously injured. You may be on your own for a while.
72-HOUR SUPPLY for your SURVIVAL
A basic survival kit should last each individual 72 hours without food, water, medicine, or sanitation. You should have a separate kit for your home, for your car, and for work. The home kit should provide the basic equipment and provisions needed by your family for at least a 72-hour period after a quake. The car and work-place kits should have enough supplies to last until you can get to a site where you can reunite with your family or friends.
We don’t endorse any particular supplier, but you can buy all of the supplies you need in single kit called a “Go Bag” or “Bug-out Bag” starting at a price as low as $35 for a single person and delivered to your door. For your convenience, we have listed several sources:
http://www.redcrossstore.org/shopper/category.aspx?LocationId=112
http://www.survivalsolutions.com/store/72houremergencykits.html
http://www.earthquakesupplycenter.com/products.php?categoryid=1
http://www.emergencygobags.com/earthquakesurvivalkit
If you prefer to buy supplies à la carte from various merchants, make sure you have a makeshift Go Bag large enough to hold all of them, but small enough to carry by hand. A back pack or small duffle bag works well for the car or work place; a plastic garbage can is suggested for the home. If you keep the whole shebang in a portable bucket, you’ve got a portable toilet too. You do not want fill up the toilet(s) inside your house—if your house still standing, and there’s no water.
Although you will find lists of the supplies you will need on the websites listed above, here again for your convenience, is our own recommended list for your home, car, and workplace.
At a minimum, you should have the basic items listed below:
- Water (one gallon per person, per day)
- 3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home
- Food
- Non-perishable, easy-to-prepare items (3-day supply for evacuation 2-week supply for home)
- Flashlight
- Battery-powered or hand-crank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
- Extra Batteries
- First Aid Kit
- 2 absorbent compress dressings (5 x 9 inches)
- 25 adhesive bandages (assorted sizes)
- 1 adhesive cloth tape (10 yards x 1 inch)
- 5 antibiotic ointment packets (approximately 1 gram)
- 5 antiseptic wipe packets
- 2 packets of aspirin (81 mg each)
- 1 blanket (space blanket)
- 1 breathing barrier (with one-way valve)
- 1 instant cold compress
- 2 pair of non-latex gloves (size: large)
- 2 hydrocortisone ointment packets (appx. 1 gram each)
- Scissors
- 1 roller bandage (3 inches wide)
- 1 roller bandage (4 inches wide)
- 5 sterile gauze pads (3 x 3 inches)
- 5 sterile gauze pads (4 x 4 inches)
- Oral thermometer (non-mercury/nonglass)
- 2 triangular bandages
- Tweezers
- First aid instruction booklet
- Medications (7-day supply) and medical items
- Multi-purpose tool
- Sanitation and personal hygiene items
- Copies of personal documents
- Including medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies
- Cell phone (with charger)
- Family contact information
- Extra cash
- Blanket
- Map(s) of the area (your mobile maps app will not be working)
Consider the needs of all your family members and add supplies to your Go Bag as needed. Suggested items to help meet additional needs are:
- Medical supplies (prescription meds, hearing aids with extra batteries, glasses, contact lenses, syringes, etc)
- Baby supplies (bottles, formula, baby food, diapers)
- Games for children
- Pet supplies (collar, leash, ID, food, carrier, bowl)
- Two-way radios
- Extra set of car keys and house keys
- Manual can opener
Additional supplies to keep at home or in your Go Bag:
- Whistle
- N95 or surgical masks
- Matches
- Rain gear
- Towels
- Work gloves
- Tools/supplies for securing your home
- Extra clothing, hat and sturdy shoes
- Plastic sheeting
- Duct tape
- Scissors
- Household liquid bleach
- Entertainment items
- Blankets or sleeping bags
Now that you have a Go Bag, you should also remember these very basic survival recommendations. Again, without getting into specifics about, for instance, how to shut off the gas you should at least know these fundamental rules.
Discuss the following rules with household members. Teenagers and adult members of your household should share in the actual preparation decisions. Be sure to consider any special needs or disabilities of family members and unique hazards near your home. Make sure everyone in your household knows where the closest fire station, hospital, and police station are.
In case of fire, have escape routes planned for each part of your home or work place. It is important that every member of your household know the quickest and safest escape routes from each room, and all the possible hazards that could be in their path.
Have a flashlight and a pair of shoes under everyone’s beds. A major quake will probably disrupt electrical service and if it happens at night you will need a flashlight to see. No one wants to cut their feet on broken glass or fallen objects walking to the closet to get a pair of shoes, so place them,with the flashlight, in a plastic bag. Then tie the bag to the leg of the bed. That way the bag will stay with the bed and glass will not fall into the shoes.
Know where the utility shutoffs are. Locate your gas,electrical,and water shutoff, and know how to operate them. It is recommended that the shutoffs be painted white or a light reflective color so they are highly visible in dark or smoky conditions. Have a wrench next to your gas shutoff.
After all the preparation is done, practice your plan to see if it actually works. Make it fun but try to make it real. Practice is especially meaningful if it is done at night, with all the electricity off.
REUNIFY WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY
You should decide together where you will meet after an earthquake while family members are separated. Have a plan for each family member to reach a safe refuge. Make sure you have adequate emergency supplies in the car as well as at the workplace.
This plan must consider many possibilities. Will family members at work go home or meet-up at some other place? Who will pick up the children at school? What if a family member is out of the area when an earthquake hits? What if the home is structurally damaged and uninhabitable? Your plan should answer all your questions.
This reunification site is also where the family can gather if the earthquake has damaged your home. At this site the family can evaluate the situation, make plans for appropriate actions, and be safe from injury due to aftershocks. It should be near your home, in the open, and away from any hazards, especially overhead hazards that can fall and injure family members. A safe refuge could be your backyard or front yard, a nearby park, a parking lot, or even the sidewalk.
There may be no means of transportation except by foot if there is severe damage to the roadways. It may take days for some family members to reunite. It will be easier to deal with the stress of this separation if the household has considered the possibilities beforehand. Try to have every member of your family prepared to deal appropriately with any emergency, and then trust their good sense and knowledge to help them through.
TELEPHONE CONTACT
Avoid using your telephone after an earthquake. Only use it to make emergency calls. Phone service will be overwhelmed. If you have switched entirely to using a cellular phone, you may not be able to use them if there is no electricity to charge them during a power outage. Additionally, cell phone towers may be destroyed or damaged. If you do try to make a call and do not get a dial tone, stay on the line anyway. As a line opens, you may get a dial tone and be able to complete your call.
You should have someone, either living out-of-town or preferably out-of-state, whom you can contact by phone. Separated family members can call the number to: indicate whether they’re safe, check on other family members, relay messages, and set-up an alternative meeting place. Family members not living in the disaster area can call the out-of-town contact for information. Change your telephone message, if you can, to state that you are safe. Family and friends out of the disaster area may be able to call in even if you cannot call out. Any attempt to make a call out of an affected area can be delayed because communication lines will be overwhelmed.
Text messaging may continue to work. Such messages, once in the server’s queue will be transmitted, but transmission may be delayed depending on the volume and availability of power.
Remember, after an earthquake check your landline phones to make sure they’re hung-up and staying off the line so that they’re not tying-up the phone system.