Your Survival Blog
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Putting your eggs in one basket
Relatives of mine live in a largely rural town on the edge of a metropolitan area in the Northeastern US. Until their power company upgraded the lines (after years of blaming squirrels) their power would go out frequently, in probably a half-dozen significant outages a year. Once, during an ice storm years ago, they lost electricity for four days; they fled to a motel. During the ice storm of December 2008, they were out from early morning till nearly midnight.
So what failed during their power outages? Electric lights and appliances, of course. Heat: they have an oil furnace, but the ignition is electric. And water: their well pump is also ... electric. None of these basic needs has built-in battery backup.
They’d bought a generator after an earlier experience, figuring they could run at least some of the items that were important to them. But they learned the hard way just how important it is to test-start a generator at least once a month: a clogged fuel line kept them in the dark during the ice storm.
Fortunately they’re experienced cold-weather campers, and the electric company in their area promised quick restoration, so they figured they could tough it out until the power returned, and did. (And the ice storm only knocked power out to some towns in the region, so if they got too cold or hungry they could have driven to a warm motel or restaurant and get fed/sheltered/washed that way. Not something you want to count on, though.)
Does your plan for emergencies (the most likely emergencies in your area) have a similar Achilles heel?
Are you expecting your town water supply to work no matter what happens to other utilities, figuring you can shelter in place as long as you have access to a water supply? Water mains do break, especially in earthquakes, and town water-treatment plants depend on access to power.
Is your tornado plan basically “drop everything, grab the kids, get to a basement?” What if you’re all eating dinner or seeing a movie in a building built on slab?
Do you figure it doesn’t really matter what happens to your coastal town in a hurricane, because you can always throw your evac bags in the back of the truck and go? What happens if you forget to fill up the gas tank on the truck? Or the battery’s dead when you turn on the key? Or there’s so much broken glass or windblown debris on the highway that you lose a couple of tires?
And remember that Murphy is not only out to get you, he’s creative. Not only can anything go wrong and will — interesting combinations of “anything” might bite you when you don’t expect them. I know someone who planned a huge “rain or shine” yard sale for her new rural home, figuring that the combination of (a) an indoor setting for sale items and (b) excellent signage to her hard-to-find driveway would bring out the buyers. What she didn’t plan on was heavy rain on the morning of the sale, disintegrating all the signs she’d carefully hung.
The lesson here is: examine your assumptions. What am I relying on in this plan? What can go wrong? What else could go wrong? And what might I do about that combination?
If you have other examples, please share them in the comments!
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
I now pronounce you … a disaster
As an American, I grew up hearing various public officials declaring that things were officially disasters. A few months ago, after a perusal of the news, I started wondering.
What does it mean, exactly, to “declare a disaster”? Why is it done, and to benefit whom? Do any officials outside the United States engage in this sort of announcement? And what do you do if your area is declared?
I decided to sit down and find out.
Let’s cover the third question first. Yes, non-Americans do this from time to time. Australians do; in 2000, the premier of New South Wales declared a natural disaster after the state was overwhelmed by widespread flooding. In France, a national disaster insurance program requires the government to issue an “Arrêté de reconnaissance” (government declaration of disaster) in order to settle a claim — an arrangement under which, according to the US Government Accountability Office, the French government declared 110,000 natural disasters between 1982 and 2005! Canada seems to have different models depending on the province; in Ontario, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing must declare a town a disaster area (after a tornado, for example) before it can be eligible for the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program. Yet many approaches to disaster relief differ from the American model.
In several countries, the government provides national coverage for (at least some) disasters. France has a Catastrophes Naturelles program for uninsurable disasters, from avalanche to earthquake to drought. Japan provides reinsurance for earthquake coverage by private companies. New Zealand covers uninsurable risks from earthquake, windstorm, and flood — providing a homeowner has purchased fire coverage. Spain provides government insurance and reinsurance for such disasters as volcanoes, tsunami, and meteorites. Switzerland makes catastrophe insurance mandatory, and prohibits or restricts building in flood and avalanche zones. Taiwan has an earthquake approach similar to Japan’s, though it also includes explosions, landslides, and fire. Turkey established compulsory earthquake insurance in 1999, but later declared all its citizens eligible for government funds whether they had insurance or not.
Other countries emphasize the private market and have no national reimbursement for disaster victims. Germany and Italy rely on optional natural-disaster coverage added on to insurance policies. In the United Kingdom, flood coverage is standard for property policies.
In the United States, though, there are two forms of federal involvement. One is the National Flood Insurance Program (earthquake coverage is handled optionally by private insurers). The other is those formal disaster declarations, which permit assistance from the federal government to disaster victims.
Here’s how a national disaster is “declared” in the United States, and what that means to you:
In order for the President to declare a disaster at the Federal level (something done, on average, 33 times a year), the Governor of the affected state or territory makes a request through the regional office of FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). Both state and federal officials assess the damage and its impact; to qualify for Federal relief, the disaster must be “beyond the capabilities of the State and local governments.”
(In many U.S. states, local governments may declare disasters in order to qualify for state aid. The governor may then respond with a disaster declaration, activating state-level emergency management protocols.)
Depending on the disaster, FEMA may then activate disaster programs to bring relief to victims. These include aid to individuals and households; aid to public and nonprofit agencies for emergency services and repair of public facilities; and hazard mitigation measures to prevent future recurrences.
Individual assistance in the US can include temporary housing, grants to repair damaged homes (or in rare cases, replace or construct them), and grants for medical, dental, funeral, moving, legal, and other expenses. It also might include unemployment assistance to people whose jobs are lost due to disaster and who are not covered by other unemployment programs. Crisis counseling programs are sometimes established for people in affected areas — both immediate outreach, and services lasting up to nine months thereafter. Tax breaks are offered to people who’ve lost property exceeding 10% of their gross incomes, and refunds can be expedited to taxpayers in disaster areas.
Public assistance is available for a variety of projects: removing debris, providing emergency protection, repairing roads and bridges, providing clean water and other utilities, and repairing public buildings and parks.
The federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program allows communities to buy or relocate property in hazardous areas; elevate buildings prone to flood; reinforce buildings against earthquakes, wildfire, or flood; and develop mitigation plans. The primary emphasis of the program is on floodplains and floodproofing.
If your corner of the United States is declared a federal disaster area, listen to the news for information on where to go and what to do, and visit FEMA’s Web site at http://www.fema.gov.
If you’re reading from another country and have knowledge about your country’s disaster-relief programs, let us know and we’ll cover them in a future column!
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Auto-da-pay?: keeping your finances in shape for emergencies
We have a friend I’ll call Elaine — because that’s not her name — who is, to put it kindly, somewhat disorganized. While she sometimes gets as far as making neat piles of bills on her kitchen table, actually getting them paid on time can be something of a challenge. From what we’ve heard, she has managed, at varying times, to have her cable modem, telephone (landline) service, and electricity disconnected. That’s in the past six months.
Are you like Elaine?
Under normal circumstances, losing normal utility services is not a huge deal: a major hassle, no doubt, but something not likely to cost more than an afternoon off work while you go drive somewhere to pay a bill. But what if circumstances aren’t normal and you need those services?
- The biggest heat wave in decades comes to your town — and you have no electricity to run an air conditioner or even a cooling fan so you can sleep at night.
- An ice storm just took out your electricity, but you can’t call anyone about it because you forgot to pay the phone bill.
- You’re housebound after a major snowfall — and you discover you have no heat because you let the oil tank run dry.
- You’re trying to keep an eye on the latest hurricane track — except that your Internet and cable TV service were just turned off.
- Your town announces a quarantine — but you’re stuck at home with no incoming water because of unpaid bills. (Some towns simply issue liens, but others will actually cut off service.)
Please don’t find yourself in this position. If you have a pile of bills somewhere in your house, now’s a good time to pull them out, make a list, and try to get up to date on your obligations.
“But I can’t!”
- If it’s simple forgetfulness, consider setting up auto-pay on some or all of the bills you fall behind on. Many banks offer automatic payment options; so do some utilities. You can set up one-time or recurring payments, and even arrange for wildly varying charges (like electric or natural-gas bills) to be smoothed out by paying a prearranged amount each month.
- If it’s an organizational issue, find a buddy who’s willing to sit down with you and help you sort out your paperwork, possibly in exchange for your doing the same or a similar favor for them. (Or, if you can afford it, consider a professional organizer.)
- If it’s a financial issue, call your creditors and work out a payment plan — they’ve heard it all before, really, and would much rather have you offer to pay a bit at a time than to simply disconnect or otherwise stop serving you.
And when push comes to shove, you’ll be glad you paid up.
Posted by eks on 01/19 at 06:11 PM(2) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Don’t call us, we’ll call you: emergency notification systems
I was paging through a local newspaper when I spotted a story on something called “Reverse 911”. (Though it’s “000” in Australia, “999” in the UK, and “112” in the European Union, “911” is usually the number dialed to reach emergency services in the US and Canada. Now ... reverse that.) In my years obsessing about preparedness and consuming articles on emergency services and disaster recovery, I hadn’t yet encountered the term.
I mentioned it to a group of friends online. “What is it?” asked one. “In an emergency,” I said, trying to summarize the article as concisely as possible, ”they call you.” “Neat,” she said.
Out of twenty-five in the group, only two had encountered “reverse 911” services in their communities. One, in suburban New York, had been called about a minor water issue. Another, in Massachusetts, joked: “The recorded voice of the chief of police has called us a couple times about irreievant road closures. What are they going to do? Call about a real emergency? It’d cause mass panic.”
“REVERSE 911”, it turns out, is a name trademarked (by Sigma Communications , now part of PlantCML) for what is more properly called an “emergency notification system.” In the same way people say “Kleenex” when they mean facial tissues and “Xerox” when they mean “photocopy”, reporters in towns all over North America have taken to referring to any community notification system as “Reverse 911”. Such systems use recorded calls or other modalities to alert citizens in a geographic area (to blizzards, wildfires, tornadoes, floods, nuclear plant crises, whatever potential disaster looms. Some communities use it to tell citizens of sexual predators in their area, or children who’ve gone missing. Others use it to inform people of contamination in water supplies, or, as my Massachusetts friend learned, road closures.
And so through the night went his cry of alarm / To every Middlesex village and farm ...
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”
Here are a few answers for questions you might have:
Q: If “Reverse 911” is a trademark, what are some of the other systems called?
A: In one browsing session I ran across systems made by firms including Everbridge, Amerilert, Enera (RapidReach), Emergency Communications Network (CodeRED), Siemens (Sygnal), Cooper Notification (RSAN), TechRadium (IRIS), Database Systems Corp., and Amtelco (Red Alert), among others. There are probably dozens of firms and packages altogether.
Q: Who can use them?
A: Public-safety officials in any jurisdiction, including police departments, fire departments and other authorities.
Q: How many cities/towns are they deployed in?
A: Now this is an excellent question! The officially trademarked “Reverse 911” system alone claims to be used in “thousands of communities, counties, commercial businesses, schools and non-profit organizations.” So there are probably tens of thousands using all packages on the market, though it’s not clear how many users are towns and counties rather than companies or organizations. Soon Connecticut will roll out the first statewide emergency notification system in the United States.
Q: How do they notify people?
A: Most systems seem to begin with all listed landlines (both residential and business) in a given area. Some (which draw on 911 databases) have unpublished/unlisted numbers as well; others, like Tampa (Florida)’s, apparently do not. The system in Osceola, Arkansas, has both landlines and cell phones in its database. Other systems can use text messages, email, and fax. However, many systems seem to require registration of cell numbers, VoIP (voice over IP) numbers and email addresses.
Q: How much do they cost?
A: A chief of police told The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas that six providers he spoke with all quoted a range of $15K to $25K (US) a year; his community, Bella Vista, has about twenty thousand people. Darien, Connecticut, with about the same population, pays $10K a year to maintain its system. San Diego County (California) paid $200K for its newest system in 2007, and $19K/year to maintain it thereafter. Connecticut’s statewide system should cost $1.4 million/year during its first year, $650K thereafter.
Some towns in the US appear to be defraying costs with grants from the Department of Homeland Security.
Q: Are they used outside the US?
A: Definitely! Systems are in use in Lancashire in the UK, British Columbia in Canada, and Canadian towns and counties in Ontario and New Brunswick, among others.
The state of Victoria, Australia, tested a warning system (both phone- and text-based) in fire-prone areas back in 2005, but it was never rolled out thanks to debate about who would pay the cost, estimated to be $20 million (Australian). In the wake of the devastating fires in Victoria in February of 2009, politicians are now pushing for a national notification system to go live within the next year or so.
Q: Is anyone attempting to standardize these systems?
A: Yes. The "http://www.incident.com/cookbook/index.php/CAP_Fact_Sheet">Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) was adopted as a standard by the International Telecommunications Union in 2007, but it’s not clear how many emergency notification systems are actually using CAP in their software yet.
Notification systems are a still fledgling tool for emergency preparedness, but look amazingly useful. We’ll cover them again as further developments arise.
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Tuesday, January 05, 2010
What to know before the power goes out
This fall I was sitting around the house of a pleasant Wednesday morning, happily pounding away on my laptop, conversing with friends in one window, Accomplishing Stuff. Then ... buzz, crackle, the lights all flashed and went out. And came back. And with a final sigh, went out again.
There was something in the finality of that sequence that made me suspect the power would be out for a while. When I stuck my head out and called to a neighbor a couple of doors down, only to discover her power was out too, I figured we were in for the long haul — and me still unshowered. (My water usually works during outages, but my water heater doesn’t. And I like long showers.)
So I was back to the dance I’d done in another town many a time: first try to guess how long the power would be out, and then figure out what to do during the outage. As I tried to reach neighbors to see how far the blackout extended (several have VoIP so their house phones no longer worked), one stuck her head in and told me the school, two miles away, was also out. I called the electric company and wandered through a voicemail maze, reaching a human. A substation by the nearest shopping mall had gone down, he told me, and their best estimate was two hours hence.
Just as I hung up, preparing to go door-to-door spreading the news, I noticed a light had come back on — the power smoothly returned as though it had never left. And though I hadn’t unplugged them yet in preparation for the power coming back, none of the electronics in the house had been fried.
The previous outage wasn’t so smooth. We were watching a DVD late at night, when lightning struck overhead (the single loudest sound I have heard in my lifetime!). The power wasn’t out for very long, but when it returned, we’d sacrificed several items to the lightning gods: an Internet router and cable modem (which took four days to replace — an eternity for a work-at-home household); one landline phone; and the contents of our basement freezer. The freezer itself actually survived, but the surge tripped the GFCI circuit it was plugged into, and by the time we tracked down the problem we had to discard hundreds of dollars’ worth of food.
As for the phone ... the phone company informed me their network was just fine, and suggested I check the “Network Interface Device” (NID) which, they said, could be anywhere in our basement or outside. (I eventually found it in our bike shed.) I borrowed a working phone, plugged it in, and got a dial tone from the NID, proving the problem was in my house. After much trial and error inside, I unplugged our answering machine, plugged in a borrowed working phone, and got a dial tone: the phone line was fine but the answering machine was fried, and while it was plugged in to a phone jack, no other handsets would function. Removing it solved the problem.
So let’s review some lessons learned:
1. Know your circuit breakers. Know where the breaker panel is. Know which outlets and devices each breaker controls. Know how to reset a breaker. Make sure they’re correctly labeled.
If an appliance won’t come on, don’t just check the circuit breaker. Check to see if it’s plugged into a GFCI outlet, and if the circuit breaker in the outlet has been tripped. If it’s a large appliance, check the manual to see if it has a built-in fuse that might have blown.
2. Protect yourself from surges. Don’t hesitate to splurge on a high-quality surge protector for your most critical devices. Do unplug voltage-sensitive equipment (especially computers) during an outage, to avoid surges from the return of power damaging your electronics.
3. Learn about your phone service. If you have Plain Old Telephone Service, have a basic idea how to debug it. Have a spare working phone on hand, and know where the Network Interface Device to your home is.
4. Be prepared to swap a lot of devices around to track down a problem.
In another column, we’ll cover “now what?”: what to do, and have on hand, during the actual outage.
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Don’t run out of gas!
One of my most enduring memories of the media coverage of Hurricane Rita, in 2007, was of huge lines of cars heading out of Houston — dozens of whom ran out of gas and had to abandon their vehicles.
I never, ever, ever let my gas tank go below half-full if I can help it (I sometimes get my car back from other family members who haven’t internalized the rule), but I’ve been reading that even that amount of preparedness is not enough. During hurricane or wildfire or ice-storm season, some say, never let your tank go below full. Top it off every chance you get, at least every day or two.
(Make sure your tires are also inflated up to spec; various sources claim a three- to six-percent hit on mileage from underinflated tires. And do all your recommended maintenance on time, before it becomes an issue: changing spark plugs and fuel filters, and using the right oil, can affect fuel economy as well.)
One for the road
Also think about whether you want to have a little extra on hand. “Jerry cans” — metal cans for storing gasoline, diesel or kerosene, which hold five gallons or twenty liters depending on country — are widely available, and some models are legal throughout the United States. (In Canada, plastic cans seem to be preferred.) If you keep one of these cans on hand for an emergency, make sure it’s clean, and that you fill it on the ground and not on or next to your vehicle (to avoid static charges). Do not overfill, and carefully wipe up any spills from the outside of the can, disposing of the paper towels somewhere other than your vehicle. Strap the gas can securely into a supported place in your vehicle’s trunk, and do not ever, ever expose it to smoking materials or other open flames. (Kaboom!) Until you need it, consider storing it in a cool dry place in your garage or other area away from any possible sparks.
Drive smart
If you are lucky enough to get yourself and your family out of town over relatively unjammed roads, don’t drive aggressively! Jackrabbit starts, stomping the brakes, and driving faster than the speed limit all use up far more gas than driving at a dignified pace. (In hilly areas, so can using cruise control, though it actually improves mileage on flat roads.) Unblocked roads aren’t likely to be an issue, though, in a widespread disaster.
Remember that idling in traffic eats gas: the California Energy Commission claims that two minutes of idling equals one mile of travel (so if your car gets 20 mpg, 40 minutes of idling would use a gallon of fuel). They also claim that ten seconds of idling uses up more fuel than turning off your engine, and restarting it once traffic starts to move again — and that shutting off and restarting adds only a tiny cost in component wear. If you’re ever in an evacuation jam, and sitting more than a minute, shut off your engine.
Air conditioning might also be a fuel hog: at less than highway speeds — below 30-40 mph (50-65 kph) — some authorities say using the AC consumes up to 20 percent more gasoline than rolling down your windows. However, many of those people fleeing Rita had to do so in heat well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (around 40 Celsius), and had to choose between staying cool and hydrated or using up precious fuel. And getting more was not an option — gas stations were tapped out hundreds of miles inland.
Don’t put yourself in this position. If bad weather is even hinted at, go top off all your vehicles’ gas tanks, and keep them that way.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Why aren’t you ready yet?
Are you prepared for it? For whatever “it"s are most likely in your area?
No? Me neither. (Yep, even emergency-preparedness writers still have work to do. I do a bit at a time and still feel guilty that I haven’t done everything I’d like to yet.) And a recent survey by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency suggests that ”the proportion of those who have taken appropriate preparedness measures is much lower than those that indicate that they are prepared.”
There’s no “one size fits all” plan, which means you have to give your emergency planning real thought. Does your household have others besides you in it? Do you have seniors in your family? People with disabilities or special needs? Kids? Infants? Pets? All these categories require specific planning, which is daunting when you don’t know where to start.
Authorities always suggest you have a disaster plan and disaster kits — and not just one, either, but one for home and one for your car and one for your workplace and one for your kids and one for your pets and and and. Some authorities suggest you plan for things you’d need if you stayed home, things you’d need if you left, and things you’d need to do if you were leaving anything you wanted to take behind — securing your building, arranging for livestock care, double-checking insurance, any number of other tasks. That’s even more lists. That leaves you with a heck of a lot of work to do just to rough out a plan, never mind to make all the lists you’d need to shop for all those disaster kits — and then you have To Do and To Buy lists and really, how many of us ever get through even simple To Do lists unless deadlines are staring us in the face?
Also, what I most want to plan for in my area (hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards and ice storms) might be very different from what a friend in California plans for (e.g., wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes) vs. what a relative in the Midwestern US needs to think about (e.g., floods, lightning storms). While many US states and Canadian provinces have their own regionally focused emergency Web sites, it can be daunting to narrow down what you, personally, most need to realistically plan for.
Many things you know you really would like to do (e.g. move your most important files to a fireproof or waterproof safe, and save photocopies at another location; back up a research project or novel manuscript onto portable media; duplicate irreplaceable family photos or memorabilia) might feel like giant unmanageable projects all by themselves. One of the things that nagged at me for years, back when I worked mostly on desktop computers, was how to save our family-history database in case we had to leave in a hurry — removable hard drives seemed impractical and expensive. Now I own an iPhone, and the whole thing is backed up into a single app. (I could, of course, have made copies on CD and stored with an out-of-town relative. But that would have been a Project, so it never got done.)
To add even more guilt to the mix, people who pay close attention to news about emergency preparedness often feel they should be doing even more — brushing up their first aid and CPR, going through drills, joining a community response team. The more we’d like to do, often, the more overwhelmed we feel and the less we wind up doing.
So let’s begin to break down those Projects and to-do lists into smaller, more manageable pieces, shall we? We’ll do that in future articles, so stay tuned.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cache or charge?
Among the things you’ll most frequently see on lists of emergency-preparedness items to have in your family disaster kit — either a to-go kit or one for sheltering in place — are flashlights, camping lanterns, and similar lighting items. Sometimes those lists include weather radios, standard transistor radios, walkie-talkies, or handheld TVs — all generally battery-operated. If you have an amateur radio enthusiast in the family, you know that using handheld ham equipment during a power outage requires batteries.
Yet how many of us, outside the areas most frequently hit by hurricanes, stock up on batteries and then check to see if our supplies (a) match the items we intend them for and (b) still work? (Yes, batteries do expire eventually.)
And who on earth thought it was a good idea to have five major types of consumer batteries (AA, AAA, C, D and 9-volt) for flashlights and lanterns alone, each of which need to be stocked separately? And that’s not even counting book lights and penlights and the like, which often use button-cell batteries, which come in a bewildering array of types!
This year I packed for a camping trip and discovered that some of the flashlights in the house no longer worked (not because of batteries — they had bad connections or bulbs), and the ones that did didn’t necessarily match our batteries on hand (we were low on some types, overflowing with others). So I wound up making a fast run to a local pharmacy — more expensive, but there was no time to hit a big-box store and stock up at a discount — for the right batteries for each lighting tool. Next time we’ll know better.
Lesson one: check every battery-operated item in your house (at least the ones you hope to use in an emergency; unless you have kids, you can probably skip the GameBoys and PSPs) and write down how many batteries of each type each one uses. Use this list to construct your supply checklist.
Lesson two: find an inexpensive source, whether it’s a big-box store or an online supplier, and buy a whole lot of batteries at once.
Let’s also talk about items which don’t have standard consumer batteries but you might want to use when the power’s out, after a windstorm or similar event. These you’ll need to think about how to power when you don’t have working outlets (via the electric company or a generator), or at least how to live without:
- Cordless landline phones with base stations: substitute at least one old-style Ma Bell plug-into-the-phone-jack landline. If you don’t have one, they’re cheap; try buying one online or at a local electronics shack. (You don’t have to actually use it if you hate corded phones; just have it on a handy shelf somewhere for when you do need it.)
- Cordless drills for making repairs: these might run for only half an hour if fully charged (do this before the storm!), but since you only use them briefly, that might account for a fair bit of drilling before the battery runs out of juice.
- Cell phones, PDAs, and combinations (like the iPhone or Palm Pre): these can run off backup power supplies. Do you have one for your cell phone / PDA — solar, hand-crank, backup battery? If not, which would be the best type for you to purchase?
- Motorized wheelchairs or other mobility devices: have an extra battery on hand if you can afford it. (Apparently a car battery can be used in a pinch, but it won’t last as long.) If not, there are converters for some batteries that plug into a car’s lighter socket; see whether those are available for your model. Also, if possible, learn how to charge your chair or scooter battery using a jumper cable.
- Laptops: you might be able to run a laptop off a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for half an hour or more in a pinch, but if your laptop battery usually lasts only two or three hours, do you have a backup to swap in? If you might need to use your laptop during an extended outage, do you have a power pack capable of running it? Several vendors sell portable solar chargers, so that’s an option you may want to investigate.
If I’ve left out your particular battery concern, let me know, and we’ll discuss it in a future piece!
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The Last Subduction
Hold your hands out in front of you, palms down, elbows out, fingertips toward each other and touching. Now fold the fingers on your dominant hand down slightly, sliding it beneath the other until the non-dominant hand rests on top.
This is subduction, the process of one geological plate at a plate boundary slipping gradually beneath another. Unfortunately, when rocks are involved, the slippage is not nearly as smooth as when your hands do it (assuming your skin is not covered in rock): subduction is responsible for the deadliest megatsunami in history (the 2004 Indian Ocean event which killed a quarter-million people), and the largest earthquakes ever recorded by human beings (including Chile 1960 and Alaska 1964, and Lisbon 1755). These “megathrust” earthquakes can exceed 9.0 in magnitude. (Remember that quake measurements are logarithmic, so that a nine-point earthquake packs a thousand times the punch of the seven-pointer many Californians worry about.)
When you have a major metropolitan area sitting on top of a subduction zone, things really get interesting. In 1755, the thriving city of Lisbon — then only about 275,000 souls — experienced a megathrust earthquake, tsunami, and fire; these reshaped European history, philosophy, science and architecture. (Lisbon now has ten times as many people, so it’s fortunate that seismic building codes have been in effect for two and a half centuries.)
Yet we in North America also have populous metropolitan areas on top of subducted plates. The Seattle/Tacoma metro area in Washington Sate has 3.3 million people. Metro Vancouver, BC, on the other side of the US-Canadian border, has 2.2 million. Greater Portland, Oregon, to the south, has over two million. All sit firmly atop the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), source of the greatest recorded North American earthquake outside Alaska.
On the evening of January 26, 1700, a megathrust quake struck somewhere off the Northwest coast. (The fault ruptured over six hundred miles (1000 km), from Vancouver to northern California.) No Westerners had then settled in the area, but records of tsunami damage resulting in Japan help to fix the date.
Parts of the Washington coast fell five feet (1.5 m). Red cedar and Sitka spruce forests were drowned by the tsunami, and carbon dating shows their final rings were formed in the growing season of 1699. On Vancouver Island, the houses of the Cowichan people collapsed, and a village of the Pachena Bay people was wiped out. The Hoh and Makah people of the Olympic Peninsulas preserve legends of “trembling of the earth,” “rolling up of the great waters”, and starvation.
Geologists have found evidence of dozens of giant earthquakes in the prehistory of the region. Some use the figure of thirteen over six millennia; another says twenty 9-point-plus and eighteen 8-point-plus earthquakes over ten millennia, with a “return time” of three or four centuries. Many also agree on at least a ten percent chance of the CSZ rupturing within fifty years.
An Oregon state geologist announced in April 2009 that when the next M9 quake hits Cascadia, “The amount of devastation is going to be unbelievable.” Coastal towns might be struck by a tsunami 80-100 feet (24-30 m) high.
In August 2009, seismologists studying “deep tremors” in the CSZ suggested that the next megathrust might happen further inland, beneath the Olympic Peninsula, producing even stronger shaking on land. Major cities, full of highways and bridges and brick buildings, will suffer massive damage. Due to the scale of the devastation, it may take many days or weeks for rescue workers to reach homeless and hungry survivors.
So: if you live in the Pacific Northwest, what can you do?
- Start reading up about quake and tsunami hazards in your community and any you frequently visit. If your town conducts drills or education sessions, attend!
- Put together emergency kits for home, cars, and office. Assume that you might not be seeing emergency workers or other authorities for a week or more.
- Make plans. If you work in an office, ask about emergency drills. If you have kids, talk to their schools about emergency procedures. Make sure everyone in your family knows your game plan for reuniting and/or letting each other know you’re safe.
And good luck. Let’s all hope the CSZ will hold until the science of earthquake prediction becomes more advanced.
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Don’t make me release the flying monkeys!
Since the film of The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 — with special effects that were truly amazing for its time, given that the SFX team creating the tornado had never seen one and had no footage to go on — people around the world have been fascinated by the twisters of the American Midwest. But how often do you hear about tornadoes anywhere else?
Granted, Tornado Alley doesn’t have a monopoly even in the United States (or northern Mexico and southern Canada, where some folks say the alley ends on each side), but did you know that tornadoes aren’t only an American phenomenon? “It just seemed so astonishing to see a twister in Lancashire,” said one British onlooker after a storm in 2005. “I thought these things only happened in Kansas.’’
Turns out that Britain has quite a few — though they’re usually weak, tornadoes hit more often per square mile in the UK (and the Netherlands) than they do in the US! Countries where tornadoes are often spotted include France, Germany, India, Bangladesh (where a 1989 event killed 1,300), southern Russia, Japan, China, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. A quick mental map will show that we’ve already hopped around both hemispheres, and every continent but Antarctica.
Why don’t we hear more about them? Well, North American readers don’t get much news from other parts of the world, especially weather news, unless an event is extremely unusual or kills a lot of people (like the 1989 Bangladesh tornado). Many countries have large, sparsely populated regions where tornadoes are not reported. Some do not have a strong emphasis on weather reporting and analysis.
If American readers need a somewhat dubious point of pride, however, the US has many more reported tornadoes (by an order of magnitude) and generally stronger tornadoes than anywhere else.
That’s one geographic myth down. Here’s another: Because large buildings affect weather patterns, tornadoes don’t usually hit major cities — or at least their downtowns.
I believed this one for years; I have connections in Chicago, near the northern end of America’s Tornado Alley, and while twisters were not uncommon out in the suburbs, you hardly ever heard of them in or near the city limits. Some researchers speculated that heat-island effects of cities (more pavement, less vegetation makes cities warmer than surrounding areas), like large structures, were protective, so I patted myself on the back thinking we were safe.
But residents of several American cities can tell you different. Not counting tornadoes which went through areas other than a central business district (such as the awful tornadoes of Worcester, MA in 1953 and Oklahoma City in 1999): Nashville has been hit multiple times. In less than a century, St. Louis, Missouri had four fatal tornadoes in the downtown area alone. (Windsor, Ontario — across the river from Detroit — also had four in that stretch of time, though the fourth had no fatalities.)
In the last decade and change, Miami, Detroit, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Fort Worth, New Orleans, and Atlanta have all had twisters roar through downtown.
The real science behind the myth is statistical: downtowns are usually much more compact than surrounding city and suburban regions. If you have a city of two hundred square miles, and its central business district is two square miles (units are illustrative; substitute sq km if you like), the downtown has a 1% chance of being struck by a tornado inside the city limits. (You can do the same math with a city itself and its surrounding metro area.)
But despite the “it can’t happen here, because it hasn’t” crowd, even Chicago’s Loop has been hit, back in the pre-skyscraper era. In 1876, an F3 came to town, merrily knocking over buildings and leaving death and destruction in its wake. Imagine something like the Oklahoma City tornado (an F5 up to a mile wide) roaring through an area as population-dense as today’s Loop!
Actually, in 2007, researchers in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society did just that, visualizing an intense tornado in downtown Chicago. They estimated that in dense residential sections up to 45,000 deaths could occur, and such a tornado could destroy 239,000 housing units and cause “substantial damage to over 400,000 homes occupied by over 1,100,000 people”; “permanent structural damage” could happen in “a broad area of the high-rise office and apartment districts”. Now isn’t that cheery news?
So no, many of us are not in Kansas anymore, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe as houses in the Emerald City. Be careful out there.
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
E.T. Phone Home—If You Can!
A neighbor and I have a friendly argument about phone service. He long ago switched to cell phones as his primary method of voice communication, but since he and his wife have a school-aged son, they keep a house phone for “family” calls. Their house phone, though, is not a hardwired land line (the old-fashioned Ma Bell kind) — it’s a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service. Which lasts only until the power or cable go out, I point out. (While the Internet itself is pretty robust and can route information around major outages, the “last-mile” connections, especially cable service to homes, can be vulnerable to squirrels, heavy rain, and other minor glitches.)
Me, I’ll give up Ma Bell when you rip her out of my cold dead hands. See, I used to live in the town the electric company forgot, and on days the electricity went out to lunch, or a long vacation, the phone was the only thing in the house that worked.
(Note that if you’re a Luddite like me and think land lines are the bee’s knees, you need to make sure that at least one of the handsets in your home is the kind you plug only into the phone jack, and is NOT a cordless or other handset dependent on an AC outlet. Relatives of mine found this out the hard way.)
God bless self-powered phone lines, I tell my neighbor. Will your beloved cell function several days into an ice storm?
“If it’s ‘several days’ into an ice storm,” he fires back, “and I have had zero power, then my house is already unlivable. And I would have moved somewhere else.” (Which, I have to admit because we live in the Northeastern United States, is a point. But admitting that might lose me face.)
At this point in the argument another neighbor generally steps in and offers to go out with an axe, hack through the ice, collect rocks, use the rocks to build a fireplace in his house, make a turbine from old bike parts and install it in the chimney, generate his own electricity, and invite Neighbor Number One over to recharge his cell phone. My neighbors think they’re comedians.
Now I’ll confess that I own (and love) a cell phone; I bought it for use outside my home, but it’s also backup should land-line service go kablooey. I think everyone (especially those responsible for children or other dependents) should consider having at least two methods of communication in an emergency.
Yes, naturally there are ways to recharge cell service if your power is out: if you have a car charger, you can run your car for a bit and recharge from engine power, and if you’re running vital services in your home or office from a generator, you can borrow power from that. But if cell was my primary (or only) phone service, I’d go out and buy a wind-up emergency cell charger, solar charger, or supplemental battery unit. I’ll address some of these options in a future column.
Friends who work in the communications business — and this is by no means a scientific survey — speculate that in the event of a widespread disaster in our area, land lines will be restored first, then cell towers, then (long afterward) last-mile broadband. Your area may have different priorities (and, if they’re wrong, so could mine).
Here’s a rough overview of the pros and cons of each communication method:
land lines (Plain Ol’ Telephone Service)
Pros: Powered by phone company batteries, so they work for a while in a widespread power outage (at least a few hours, maybe even days). Work best with 911 service, as responders can tell exactly where you are.
Cons: Overhead lines susceptible to windstorms, ice storms, and ground movement.
cell phones
Pros: Portable; can be used almost anywhere there’s a signal from a cell tower service (including most of the US and Canada). Many newer cell phones have GPS, allowing you to be pinpointed by emergency responders. SMS text messages (because of the minimal bandwidth they require) may be the only thing that get through in a widespread disaster. Cell towers may survive disasters that take out telephone lines.
Cons: Batteries have short lives; recharging during an outage can be a challenge.
VoIP
Pros: Can be used wherever there’s an Ethernet connection. Often cheaper than the other methods.
Cons: Vulnerable to both power outages and outages of your cable service or Internet service provider. Guests in your home may not understand how to use your service. If you use your VoIP service for mobility, Caller ID may not tell emergency services where you really are.
Worth chewing over, isn’t it, as you prepare for the most likely disasters in your region?
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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Don’t make me sick!: Talking to your employer about pandemic flu
Over the summer of 2009, absenteeism due to swine flu reached previously unseen levels in Canada, Australia and the UK. The British government responded by expanding workers’ rights to take sick leave without having to visit a doctor, clogging up waiting rooms and possibly infecting other people. But three industrialized countries — Canada, Japan and the United States — have no national law allowing for sick pay during short-term illnesses like influenza. (In Canada, to be fair, most provinces cover this at a provincial level.) In the United States, there is not even protection (except occasionally at the state or local level) from being fired for illness. US sick-leave policies vary drastically from employer to employer; some provide no sick leave, and some threaten to let workers go if they stay home sick, which can be a recipe for disaster in a pandemic.
sick leave policy
If you’re concerned that your employer’s sick-leave policy is inadequate — time allowed for illness is subtracted from vacation, or is minimal compared to other companies in your area — consider joining together with other employees to hold a meeting. Explain that to keep everybody safe, including management, you’d like to be more confident that you can take time off with an infectious illness so as not to spread it to your boss and coworkers.
Almost half of private employers in the US, employing sixty million workers, have no sick leave at all. If you live in the US and your employer does not provide time off for illness, or threatens to fire workers who become ill, consider calling your local legislators; a number of US cities and states have introduced (or passed) legislation requiring such leave, and yours may be next. (Legislation has also been introduced at a federal level, and may gain momentum with official advice from the Centers for Disease Control that everyone with flu symptoms stay at home.)
But it’s best to approach this as a win-win situation for everyone. Your workplace management probably has no more desire to see everyone in the company fall ill in a pandemic than you do.
No matter where you live, however, there are many strategies you can use to work toward better health for you and your colleagues.
minimizing your exposure
The guiding principle here is “social distance” — how close do you have to get to your coworkers and to the general public?
If you’re a long-haul trucker, you’re in a very low-risk group: keep your hands clean (be careful in public restrooms!), don’t let people breathe on you and you’ll be fine. If you’re a pulmonologist who does respiratory procedures, you’re in a very high-risk group, but we presume you already know how to take care of yourself with respirators and other infection-control measures.
If you have a wonky immune system or you’re pregnant, you should definitely consult your doctor about special procedures for keeping yourself safe, and take those concerns to your employer.
The rest of you, however, may be able to control many risks from exposure to those you work with. (Many of these suggestions are taken from advice by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.)
Teleconferencing: If you work in a position that includes a lot of travel, can virtual conferences and email replace some of the face-to-face meetings? In the workplace, can you avoid cramming groups into a small conference room with minimal ventilation, and use the phone or text messaging instead?
Telecommuting: If most employees sit at computers all day, are they encouraged to take a laptop and work at home at the first sign of fever or cough?
Flexible shifts: Can management consider staggering work hours so that everyone is not sharing the same location at the same time?
New social norms: Is it okay for everyone to stand six feet apart (about 2m) when illness is spreading? Can you agree not to shake hands, or to wash immediately if you must touch? Is it okay for everybody to have their own tools or equipment and agree not to share? Can you restrict visitors to the workplace (or parts of it, like large cubicle farms) while a pandemic is underway?
maintaining good hygiene
Do your workplace restrooms and kitchen have plenty of soap and warm water? Are facilities cleaned regularly? Are tissues, wastebaskets, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes (for keyboards, telephones and the like) available — including to customers? Can you change trash cans with manual covers to step-on bins? Does everybody in the office aware that high-touch items (doorknobs, shared keyboards, the office coffeepot or water cooler) should be handled only with clean hands, that you should cough or sneeze into a shoulder or elbow if a tissue is not handy, and that you should avoid touching your face without washing afterward?
If you work in a place of high contact with the public (a customer-service window, for example), is there a clear barrier ("sneeze guard") to help prevent people breathing in your face? Is there a way to shift more of your business to a drive-through window, a Web site, or expanded phone hours?
staying healthy
If your workplace promotes good health — has generous health insurance or wellness programs, helps employees quit smoking, provides healthy snacks, encourages you to take an hour for a flu shot — you’re well ahead of the game. If not, fill in wherever you can. Don’t smoke; bring fruits and veggies for your lunch or snack break; get vaccinated after hours if you can.
Take care of your immune system, and it’s possible that you’ll become less ill if you do catch something, and recover faster. Or — knock on wood — not become ill at all. That’s a work goal we can all get behind.
Posted by eks on 11/17 at 10:38 AM(8) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Agony of De Feet: How to avoid getting tripped up … and what to do if you are
Let’s talk about feet.
Your feet are your best way out of any situation. Think about it: would you want to try to exit a situation on your knees? hand-over-hand? slithering side to side? Nope. So one of the best things you can do for yourself, before any emergency, is to make sure your feet are in good working condition.
Clear your path
Number one rule: don’t trip. (Don’t ask me how I know this. I have several broken toes, a cracked metatarsal, and innumerable sprained ankles to my, er, credit.) Sprained ankles, broken metatarsals, even stubbed toes or bruised shins can seriously slow you down, or even make your exit impossible. This means that in any situation you have control over, you need to keep all passageways as free of debris as possible.
Do you have kids—and do they regularly leave Legos, jacks, Matchbox cars or jump ropes on the living room floor? Are you in the habit of leaving items on your stairs “just for a little while” until you can take them up or down? Are your pet dishes in the kitchen, between the sink and the stove, because you can’t think of a better place? Do you leave laundry baskets in the hallway till family members claim them? Is your foyer a jumble of shoes, rollerblades, bike helmets, jackets, and that tool chest or vacuum you meant to take out to the car? Always leave yourself an unobstructed way from Point A to Point B. Clear your path.
Take care of ‘em beforehand
Number two rule: take care of any existing foot or leg problems. (Over half the respondents in a recent survey reported “foot pain so severe that it hampered their daily function.”) Do you have corns or bunions from too-tight shoes, plantar fasciitis, or diabetic foot ulcers? Any experience with clots, swelling, varicose veins? Do you have a longstanding weak ankle or knee from previous sprains or athletic injuries? Take care of those problems now, before limping away from an emergency costs you precious time.
Shoes are your friends too
Number three rule: in case you do need to escape, have a good set of shoes available for each family member. Remember the pictures of thousands of commuters walking out of Manhattan after 9/11? Would you want to do that in high heels or your shinest, most pinched Oxfords? No? Then keep some walking shoes in your desk at work, along with a good pair of socks if you’re not wearing them already.)
At home, if you wake up in the dark with the roof shaking, you’ll need something you can put on in a hurry and not hurt yourself in on the way out. (Tie-on sneakers or running shoes, wonderful as they are, have drawbacks.) In many major home emergencies—tornado or windstorm, earthquake, fire—cut glass is a serious hazard. Make sure the soles of your shoes (or slippers, if that’s all you’ll have) are thick and sturdy!
But I’m already not walking!
Well, you say, that’s all very nice if you’re fit, or can cure your foot problems. But I have a permanently arthritic ankle and use a cane. Or I have an artificial leg. Or I use a wheelchair because walking isn’t feasible for me at all. What about me?
If you usually find it easiest to maneuver with a cane or a walker or a pair of crutches, have that near you at all times. Even if you’re having a good foot day, keep one with you if you go down the hall at work. Leave your mobility aid of choice by your bed at night.
If you need a chair some or all of the time, things are trickier. You may need a buddy or buddies in an emergency; if you live or work with others, start talking with them now about your exit plans from home and office. We’ll cover the needs of the disabled in a separate column.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Water, water … everywhere?
Wilderness and military specialists have a rule of thumb: an average healthy adult can survive “three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food.” (The water rule assumes a fully hydrated person, and warm but not hot temperatures.)
Three days? Only three days’ supply stands between you and dying of thirst? Most Westerners in the 21st century have never had to go more than a few hours away from a source of water; it’s as close as the nearest sink or outdoor faucet. Though the average adult loses five pints of water a day to ordinary metabolism, death from dehydration is usually so far down the worries list it never crosses our minds.
But what do you do if your water supply is no longer available?
I used to live in a semi-rural area—no town water or sewer: everyone had wells and septic systems—with frequent power outages. And while yes, we had our own well, the well pump was electric and stopped working every time the power went out: there’d be no water to flush toilets except what was left in the tank, no water except the trickle left in the pipes to wash, and certainly no water to drink. We became accustomed to buying water in commercial jugs for the inevitable outages.
Store your own
So Lesson One here is to plan ahead: store a supply of water, so this won’t become such a problem in an emergency. If you have a handy place to keep a number of commercial jugs, and the cost is not a problem, they are the easiest solution for an emergency drinking supply. (It might be hard to stash enough commercial jugs to use them for cooking and washing as well—depends on your space available.)
Now if you decide not to underwrite the commercial water industry, it’s certainly possible to store your own tap water in your own containers. Empty soda bottles are one of the best container choices available; clean them well and rinse very thoroughly (soap is no fun to drink). Any other containers which held liquids for human consumption are also fair game; again, clean and rinse well. For bathing and long-term drinking use, some authorities even suggest large immovable containers (like a sturdy trash can), cleaned thoroughly and lined with plastic (e.g. a couple of heavy-duty trash bags).
A few drops of bleach (we’ll cover this more in another article) are a good idea when you’re adding your own water to your own containers. Do not, however, add bleach to stainless-steel containers—the two don’t mix!
How much do you need to plan for?
The minimum amount suggested by the Red Cross is a three-day supply, allowing one gallon (about four liters) per person per day. Other authorities suggest a gallon a day just for drinking and food preparation, another half-gallon to a gallon for hygiene. If you can store a couple of weeks’ worth, they suggest, so much the better.
Don’t forget to take your pets into account! Cats might need a quart per day. A big thirsty golden retriever will drink a lot more, especially in hot weather.
If you have a nursing mother in your home, she’ll need at least an extra quart each day over her normal intake.
And don’t forget to take water with you if you have to leave your home or workplace. If you’re buying a commercial supply, gallon jugs will be harder to transport, even in a car. Consider buying smaller bottles (half a liter, maybe) as well, so some of your supply can be carried if necessary.
What if I haven’t planned ahead?
Let’s say that despite reading this article, and having the best intentions, you haven’t put water in your storage area before the tornado or earthquake comes. Then what? What are reliable sources of water if you haven’t planned ahead?
In the city, if there’s any pressure at all in the system, you can try getting water from the tap. Unfortunately, if water mains or treatment plants have been affected, the water may be contaminated, and you’ll need to either boil it (rolling boil, three minutes) or treat it with bleach or water-purifying tablets (you’ve planned ahead enough to have those on hand, right?).
If you live in the country or on the outskirts of a metropolitan area, you may have easier access to a spring, river or lake. Again, don’t forget to purify the water; a little Giardia can ruin your whole week. Consider buying a portable water purifier (available in outdoor stores).
In the winter, in colder climes, you have another source: snow (the fresher the better). Collect it in wide-mouthed clean (food-grade) containers, and, of course, avoid areas contaminated by dirt, animal urine or other pollutants. Consider melting and purifying.
If you also have a supply of canned goods, items heavy in liquid like juice and canned fruits (avoid canned goods high in sodium, which increase thirst) can provide a welcome source of moisture.
And if I get desperate?
If you’re really far away from a source of help, you could soak fabric in dew and suck the moisture from the fabric.
You could take water from a contaminated river or other source, minus purifying methods, and just decide to deal with the consequences when you reach reliable medical help (not good for long-term situations, especially if the hospitals are busy saving trauma cases).
(And yes, in a truly desperate situation, you can drink your own urine, though it’s unlikely to buy you more than a day or two.)
The upshot
Keep as much water on hand as you can. You may never have to use it—but in an emergency you’ll be very glad not to worry about being thirsty!
Posted by eks on 09/29 at 01:28 PM(2) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Top 10 Hurricane Survival Tips
The earth is experiencing global shifts that affect our climate daily. With recent hurricanes such as Gustav and Hanna threatening shorelines, we might soon see hurricanes that trump the impact of Rita (in Florida) and Katrina (in Louisiana). One cannot deny the catastrophic potentials of these type of storms.
What is a hurricane?
According to the description from Mega Disasters, “‘Hurricane’ is the name applied to migratory tropical cyclones that originate over oceans in certain regions near the equator, and particularly to those arising in the West Indian region, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane-type cyclones in the western Pacific are known as typhoons.” The intensity of hurricanes is measured by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, created in the 1970s by the American engineer Herbert S. Saffir (1917- ) and Robert H. Simpson (1912- ), a former director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
What to do when a hurricane is near
- Know the intensity of the storm, which is measured by the NHC as the estimate of potential property damage and flooding along the coast after a hurricane landfall. The mildest hurricane, Category 1, has winds of at least 120 km/hr (74 mph); the strongest (and rarest), Category 5, has winds that exceed 250 km/hr (155 mph).
- Determine the level of risk for hurricane impact to your area, than make plans to evacuate if and when the order is given, and know where to go.
- Find out shelter and evacuation center rules, and decide on the items to take with you. Alcoholic beverages, drugs, weapons and smoking are not permitted in public shelters/evacuation centers. Find out about pets.
- Prepare a 72 hour Emergency Kit for each family member including pets.
- Check batteries, replace water and packaged food, and check generator.
- If a hurricane watch is posted for your area, it only means there is a possibility a hurricane will reach your area, and you should prepare as if it were coming. A hurricane warning, however, means it is coming and you should seek shelter immediately. Remember: Hurricane watches give 36 hours to prepare, and hurricane warnings give 24 hours to prepare.
- Know and post the TV and radio stations that broadcast official emergency and weather information.
- Cover doors and windows with heavy plywood and secure roof trusses. Since houses are designed as closed systems, shutting them tight is how they best withstand wind pressure. If flying debris busts a window or fierce winds kick in a door, the winds rushing inside will push the roof, trying to lift it, while the winds on the outside will create a suction.
- People with special needs should check with their home health care agencies and also register with the Emergency Management Office in their county.
- Wait for the official “all clear” to be issued from the emergency management authorities before returning home. Upon return, be sure you have ID to verify your home address. This is not a time for “sight-seeing” as it may impede emergency personnel. Beware of hazards such as downed lines, gas leaks, and sharp objects.
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