Some Serious Disaster Preparedness Ideas Everyone Can Use

September 12, 2011

On my first Sunday morning in Utah, I wasn’t expecting to see a booklet on preparing for an earthquake.  Coming from the earthquake capital of the US, California, I thought it very strange to read how the Wasatch Fault hasn’t had more than a hiccup in 200 years, but the residents here are doing some serious disaster preparedness anyways, including being involved in the Great Utah Shake Out earthquake preparedness day coming up in April of next year.  With all the natural disasters we’ve seen in the world in the past year, it makes sense to be prepared for anything.

My family lived on a flood plain for years in Northern California, so we always had provisions ready and I never let my gas tank get below half a tank just in case of a disaster.  Reading through what these industrious folks are doing here in the Beehive State, I realized that I really had only made minimal preparations in the past, and I would probably have been one of the people you’d seen on the news waving at the helicopter from the top of my roof!  I’ll be stepping up my preparedness in a big way.

Here are some cool and easy but serious disaster preparedness resources I found that could benefit anyone:

Family emergency plan – designates an out of town contact and three meeting places for family members in case of a disaster.  We always had a meeting place, but didn’t specify an out of town contact.  That is such a good idea since the local phones may be out, but long distance might work, as well as the out of towner not being affected by physical limitations the disaster would bring.  The Family Emergency Plan document has a place for all the important information you’d need, download it at www.BeReadyUtah.gov.

Detailed 72 hour disaster kit (which can fit in a backpack) – I love checklists and this one is wonderful because it lists items you might not have thought of, such as hand sanitizer and duct tape.  Isn’t duct tape the absolute best?  Imagine how great it would be to have duct tape handy in an emergency.  They also list items for your pet!  The checklist is available here.  Click here for more detailed checklists available at www.redcross.org.

Customize your family’s supplies – for my flood preparations, I had a case of water set aside that I kept upstairs.  Uh, I just read that you need a gallon of water per day, per person.  I am sure glad we didn’t have a flood because we would have needed rescuing!  It is difficult to know what supplies you would need.  I was playing with the cool interactive tool that customizes your needs based on your own family.  The tool lets you choose how long you’d need the provisions – three days, a week, etc., and gives suggestions on what to get and how much.  Check this out and see if your provisions are adequate – click here for the emergency supply kit.

Some other suggestions you may consider are to always have some cash on hand (in an emergency, ATM cards and credit cards might not work).  Never let your gas tank get really low so you can’t get out of town when you have to.  Be sure to check your emergency supplies every six months (and switch out your water and food supplies).  I think there was another one about not eating yellow snow, but I think that advice is good just about any time.