Basic Disaster Readiness for the Home

Why most planning is simple

To prepare for trouble

Plan ahead

• Buy appropriate insurance.
• Locate the cutoffs for the water, gas, and electricity. There may be special tools to operate them, know where they are.
• Make a fire escape plan. House fires can spread quickly, and the smoke is what's dangerous (it's full of carbon monoxide). Everyone should practice jumping out of bed and running out the main route and the backup route at least once a year. Decide on the one thing to grab on the way out, and don't stop if it isn't where it should be (a key ring, purse or wallet would be a good choice). Do not look for anything, do not linger! The fire department recommends you don't try to save anything, just get out as fast as you can. And never go back in for anything.
  
• Arrange nightlights to light the way out in case of fire. It takes as long to find a light switch as it does to get out.
• Everybody should sleep with bedroom doors shut. This makes a huge difference during house fires.
  
• If you live in tornado country, make and practice a tornado escape plan.
• If you live in earthquake country, make and practice an earthquake plan.
  
• Identify a "back-road" route to use to get out of the area when the highways are clogged. This is handy to know about on holiday weekends. The route does not have to be fast, just less likely to be completely clogged.
• Decide on what to do about your pets if you have to evacuate. Animal-related agencies and web sites say to bring the pets to improve their chances, and people-related agencies say to leave them to improve your chances. Bringing the pets reduces the chances for your spouse & children, and keeps you from helping other people. Little fluffy may be like part of the family, but will you risk your children's safety to protect him? Decide your priorities in advance.
  
• Educate yourself about insurance issues before a crisis occurs. If you need insurance, you probably won't be in the right frame of mind to carefully research how to not be taken advantage of. One web site dedicated to this is http://www.disasterprepared.net/ (this listing is not an endorsement).
• You can download disaster readiness and notification apps for your mobile devices. Be aware that wireless communications are brittle and easily disrupted once trouble starts.
• Dry ice can keep your freezer cold in an extended power outage. Yet it can be hard to find. Locate stores that sell it before the power goes out.

Get everybody ready

• Make sure children can recite their name, address, & phone number. In addition, the name and phone number of a nearby relative and a relative in a distant city in case of separation. They will forget unless drilled regularly.
• Make sure children know what emergency numbers to call and when it is appropriate to call them.
  
• Agree beforehand to call a certain relative in another city in case of separation away from home. Remind everyone before going on vacation.
• Agree beforehand on a certain neighbor's house to meet at if you can't go into your home for any reason.
• Agree on a family password (also called "safeword"). If a car pulls up to your kids and the man inside says you sent him, they can ask for the password. If you get a panicked call from your kids and they need money, ask for the password so you know it is really them. Practice the password every month for a year and then every year after that.
• Set up an ICE entry on everyone's mobile phones. It stands for "In Case of Emergency". Emergency responders check the person's phone for this. Make sure it can be accessed when the phone is locked. It can be as simple as listing a person's name as ICE in the address book, though some phones have a dedicated feature.
• Put an ICE card in everyone's wallet. It should list emergency numbers, medications, conditions, and so forth. Emergency responders check the wallet for insurance information, and will know what to do when they find this. ICE stands for "In Case of Emergency". Do an Internet search for "ICE card" for example cards and keyfobs you can order or print yourself.
  
• Designate godparents for the children.
  
• Some city & county emergency management offices keep lists of people with functional needs. Make sure they know about your loved ones if appropriate.
• If someone has mobility impairments, keep some heavy gloves in strategic locations. Many disasters put broken glass all over the place. The gloves can help them negotiate this hazard.
• People with mobility impairments can't get out of the house quick in a fire, so get the flammable stuff out of the house. Ask the fire department to tell you what to get rid of.
• Talk to the entire family about freezing up (http://www.familyready.org/disaster_during_after.html).

Set up an X-plan for the kids

Get the house ready

• Get appropriate insurance, and get good advice on what type to get. Basic homeowners insurance just covers fire, not floods. Renter's insurance just covers loss of personal possessions.
• Take pictures of everything you might want to use insurance to replace if there is no other record that you own it. Photograph every room, all possessions. Repeat every year. Make sure the pictures are up to date annually. Record the make, model and serial numbers. Store this with your insurance information. If you lost a high-end TV, your insurance company could try to write "TV" on a form and base compensation on the cheapest TV available.
  
• Install a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector. Make sure your smoke detectors have good batteries. Most houses have smoke detectors; the ones that don't have most of the fires. Inspections find that 1/3 of all smoke detectors have missing batteries.
• Test your smoke alarms regularly to ensure they make a loud beep when needed. Fire departments recommend doing this monthly.
  
• Keep an escape ladder in every upper-story bedroom. Make sure they are stored for easy access and everyone knows how to use them.
• Clean your gutters annually.
  
• Install a sump pump and flood alarm in the basement. All basements flood sooner or later. Make sure the battery backup can run for at least an hour.
• Don't put anything electrical on the floor or the basement, particularly power plug strips. Don't put anything on the basement floor that can be ruined by water.
  
• Anchor water heaters, fuel oil tanks, bookcases & cabinets to the wall to prevent toppling.
  
• Put foam sleeves over exposed exterior pipes.
• Install a sewage back-flow valve.
• Earthquake-proof your home, earthquakes can happen anywhere. No heavy things that can fall from high places onto your head. No heavy things on the wall over headboards. Secure tall furniture to the wall so it won't fall on you. Bolt your house to the foundation. Install water-heater straps. These precautions also protect your house against weather-related disasters.
  
• A lot of disasters rip stuff off the wall. A moderate earthquake can hit anywhere on the planet and make an entire city want wallboard fasteners, and the first one to the hardware store wins. Keep a supply of wallboard fasteners on hand, in several kinds. A ripped-out fastener leaves a hole bigger than a pencil, so keep fasteners that can re-use those holes. Also keep fasteners for virgin wallboard.
• Many modern gas-powered appliances will not work without electricity. Most have a simpler and less expensive equivalent that does. Take this into consideration when selecting an appliance.

Get the supplies ready

Supplies for people

• Maintain a 7 day reserve of medicine, supplies for babies, and everyone's special needs. Don't wait until you are running out to buy more. Some areas should use a bigger reserve. Stock up extra during sales.
• Own sunscreen.
• Keep good raingear on hand for everyone. For some reason disasters are usually followed by drenching rain, deep mud, and freezing cold. If it doesn't rain, the firemen will drench everything.
• Own a hat for everyone.
• Everyone needs boots that are already broken in.

Food & water

• Keep canned food on hand, 10 cans per person. Maintain this reserve. Keep a manual can opener. Stocking up on your usual canned food when it is on sale saves money and builds your reserve.
  
• Keep bottled water on hand, 5 gallons per person. Maintain this reserve. It only keeps 6 months, so date or number the jugs and use them for cooking or drinking (oldest ones first).
• Identify an auxiliary source of water, such as a pool, hot tub, or creek ahead of time. If you don't you may have to use a day's supply of drinking water to flush a stinking toilet.
  
• Maintain enough paper plates, plastic forks, and foam cups to serve 10 meals without washing dishes. Figure out how many packages this is. Buy more before you run low.
• Own a grill, barbecue, or camping stove. Keep enough fuel to cook at least 10 times. Maintain this reserve.

Sanitation

• Keep toilet paper on hand, at least three rolls per person (6 is better). Maintain this reserve. Stock up extra during sales.
• Keep a supply of soap on hand, at least 3 times what you need. This means every kind of soap: hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, etc.
  
• Keep some liquid antibacterial soap. Buy more before opening your last bottle.
• Hand sanitizer comes in handy pumper bottles, and also pocket-size bottles. Ironically, the pocket bottles are more expensive than the pumpers. They are easy to refill from a pumper, though. You need a pumper for every sink and a pocket bottle for every car and purse. Keep enough reserve to refill everything.
  
• Keep at least one unopened jug of unscented bleach on hand at all times. Bleach is best stored low and only with laundry supplies.
  
• Own a bucket or two.
• Own a shovel and a garden trowel, or at least a garden trowel. These are for sanitation.

Illumination

• Keep candles on hand, three candles per room. Maintain this reserve. Train the children not to touch the matches or candles. Candles are not a good idea for households with small children, keep extra flashlight batteries instead.
  
• Keep flashlights on hand, 1 in every room. "Headlamps" that strap to your forehead are invaluable. So are high-candlepower flashlights that can recharge from a car's cigarette lighter. So are lanterns and lantern-type flashlights. Avoid oil lamps.
• Keep a flashlight by the bed, one per person. Put it where it can be found without fumbling around in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark flashlights are good for this, but must be stored where light can reach them.
• Keep batteries on hand, one refill per flashlight, one refill per radio. Maintain this reserve.
• Rechargeable flashlights have limited utility because they are difficult to recharge in an emergency.

Stay warm

• If you have a fireplace, keep wood on hand to keep warm for seven cold winter nights. Maintain this reserve.
• Own enough blankets for a cold night with no heat.

Tools

• Own some basic tools, like a claw hammer & nails, screwdrivers, big pliers, and an adjustable wrench.
• Own an ax, saw, or other way to cut wood. It can cut 2x4s for repairs, make firewood, and remove fallen limbs.
• Own a big pry bar to move heavy things.
• Keep a fire extinguisher rated for grease in the kitchen.

Other supplies

• Own petroleum jelly. It is a lip balm, a lubricant, and can seal out water.
• Keep 10 gallons of gasoline in non-sparking cans, or never let your vehicles get below 1/2 tank. You choose. Maintain this reserve. Put stored gasoline in your tank and buy new gasoline every year.
• Own one or two multi-purpose fire extinguishers. Maintain them. Shake them every 6 months to keep the powder from caking.
• Keep at least one unopened box of plastic garbage bags on hand. Don't let the supplies run low. You can put things in them, cover things with them to keep the rain off, or cut them up into small temporary tarps. You can make rain ponchos and skirts. You can use them for sanitation if you cannot dig.

Get the electronics ready

• Do you have any important information on your computer? Back it up regularly, because your computer and its hard drive will fail. They all do, its only a matter of time. Put every other backup in a different building (your drawer at work, your safe deposit box, your relative's house, upload it somewhere, etc). Fires and thieves take both the computers and the backups. Accidentally yanking a USB cable during a backup can ruin the format on both the computer and backup drive (this happened to me, and my redundant backup saved me).
  
• Protect expensive electronics with a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Power line problems can fry your expensive possessions. A surge protector is inadequate, use a UPS.  You only need it to power your stuff for 5-10 minutes so you can safely power it down. For many families this means one UPS for the computer and another for the entertainment system.
  
• Own a cell phone and keep the batteries charged.
• Some cell phones can send texts and call 911 via satellite. The operation details depend on the phone. Sending & receiving requires some setup ahead of time. The time to do this is before the disaster.
• Maintain a list of emergency phone numbers - police, fire, and rescue agencies; power companies; insurance providers; family, friends and co-workers; etc. - and program them into your phone. Other good places are a USB key-fob or a fireproof box. Fireproof boxes are good because you can include more details like account numbers, but don't include details like passwords because thieves take these (it looks like it contains valuables).
• Do not put all your usernames and passwords in a file on the internet, where they are one hack away from being read by the bad guys.
• You may be able to get locator service for your family's cell phones.
  
• Don't get rid of your old-fashioned landline. Landlines are much more likely to work in emergencies. A rotary phone is even more likely to work (but modern phone lines don't always have the power to operate the ringer). Be aware that many salespeople don't know the difference between a VOIP line and an old-fashioned landline, and will promise a landline and deliver VOIP. An old fashioned landline does not need a modem to operate. A rotary cannot dial over VOIP.
  
• Your cell phone provider may offer a free backup service to preserve your contact list.
• Make sure you can receive local alerts. Do an Internet search on "emergency alerts" and your city name to see what's available and how to receive them.
  
• Use a USB thumb drive as a key fob. Load it with emergency information, your contact list, photos of your loved ones, prescriptions, insurance information, automobile information, medical equipment information, and so forth. It has lots of room, load it with everything you can think of. It should not have your car description, license plate number, or home address if it is a key fob.
• Buy a portable battery charger. A solar battery charger may or may not be good for you.

Get everything else ready

• Own and maintain a good household first aid kit. Don't let the supplies run low.
• Put a family zip-kit in every car. If some people get around without cars, put a personal zip-kit in their backpack or bike-bag.
  
• Own a safe deposit box. Store deeds, birth certificates, documents, insurance information, photos documenting the house, and computer backups in it. Leaving copies of these items with a relative in a distant city works. They can be zip-locked and put into the freezer for fire-safety, but this is not quite as good. Open safe deposit boxes annually or some states will gleefully seize the contents. Keep the information up to date.
  
• Put a 72-hour kit in the trunk of you car. It is just enough to get by for a few days.
  
• Collar, tag, and/or chip your pets. This way you can be re-united with your pet if someone rescues it.

Live ready

• Keep slip-on shoes by your bed. The most common injury from fire, earthquake, and other sudden emergencies is running on broken glass. Without shoes you are likely to be injured, and this is a bad time to not be able to walk.
• Losing a purse or wallet while traveling can have serious consequences. You and your spouse should each have a credit card that nobody else has. That way you always have a working credit card.
• Maintain an account in two banks. If something happens to one bank, the other may be OK.
• Only have one account per bank. Banks can and do put your deposits into the wrong account, causing problems for you.
• Make a secret web page that nobody can reach unless they know how. It should have scans of drivers licenses, passports, and health insurance. Without your ID you can't rent a motel room or a car, use your airplane tickets, etc. For extra security, the page should not have birth certificates. If you don't have a web page, put it on a relatives web page. Be sure to encode or obscure ID codes like drivers license numbers, social security, and passport numbers. And put a "norobots" tag on it.
  
• Bleach can react with other household cleaners, producing chlorine gas. They used it to kill people in world war I. Do not store bleach in the same cabinet with other chemicals or cleaners (other than laundry products).
• Ammonia based cleaners can react with other household cleaners, producing dangerous ammonia gas. Do not store ammonia in the same cabinet with other chemicals or cleaners.
• Women should always have a scarf handy. Most people on the planet always have some sort of scarf or bandana, except for urban/suburbanites in safe industrialized countries. Scarves have hundreds of practical and fashion uses. See the separate pictorial scarf research document.
• Establish good relations with your neighbors. They are priceless in emergencies. Good neighbors can make your life easier in the best of times.
• Having friends or relatives out of the area who will take you in due to evacuation can be the difference between life and death. Most people never have to evacuate. But the people who suffered and died in evacuation situations usually stayed because they had nowhere to go. If you have no friends out of the area, make some. Set up evac exchanges with people you know; you will take them in if they will take you in (short term sheltering only).
• When you interact with a contractor, plumber, or hardware store manager, maintain a simple long-term relationship. They are good to know when problems occur.
• The most important thing to have after a disaster is help from others. The way you get it is to help others as much as you can when they have difficulties.
• If your local disaster happens often enough, invest in a satellite messenger or satellite phone (the messenger is cheaper).
• Don't be out of shape. Exercise daily.

Last minute preparations

• You can prepare if the disaster is coming, but hasn't arrived yet. Weather, fire, & flood related disasters can provide several days notice. The problem is that the hardware store will be sold out of what you need. You can order anything on the Internet and have it shipped next-day-air.
  
• You can't always hire someone with money, but you can usually get someone to help for a case of beer. Bottled beer keeps for a year in a cool and dark place. If possible, keep a reserve on hand and cycle through it. Keeping beer isn't practical for everyone.