This post is a grab bag with notes from various disaster-related activities I’ve been doing since I wrote Community preparedness in uncertain times.
One of the big areas I’ve been focusing on is how we can learn from the extreme weather and climate disaster situations that already impact every one of us. In some places that might be hurricanes, tornados, and extended periods of severe cold. Here in Portland, I polled my NET team about what emergency situations had directly impacted our neighborhood. Power outages were a key item, often caused by severe winter storms. Some of our team members were without running water when their pipes froze. We could see the ways that our preparation for big events led us to be ready to handle the ones that could happen every year.
I also remember the intensity of over a week of fires and smoke we dealt with in 2020. Thankfully fires didn’t spread into Portland directly, but NETs were asked to help with an evacuation hub in our neighboring county. I’ve been thinking about that experience a lot the past couple days as I read about the fires in Los Angeles. Wildfire smoke is exceptionally toxic.
Disasters are such a big topic, and I think it’s important to find a focus that will help guide you. For some people that’s medical training like wilderness first aid, or radio communications, or outreach to neighbors about the basic steps that can take to be more prepared. Everything else can be someone else’s project. We survive together.
Go bags
You need a go bag that is ready to grab at any time. Here’s what happens for people who don’t have this ready during an evacuation:
First, you have to find a backpack or suitcase that you can use. Then, look for clean clothes. Try to remember if there are important documents to bring, and personal items you can’t replace. Maybe your travel toiletries are under the sink. Do you have cash? What about the photos? In that rush, people forget the important things and often find themselves trying to haul more than they can carry on foot. You don’t know how much time you have before the situation could become fatal.
A half-assed go bag that’s already prepared is better than nothing. Mine has ratty clothes and extra socks, my passport, two radios (I’ll be writing more about that), my travel toiletry pouch, a first aid kit, and an index card on top that lists the things I can’t pack in advance. It also has collars for the cats with their rabies tags, since they’re indoor only and don’t wear a collar most of the time. Everything is packed in a duffel bag I got free from a former employer, which is both light enough for me to carry and a convenient shape for throwing in someone’s car. There are some things I know are missing, like a spare pair of glasses, but I could get through 24-48 hours with just this bag if I really had to.
Start now with whatever you have on hand. You can keep adding to it.
One more important thing to do is take a video of the interior of your house to document what you own. Open closets and drawers and film the contents. Then upload the video to a cloud service (Dropbox, iCloud, etc). You can repeat it if there’s time before you go out the door in an evacuation.
What supplies to store first
There are a bunch of complete lists out there of what to have on hand for disasters. If you’re the kind of person who can take one of those and work through it week by week, that’s awesome. On the other hand, if you took one glance and found it overwhelming, here’s three things that will get you started.
Water
You need water, ideally enough for at least 72 hours. The standard recommendation is 1 gallon per person/day. But during last winter’s big ice storm I realized that we can focus on what will help the most for different scales of emergencies.
First, there’s the short term interruption, like a water main shutoff. I keep a couple of refillable water bottles in the fridge which adds up to about 2 liters. I also have a filter pitcher in there, and a water boiler that holds up to 3 liters. As long as I keep those full and top off the pets’ water dishes, I can get through a full day easily.
Next, I have some larger 3-5 gallon water containers that are a little heavy to lift but durable. That’s my backup for situations like a week of frozen pipes. I should drain and refill them more often than I do, but stored water lasts a long time as long as it was clean to start.
For a bigger disaster, I have a hang tag on my water heater that explains how to drain it for drinking water. I wouldn’t try this in most situations, but it’s there for the kinds of emergencies that could drag on for weeks.
AM/FM radio
We’re very used to getting information from our phones, but many disaster situations can leave us without power, internet, and cell service. Throughout the US there are radio stations designated as emergency broadcasters, and any battery-powered AM/FM radio will be able to pick them up. AM is an important option, because it can carry over longer distances especially at night. Hand-cranked radios are snazzy and can also charge your phone, but something that uses AA batteries is fine too. Take the batteries out of the radio when you’re not using it and store them in a plastic bag to prevent corrosion.
I’m planning to write more about radios soon.
First aid kit
The easiest option is to pick up a basic wilderness first aid from from someplace like REI. You’re looking for something with bandages, gauze, tape, and scissors. Do not buy gear you don’t know how to use. The core of wilderness first aid is about providing adequate treatment until the person can be moved to the next higher level of care. Training will do more for you than any fancy supplies. Stop the Bleed courses are a great starting point. A multi-day wilderness first aid course is the most helpful, but I don’t recommend it for anyone who’s uncomfortable with the sight of gore. My instructor had a whole slideshow of improperly treated wounds 😱
To go with the basic first aid kit, you also need N95 masks and nitrile gloves. The cheapest place I’ve found for gloves is Costco. Home Depot regularly has masks in stock. I also recommend getting a P100 respirator for wildfire smoke.
What about …
Yes, you need to have food, but you probably already buy groceries on a regular basis. If there’s something you always get, like peanut butter, buy an extra jar and consider it “empty” when the first one is done, so you always have an extra. It would be great if everyone could have weeks of shelf-stable food on hand, but it’s not a realistic goal for many of us. Like with the water, I try to think about it in tiers — what do I need if I can’t go to the store tomorrow, if I have to make things stretch an extra week, and if I’m holed up inside for longer? Start with the first one and work from there.
One other food tip: if you want to store things like canned beans but you don’t eat them often normally, use your local food pantry to help rotate the stock. Most will take shelf-stable foods with 3-6 months left before the expiration date.
The other big area is around sanitization, but I think that would need a separate blog post. Let me know if you’d like to see that.
Essential info for wildfires and earthquakes
There are two apps I strongly recommend installing if you live on the west coast of the US. My Shake sends out notifications from the USGS early warning system, and Watch Duty has wildfire maps, evacuation zones, and frequent status updates for each incident.
Power
As I noted above, power outages turn out to be one of the biggest disruptions that regularly impact us. I know a lot of people who’ve had to throw out everything in their fridge over the past year. Backup power systems can get very expensive, so a good starting point is just a basic phone charging battery. If you have a cooler, you can move the most perishable items out of the fridge along with whatever happens to be in the freezer to help keep it cold.
The next area I prioritize is lighting. I have flashlights stashed in various places around the house, a bunch of camping lanterns (somehow I keep collecting them), and recently I started adding some string lights. Ambient lighting like that goes a long way to helping people feel more comfortable.
After that, I have various ways to boil water and heat up food, like camping stoves and a propane grill. Do not use any of these indoors, carbon monoxide poisoning kills people every year. This is another one of those areas where you don’t need to get fancy, though I do have this stove from Biolite on my wishlist.
One more thing about the power grid: it can be really scary when the lights flicker repeatedly during a storm, but it’s actually a sign that things are working correctly. The fault-detection systems involved are pretty neat. So don’t panic, just go charge your phone and make sure you have a flashlight handy.
That’s it for this time. If there are more things you’d like me to cover, or questions I can help answer, let me know.