I hate to nag, but there is no workaround here.  The harsh truth is that obese people move more slowly, are more vulnerable to secondary injuries such as heart attacks, and have a harder time physically recovering from any injuries they do sustain.  There is no need to say much more, since there are entire industries devoted to this particularly modern and maddening challenge.  But it’s worth remembering that on 9/11, people with low physical ability were three times as likely to be hurt while evacuating the towers.  Once again, what helps us in regular life helps us in disasters.

I’ve heard enough from friends with weight issues that this passage immediately struck me as wrongheaded.  So I ran it by a few of them to check.

I can’t improve much on their comments:

“When someone claims to be putting forth a ‘harsh truth’, I automatically expect them to be putting forth a prejudice they hope to not be called upon to justify by announcing in advance that it is the truth.  I’ll just run right out and tell all the obese people I know who are runners, dancers, choreographers, and rock climbers that they should really try to develop some physical ability, shall I?”

“While there are correlations with weight, it’s not a 1:1 mapping, and in an emergency it doesn’t matter why someone has trouble moving (other than to let the survivors feel better or worse about whatever happens to them).  Nor do I think that lowering one’s prospects of dying in a rare disaster is likely to be a particularly powerful motivator for anyone inclined to be overweight.”

“‘Get in better shape’, where practical, is generically good advice.  But then, so is ‘make ten million dollars’, which would make any number of disaster preparation steps easier.”

“I get the impression that there’s a widely-held sense among those without the inclination — or with the sort of low-level, need-to-lose-five-pounds issue that can be dealt with with minimal lifestyle changes — that the problem is somehow that overweight people didn’t realize there were any disadvantages to being fat, or that it had anything to do with what they ate or, to a lesser extent, how much activity they engaged in.  Ripley may be in a similar position:  ‘But if they knew they’d be more likely to be burned alive by Al Qaeda, maybe then they’d stop their incomprehensible eating and activity habits.’ There are really very few obese people who couldn’t name ten reasons they’d rather be thinner.  Increasing social stigma and the wide trumpeting of health risks are demonstrably no match for the wide availability of cheap, tasty food; I seriously doubt that adding another, fairly uncommon risk to the list is likely to make a significant difference.”

“As an overweight person, I think that the biggest issue here is the conflation of obesity and ‘low physical ability’.  There are plenty of people out there who are clinically overweight, who nonetheless have very good strength, agility and endurance, if not speed.  I would seriously question if Ripley has any hard data to back up her blanket comments about obese people healing more slowly, or being at higher risk for heart attack in a disaster.  Just to put things into perspective, while I’m way heavier than I should be now, I also know that I was 30+ pounds outside the ‘overweight’ categorization for my height when I was playing on the varsity soccer team in high school.  There’s a definite undercurrent of ‘thinner is better’ out there in the world, I just don’t buy it, and frankly there’s a lot of medical data turning up that flies in the face of straight BMI statistics.”

One friend referred to the “elephant in the room”:  “if you are somehow differently-abled and disaster strikes, by Ripley’s guidelines, you are f***ed.” He agreed with me that “the right place to focus might be on maximizing overall fitness and mobility for the person you are, rather than on reducing BMI.”

“Yeah,” responded another friend, “talk about mobility and maybe about helps for disabled people who need to evacuate when the elevators go out.  And maybe nudge all of us to improve our mobility the best we can.”

I’m with them.  What do you think?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,/ Old Time is still a-flying:/
And this same flower that smiles to-day/ To-morrow will be dying.
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” we’ve all heard.  Most people don’t know the poem the line is from, which is somewhat jarring to modern ears (it’s about marrying before you’re old and ugly). But think of this line in a context of emergency preparedness.

The time to gather rosebuds is while “the glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting.” The time to gather is not — and let us get away from Herrick for a moment — when storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.  And it is most definitely not when the flames are licking at your neighbor’s door.

Gathering is a common human response to disaster.  A depressing number of plane-crash survivors try to lug their carry-ons down the aisle while exiting, even when begged not to by the flight crew; often these people’s attachments to their laptops or spare underwear prevents fellow passengers from getting out in the ninety seconds after the crash (often the window before the plane catches on fire or sinks), costing others their lives.  A survey of World Trade Center survivors found that two out of every five spent time trying to collect items before evacuating the towers; presumably the percentage was higher among those who didn’t make it out in time.

People’s attachments to their toothbrushes or their current paperback novels might seem inexplicable in the face of really horrific events, but it’s a normal response to disaster, a way of making sense of events.  But it might kill you.  So before catastrophe comes to you or your neighborhood, just remember:  don’t gather.

If you think you “can’t” live without the family Bible, your prize collectible, or the slides of your child’s kindergarten graduation, then put those at the top of your home evacuation plan, and do one of the following:

• put them in your actual evacuation bag, before you need it.
• make copies of anything irreplaceable and store those in your evac bag.
• put that priceless painting or Ming vase by the door you expect to leave by, and grab it as you run through the door.

But keep in mind that you may not even be home when the wildfire or earthquake hits.  If you have sentimental items that can be duplicated, like a photo album, make copies and keep them somewhere else — perhaps in a safe-deposit box out of state, or at a relative’s home in another town.  And think about letting go of any material objects in case of a major catastrophe.

Do not, for the love of all you care about, risk yourself during an actual evacuation.  During a plane crash, take nothing (except essential medication).  During a home or work evacuation, take only your preplanned bug-out bags.  If you haven’t already planned for the love letters you wrote in college to go along when you escape your house, don’t go back for them.  Sentimental items — photo albums, baby shoes, your wedding veil — are not worth your life.

Then be not coy, but use your time ...
You may for ever tarry.

The western coast of North America has a similar season, mid-May through the end of November. 

Other areas of the world have their own seasons.  East Asia gets typhoons all year, though with a peak in late summer; India has two peaks six months apart; the Southern Hemisphere regions tend to have seasons like North America’s, only in reverse — November to May.

In the North Atlantic, 2008 was a well-above-average year, with 16 named storms, eight hurricanes, five major hurricanes; never before, since records have been kept, had there been a major Atlantic hurricane in July, August, September, October AND November.  The worst year on record was 2005:  28 named storms, fifteen hurricanes, seven major hurricanes — and four of those Category 5, the worst sort of all.

In comparison, 2009 began with a fizzle, with no named storms in June or July.  (El Niño in the Pacific, say meteorologists, is shifting the jet stream south and disrupting storm formation.) Of course, 1992 started sluggishly as well — yet the very first named storm, Hurricane Andrew in August 1992, brought a gigantic swath of destruction.

June too soon.
July stand by.
August look out you must.
September remember.
October all over.
—R. Inwards, 1898

By contrast, tornadoes don’t quite have a “season,” at least in the US, where weather conditions have proved favorable to tornadoes year-round.  They do, however, have peak seasons, depending on the state:  in the Northeast, June through August; in California, January through April; in the Gulf states, spring with another peak in November; in the Midwest’s Tornado Alley, the spring or early summer, becoming later as you move north.

Last June, storm-chasing scientists announced that the 2009 tornado season had been a disappointment, with fewer tornadoes and less intense ones than in previous years to date; there was even a 17-day stretch in late spring with no tornado watches anywhere in the US.  This may have been bad news for thrill junkies, you might think, but isn’t the good news that many fewer people died in tornadoes than the preceding year?

On the other hand, the storm chasers — from four countries and a wide array of institutions — weren’t doing it just for thrills, they were hoping to apply their instruments to tornadoes to see exactly what made them develop, and what happened when they did.  (The experiment is called VORTEX2:  Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2.  It had ten million dollars in funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation, and will return during the spring of 2010.) Among their goals was to see whether warning times — now less than fifteen minutes — could be expanded to half an hour or even a full hour.

Oddly enough, NOAA records show that there were not significantly fewer tornadoes in 2009 than in the previous several years.  It’s possible the VORTEX2 crew put out their instruments during a lull, or were simply looking in the wrong spots.  It’ll be an interesting project to watch....

Think about what it would mean to be asked to stay home, as Mexican citizens were this spring, for an extended period.  No schools, no restaurants, possibly no work if you’re not considered “essential personnel.” Getting everyday supplies restocked might be a real challenge.

You know by now that you should have an emergency supply of food, at least enough to last your family a couple of weeks.  But do you know what to have on hand so you don’t need to run out of essential household goods?  Have you thought about food or supplies (kitty litter, aquarium chemicals, bedding) for your pets and other animals?  What about soap?  Toilet paper?  Toothpaste?  Dish detergent?  Laundry detergent?  Prescription meds? Do you have a stock of paper plates and disposable utensils, in case your family is too ill to manage dishes for a while?

Think for a moment about what you’d need for a trip to a residential hotel in another city.  Your room is taken care of for the moment, but you’re going to feed yourself in-house, rather than in restaurants, and you have to supply all household goods and do all your own laundry.  (A note on laundry:  it’s a really good idea to have more than one extra set of bedding for everyone, so if someone is ill you don’t have to do laundry immediately to change the sheets.  Most parents know this from experience.) What will you and your family members need to buy?

This is an excellent exercise to try around the dinner table.  What does everyone in the family think is important to have?  And what can you easily let go of, or do without?  (Some families are happy to use soft toilet paper in place of Kleenex for blowing noses when they have the flu.  Some, not so much.)

Another thing to think about:  where will you store all these extra supplies?  For many homeowners, it’s not a problem, but if you live in a tiny apartment or RV or group living situation or refurbished outhouse, it’ll be more of a challenge.  Investment guru Andrew Tobias, in his classic The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, suggests outside-the-box ideas like putting cases of tuna under your bed.  Think about where you might have any extra storage space — not just closets, but under tables, behind couches, in garages (if you live in a warm, not too humid climate), and more.  Having all that extra canned or boxed food and toilet paper will come in very handy someday, and you don’t want it to overwhelm you until it does.

Let us know what comes out of this planning process for you!

Charred animal cages were also found in one burnt-out area.  Inside were the remains of three small dogs.

It’s truly sad that firefighters died, and knowing that dogs were burnt alive due to somebody’s malice made many readers and TV viewers cringe.  But in the calculus of awfulness, it’s hard to tell whether these deaths are worse than the loss of many who have died because of careless smokers or campers.

Depending on your source, you may read that anywhere from 50 to 90% of all wildfires are caused by human activity, not lightning or other natural causes.  (In the US in 2007, fewer than 15% of wildfires were caused by lightning.) About three-quarters of those human causes, apparently, are simple carelessness — sparks from lawnmowers or power tools, stray cigarette butts, campfires which are insufficiently doused, fallen power lines, even someone idling a car in a tinder-dry forest.  (That leaves a quarter which are deliberately set.)

Sometimes authorities press civil or criminal charges even in non-deliberate cases:  negligence, arson, homicide.  When culprits could be identified, the US Forest Service and other agencies have attempted to recover the multimillion-dollar costs of battling their fires.

It’s understandable, of course, that many fires traceable to humans happen through sheer lack of knowledge.  Who’d ever guess that sitting in a car with a hot engine would ignite the vegetation around you?  Or that using power tools outdoors would send everything up in smoke?

There’s more preventable carelessness, though.  Many smokers dispose of butts without a thought, believing their cigarettes are entirely out when they aren’t.  Then there’s campers and bonfire-builders, who despite years of exposure to Smokey Bear (the mascot of the US Forest Service, who’s appeared in innumerable public-service announcements for three generations), haven’t internalized basic rules about controlling fire:

• Pick your site carefully — well away from flammable objects — and never build a fire in hazardous (very dry or windy) conditions.
• Build a protective pit (if you’re not using an existing fire ring) and clear space around it.
• If you use a match to start a fire, extinguish it in a cup of water, or drop it in the campfire.
• Keep the fire small and manageable; never leave it unattended.
• Have a shovel and a supply of water nearby.  Drown all your embers, whether they’re red or not!  Stir the ashes with the shovel and make sure everything is damp and cold.  If no water is available, use dirt, and mix well — don’t try to bury the fire.  ("If it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to leave!")

What else can you do to prevent fires?

• If someone you love lives in a fire-prone area and smokes, consider talking to them about it — especially if you’ve ever seen them toss a cigarette butt out a car window, or grind it under their heel outdoors!  Smoking outdoors requires a three-foot clearing; cigarettes should never be extinguished or disposed of outdoors except in nonflammable sand or dirt.  (Smoking does not mix with riding or walking, because ashes can’t be kept in one place. Or with driving, if drivers can’t keep the ashes inside their cars.) If you think it will help, buy or make your loved one some ashtrays, including the outdoor and portable kinds (if you have a kindergartener who brings home clay ashtrays from art class, this could be a good way to regift ‘em).  Emphasize that you care about your friend’s or relative’s safety.

• Keep flammable objects away from fuel-based or electrical items, and well away from (as well as downwind from!) dry vegetation.

• Many modern power tools have “spark arrestors”, which trap or destroy carbon particles before they can escape the exhaust system.  Get your equipment checked, and don’t use it — or be exceedingly careful — on hot, dry days.

• Always be prepared to hose down your surroundings on a high-fire-hazard day.

• And don’t (thank you, Captain Obvious) build campfires or bonfires in a fire-hazard zone.

Now comes the word that another source of superbugs is just as dangerous:  the showerhead in your bathroom.

In July of 1976, attendees at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia were stricken by a mysterious illness dubbed by puzzled investigators “Legionnaire’s disease” — a pneumonia caused by a then-unknown bacterium, now known as Legionella — and many died.  (Death rates can vary from 1% to 50%, depending on the initial health of those infected and how late antibiotic treatment is begun.)

I was a little too young to pay much attention at the time, but the American Legion illnesses — traced to a cooling tower feeding the hotel’s air-conditioning system — were the first well-known outbreak of a respiratory disease caused by aerosol infection:  suspension of pathogens in mist.  Other outbreaks have been linked to indoor fountains and whirlpools, hot tubs, hospital drinking-water systems — and showers.

And no, chlorinating the water doesn’t help.  Hospitals have been battling Legionella in their plumbing since the bacteria was discovered, and one study of Texas hospitals with free chlorine (as opposed to monochloramine, a newer water-treatment method with less effectiveness against many other pathogens) in their water supplies found that they all had notable amounts of the bacteria.  Headlines in the UK’s Daily Mail in 2006 told the story of a 37-year-old man in remission from leukemia, who died the day of his planned discharge from the Royal United Hospital in Bath — from an infected showerhead.

So the latest news (published just last September) is that showerheads in nine US cities contained layers of unexpected microbes, some of them potentially dangerous.  The worst offender, identified in a fifth of the samples, was Mycobacterium avium.  This is a bacterium linked to serious respiratory illness in people whose immune systems are compromised:  chemotherapy patients (like the man who’d beat leukemia), people with AIDS, transplant patients — and elderly people, pregnant women, and anyone fighting off some other illness.  If you have someone in one of these categories in your household, it’s a story worth paying attention to. (Healthy people usually don’t fall victim to this particular bug, but it has been known to happen.)

The initial blast of hot water from the showerhead — which many of us stand under, sometimes with face upturned — apparently contains the highest levels of bacteria, so the study authors suggested that anyone concerned might want to run the shower for a minute or two, while standing outside the bathroom, to disperse the bacteria before stepping in.

Most of the news stories I’ve seen (perhaps prodded by manufacturers of plumbing products?) suggest that the simplest things to do for families concerned about infectious showerheads are to swap them out every few months, and to substitute metal showerheads for metal-coated plastic.  I’m now curious about their rationale, since one study of “biofilms” (layers of icky microbes) on various metal and plastic piping found the lowest levels on CPVC (a type of plastic) and the highest levels on copper; another found that PVC was better than iron.  Perhaps the specific metals and plastics used in showerhead construction are the key.

Also, very little was mentioned about cleaning your showerhead.

Mycobacterium avium, unfortunately, is highly resistant to chemical disinfectants, but there are a few that work.  An hour reading the medical journals shows that aldehydes (such as glutaraldehyde or the better-known formaldehyde), phenols, isopropanol, undiluted chlorine bleach, and peracetic acid (a combination of acetic acid — better known as vinegar — and hydrogen peroxide) have all been shown effective.  So has boiling, though I’ve seen times as long as 30 minutes given.  For me, now, the question is exactly what my showerheads are made of, and how much home chemistry experimentation I’m willing to do to clean them of nasty bugs.

A word of extreme caution:  unless you know exactly what you are doing, never never ever mix disinfecting agents with each other.  (Bleach + ammonia = deadly gas.  Peracetic acid + some other chemicals = explosion.  Bad juju!)

“We are waiting anxiously, wanting to be right in the middle of it,” said [the man], who said he has never seen a hurricane as powerful as Jimena.  “We were advised to leave, but we want to be here,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be in one ... a real bad one.”

Really?  Jimena had a maximum wind speed of around 150 mph (240 kph), with gusts up to 175 mph (280 kph).  At those speeds, say the Virginia Department of Emergency Management:

“Catastrophic damage to residential structures. Most of the affected area will be uninhabitable for weeks or longer. Nearly all industrial buildings and low-rise apartment buildings severely damaged or destroyed. Nearly all trees and power poles downed.  Damage could extend well inland.  For example, large portions of the affected area will experience total power and water loss for weeks and possibly months.”

Not just a really big storm, but one that could kill you just by standing in it.  Sounds like a fun kind of sightseeing activity, doesn’t it?

A week earlier, on the opposite coast of North America, stories reported on spectators at Acadia National Park in Maine.  Approximately ten thousand people converged on the shore to watch the waves churned up by the near approach of Hurricane Bill — waves exceeding fifteen feet (5 m) crashing over the shore.  The waves swept, predictably enough, over at least twenty people who got too close, sending eleven to the hospital for broken bones — and sweeping three into the water, where one child drowned.

And the tales go on:  climbers who try to scale Denali in a snowstorm.  The residents of barrier islands in Texas who shrugged off 2008’s Hurricane Ike — dozens died, and hundreds were never found.  The six geniuses who were caught walking on Old Faithful in May 2009, though it was “not erupting at the time.” I could find you dozens of these stories.

Now if you’re not especially attached to living, or at least living with all your limbs and skin attached, you might wonder why others care whether you kill yourself in spectacular ways.  Here’s some thoughts for you to ponder:

• If you have children or elderly or disabled dependents, you don’t really get to make that choice for them.  If worried authorities tell you to evacuate, you’d better have a darned good reason why not.  “My house has stood for a hundred years” is not a good reason — hundred-year-old houses flood/burn down/blow away, too.  If you’re just sightseeing around killer waves or volcanoes or what have you, at least keep your kids out of harm’s way!

• If you don’t have dependents .. do you have family and friends who will miss you?

• There are people who put their own lives at risk to rescue people who may be victims through no fault of their own.  We call these people firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, doctors, nurses, park rangers, helicopter pilots.  Every single person who needs to get rescued although they had an opportunity to get out of harm’s way puts someone else at greater risk of dying.

Please don’t do this to the overworked, underpaid folks who are supposed to be keeping you safe.  Rescue workers die pulling people out of situations they shouldn’t be in in the first place.  And the ones who live — like the park rangers who try but fail to keep people away from hazards in their parks — get to live with the knowledge that someone died on their watch.

So if you’re not going to be careful for you — at least be careful for their sakes.  Thanks.

Dam failure?  I didn’t even know there was a dam nearby.  I sat down with a search engine and pulled up some maps.  It turned out there are two, both on brooks dammed over a century ago to form reservoirs for that city.  Both are labeled “high hazard”, though they’re fairly small and neither is directly upstream of residential areas — the worst that would happen if either failed is probably some flooding on a nearby interstate.

Yet dam failures can be far more catastrophic.

On the last day of May, 1889, the South Fork Dam, a creaky and largely neglected structure holding back a private lake in western Pennsylvania for the pleasure fishing of wealthy vacationers like Andrew Carnegie, abruptly “moved away.” Sweeping downstream with the power of Niagara Falls, it carried away four small villages and hamlets.  By the time it rolled into the city of Johnstown it was a forty-foot wall of debris, corpses and water.  More than twenty-two hundred people died (none of whom were wealthy vacationers).

The Johnstown Flood led to the reform of liability laws in the United States, but it wasn’t the last massive dam failure, not even in the United States.  In March of 1928, a giant concrete dam near Los Angeles, California, collapsed in the middle of the night; the wall of twelve billion gallons (45 billion liters) of water killed more than six hundred people.  The Buffalo Creek disaster in West Virginia killed over a hundred in February 1972; residents had not been informed about the “real soggy” condition of the dam, much less evacuated.  Three months later, the Canyon Lake Dam in South Dakota killed somewhere between dozens and hundreds (estimates vary widely).  In 1976 and 1977, three more failures killing dozens (in Idaho, Pennsylvania and Georgia) led to dam safety laws and programs in most US states.

And failures happen all over the world, due to problems ranging from design failure to poor maintenance to extreme rain.  The Great Sheffield Flood of 1864, in Yorkshire, England, resulted from the loss of a just-built dam on the Dale Dike Reservoir.  In 1959 a dam in southern France (Malpasset) collapsed, killing between three and five hundred people.  A 1963 failure and landslide in the Italian Alps (Vajont) destroyed several villages, killing 2500; at Val di Stava, only 65 km away and less than twenty years later (1982), a collapse killed 268 more.  After a 2005 dam burst in southwest Pakistan (Shakidor), quick search and rescue saved over a thousand people, yet seventy were known dead and hundreds missing.

August 1975 saw one of the greatest disasters in history:  the Shimantan and Banqiao dams in Henan Province, built for one-in-a-thousand-year floods, were unable to keep up with the water dumped by Super Typhoon Nina.  Weather conditions made notification and evacuation difficult; their failure wiped a town off the map and killed over a hundred thousand people.

All that historical coverage gives you an idea of the worst-case scenarios you might face.  But what can you, personally, do to avoid being the victim of a future dam breach?  This is one of those forms of preparedness that differs drastically from area to area, so there’s no one-size-fits-all advice.

To begin, you’ll need to consult your favorite search engine.

First, find out what the dam safety laws and procedures are in your state or province or district.  While I was putting the search engine through its paces, I randomly checked eight or nine US states and four Canadian provinces, with “dam safety RandomPlaceName”.  Every search term turned up either a state/provincial office, or a detailed explanation of how dam safety was legally handled in that area.  (Australian offices were harder to find, but it was clear that government advice on dam safety was available.  I haven’t found the magic search terms for counties in the UK, and haven’t tried other countries yet.  But I encourage you to poke around yourself.  In the US, you might start with this map.)

Then learn which dams are nearest you.  To start, try searching for “YourCityName dam” or “YourCountyorDistrict dams”.  Ask your neighbors, or your town’s police department or emergency management agency ("CityName emergency management").  Learn the names of any dams.

Now try a search like “DamName dam breach” to learn how close you are to the predicted path of any dam breach.  If your town has an emergency management plan, see what it says about notification and evacuation procedures.  Is there a plan for sirens or ”Reverse 911” should a failure appear imminent?  What can be done about moving yourself and your family to higher ground?

Take your research and incorporate it into your family’s disaster plan.  And when heavy rains come along or a quake hits your area, pay close attention.  Good luck!

Or you live somewhere in wooded country — say, northwestern Montana — and the wildfires are getting out of control and approaching your area....

The one thing you need most is not a picnic basket full of food.  It’s not the kids’ Wii.  It’s not even the family photos.  Once you load up the kids and pets, head inland or to a less wooded area — where are you all going to stay?  Almost certainly a hotel or motel, and those are expensive.

In Western cultures, in the 21st century, you’ll need a credit card.

If you’re like the average American or Canadian, you have thousands of dollars (maybe tens of thousands) already in credit-card debt, and may have maxed out one of more of your cards.

You might even be one of those folks who doesn’t believe in credit cards, even though it’s difficult to get along in modern society without them.  But in a pinch, wouldn’t it be useful to be able to whip out a piece of plastic?

What about debit cards, you wonder?  Those are great if you’re good about keeping hundreds or thousands sitting in your bank account — but don’t forget that during a disaster you might need to spend that and more.

You might need to stock up on all those supplies you forgot before the hurricane or fire or ice storm comes to town:  plywood, batteries and camping lanterns, bottled water, French toast ingredients.  (In New England, we refer to impending winter storms as “French toast emergencies” because everybody runs out to stock up on milk, bread and eggs.  Your mileage may vary.) You might, depending on the nature of the crisis, need to have essential goods delivered.

You might need to settle your family in a motel outside your area for days or weeks, with no definite end in sight — and to pay for gasoline and food during your evacuation.

(You might even be traveling far from home and break your leg — and find that the clinic in Fiji doesn’t take your insurance.)

No matter how good your credit is, arranging a bank loan right before or during an emergency is going to be a non-starter.  So pay your credit-card bills on time, and leave a generous margin on your credit limit.  Or, at the very minimum, keep an emergency margin in your bank account, and have a debit card which permits you overdraft privileges.  When you need money fast, there’s just one word:  “plastics.”

Use your head — plan ahead

Don’t go faster than the road and the weather conditions allow.  This is a difficult lesson for beginning riders, who often overestimate their ability to negotiate a tight curve.  (Drifting out of a lane while doing this is especially risky for motorcyclists, because if a car or truck comes the other direction, they’ll plow right into you.  Watch out.) But even in good weather, experienced riders misjudge curves, as my friend D. did.

Never ride beyond your sightlines, says a rider who’s taken many safety courses.  “There could be a fallen tree blocking the road around that blind bend, or some sand in the middle of the corner, or a car stopped over the crest of that hill.  The MSF class will teach you other stuff to watch out for.”

And while this probably shouldn’t need to be said:  Ride sober!  Riding a motorcycle is an activity requiring skill, balance, and decent reaction time.  Even half a drink might rob you of a critical bit of coordination needed to avoid an accident.  “An amount of alcohol that leaves you within the limits of the law, and after which you would feel safe driving a car, may impair you to the point where you cannot ride a motorcycle safely,” advises one motorcyclist.  “My own personal rule is that I don’t drink and ride.”

Ride defensively

Make yourself stand out visually.  If your motorcycle leathers or other gear are black, this will be a problem on a dark night.  Some racing leathers come in colors, though, as one rider sniffs, “not everyone wants to look like a Power Ranger.” Cordura nylon gear comes in a variety of colors, including high-visibility yellow (worn by a bicyclist in my family), some with reflective patches sewn on.  If you don’t want colored gear, consider a reflective vest over it at night.  The most important factor in gear is its protective value — you can add the visibility options after the fact.  “My synthetic jacket has some reflective on it, and is gray,” says another friend.  “I have reflective tape all over my helmet.”

Even when you’re wearing DayGlo colors, pretend you’re invisible to other vehicles and be aware of where they are at all times.  About three-quarters of motorcycle accidents in the US are caused by collisions with other vehicles.  Careless drivers (some motorcyclists call them “Brain-Dead Cagers”, or BDCs) will run into the strangest things:  “BDCs hit ambulances, fire trucks, and cop cars that are running lights and sirens,” says a disgruntled motorcyclist.  “They’ll hit you too.”

Take care of your fellow riders

These tips for riding in groups were all contributed by a long-time rider I know:

Stop periodically to allow slower riders to catch up, and to make sure everybody is still with you. If you have experience, consider riding in the rearmost “sweep” position to watch out for the less-experienced riders commonly found toward the rear.  And if you plan to leave a ride early, let the group leader know so he or she knows you haven’t simply gone missing.

Also:  "Ride your own ride.  Don’t let peer pressure goad you into riding faster than you’re comfortable or otherwise doing unsafe things.  Similarly, don’t pressure others.  And a group that tries to exert peer pressure to get you to ride in a way that you’re uncomfortable with is not a good group to ride with.  Stay away.”

Allow for rescue

I wondered if a good rule might be to “stay on well-traveled highways if you can” — even on a state highway in Vermont there was no cell reception, and a Good Samaritan had to call in D.’s accident further down the valley.  I was gently corrected by a motorcyclist who says he, and many of his fellow riders, “prefer roads less travelled.  They’re prettier ... and there are fewer vehicles on them in general.  The biggest hazard isn’t the road itself, it’s other road users.”

But if you’re one of those riders who prefers back roads:  “don’t let the lack of traffic and general tranquility lull you into complacency” — if you crash someone may still need to go for help.  So consider riding with a buddy.  If you can’t deal with that or often can’t find a friend to go for a ride on a pleasant Sunday, consider buying a personal locator beacon.  These are GPS-based, waterproof, able to last days on a battery (at above-freezing temperatures), and can take a considerable amount of abuse.  Find them at outdoor-sports suppliers.

Learn more about crashes

For a summary of findings from the Hurt Report — published in 1981 but still widely considered “the most comprehensive motorcycle safety study of the 20th century” — see this page.

Another frequently quoted study, done in Europe and published in this decade, is the MAIDS Report, summarized here. 

Ride safely!

But he’s alive — and given the seriousness of the accident, not severely injured — so I wanted to write about why.  Here are some ways to survive mishaps on your motorcycle:

Wear a helmet

This seems so obvious to safety advocates that it seems almost not worth mentioning, but a significant proportion of bikers still prefer to go bareheaded — a 2007 survey found that only 58% of US riders wore them regularly.  Fifty-eight percent!  (Hospital transplant centers are grateful to these people, whose vehicles they call “donorcycles”.)

Your helmet should cover your ears — no novelty or “pudding-bowl” helmets, please — and be legal for road use.  If possible, buy a helmet approved by the Snell Memorial Foundation.  One with eye protection is preferable; the best-known study of US motorcycle accidents, the “Hurt Report” (a wonderful title, though it was named for its primary author Harry Hurt), concluded that “seventy-three percent of the accident-involved motorcycle riders used no eye protection, and it is likely that the wind on the unprotected eyes contributed in impairment of vision which delayed hazard detection.”

One European study found that 9% of helmet wearers lost their helmets during the course of a crash, so make sure your helmet fits properly and is fastened correctly.

All the Gear, All the Time

This is so much a watchword in the motorcyclist community that they abbreviate it ATGATT.  “All the gear” means helmet, gloves, jacket, pants, and boots.  And “all the time” means just that — not “It’s hot and I’m just going to the store down the street, so it’ll be okay to wear shorts and flip-flops this once.” One friend admitted that he “started wearing proper riding pants when I read the words ‘road rash of the penis’ in a crash report.  Owwww.....”

Body armor comes in several varieties, including “motorcycle leathers” and cordura nylon gear with armor padding.  (A friend prefers the latter, since it’s more water-resistant than leather and can be worn over office clothing.)

Educate yourself

There is a motorcycle safety class in or near your community.  Take it.  In the United States, the Motorcycle Safety Foundation can tell you where; they offer both a “Basic Rider Course” (good for those who haven’t ridden for a while) and an “Experienced Rider Course” (for learning advanced accident and road-hazard avoidance techniques).  A long-time rider says that “Retaking the ERC every few years is probably a good idea.”

Tricky techniques like countersteering (the highly counterintutiive maneuver of steering-left-to-turn-right, or vice versa) are covered in depth in these courses.  So is using the front brake; says a friend:  “back when I learned to ride and Reagan was President, there was a widely-held but very wrong notion that using the front brake would cause you to crash.  So lots of riders never learned to use the front brake, and the front brake provides 80% or more of your stopping power in an emergency stop from normal road speeds.  This, by the way, is an excellent example of why you should get professional riding instruction —because if you learn to ride from your ricky-racer buddy in a parking lot, you’ll pick up all of that person’s misinformation and bad habits.”

Oh, and get a license, even if your state/province/territory doesn’t require it.  More than a quarter of all motorcyclists who died in the US in 2007 didn’t have one (compared to only 15% of drivers who died in passenger vehicles).

Maintain your motorcycle

Before you set out, check that your tires are well inflated and the brakes are still good.  Studies have found that these are factors in only a small percentage of crashes, but do you want to be the exception?

Check your tires for nails and the like, too.  The Hurt Report found that most mechanical-failure accidents involved punctures producing flat tires.

These are a few of the reasons my friend D., thank all that’s holy, is still alive.  (And yes, you can do everything “right” and still die in a crash — but doing what you can to mitigate risk will go a long way toward preserving life and limb.)

For more on crashes and how to prevent them, see the second part of this article, which follows soon.

So here are some foods to consider for your food-storage arsenal.

Whole grains

Now I’ll admit there’s a very good reason many folks don’t suggest that you stock up on whole grains:  they can go rancid before you blink twice, and rancid oils are not good for you.  (Various sources suggest safe storage times from one to six months.) The tricks are to store very carefully, not to rely on them in a catastrophe (you may wind up hitting that indestructible barrel of white rice instead), and to rotate them out of storage frequently.  (Buying whole grains rather than ground ones can also help; exposing the oils inside the grain to air accelerates the process.)

The most common grains in North American shops are wheat, corn (maize), brown rice, oats, rye, and barley, and wild rice (technically not a grain, but containing similar nutrients).  Thanks to the wonders of importation and small specialty farms, many others are available, some of which the average American or Canadian shopper never saw before the last decade.  If you decide you’d like to store some of these rarer grains — in my area, those include amaranth, buckwheat, millet, teff, and quinoa — you should immediately head to a health-food store with decent traffic and a lot of turnover.  (In the specialty section of a supermarket, these are much less likely to sell quickly, so they’d be a lot less fresh before they even went home with you.) Buying a well-sealed package, instead of from a bulk bin, is another way to increase your odds of freshness; if you must buy bulk, sniff first!  Scan the area around the shelves for any sign of flying insects — they might indicate that your grains are already infested.

Once you get the grain(s) home, you want storage with tight lids, and as little air as possible.  Some folks double-package:  first in a zippered plastic bag or heavy-duty baggie with twist-tie, then in a glass jar; this both keeps the grain fresher, and (in a refrigerator or freezer) protects it from absorbing other food smells or moisture.  Others try to vacuum-package, either with a home vacuum sealer or the low-tech suck-the-air-out-of-the-bag-with-a-straw method. Mark the date that you store the package.

If you have the space, it’s probably best to refrigerate or freeze grains, assuming you have power.  Otherwise a cool, dry, dark place (root cellar, closet away from the furnace) is best; don’t store near any appliances that produce heat, like your dishwasher or stove!

Most grains, depending on how diligent you are about storage, will last a few weeks to half a year.  (Popcorn — yes, a whole grain! — can last years.) When you’re ready to use the package, apply the sniff test again, to make sure it hasn’t gone rancid before use.

Reconstituting and cooking them, of course, requires water and fuel.  But then so does white rice!

Produce

Now what could go off quicker, in long-term storage, than produce?  Surely you have to survive on a diet of canned peaches and mushy canned peas, should you want any color in your diet?

Au contraire, my friends.  Wander through the aisles of a big health-food conglomerate like Whole Foods (in the US, Canada, and the UK) and you’ll find dried produce you didn’t know could even be dried.  Strawberries!  Spiced mangoes!  Carrot chips!  Seven varieties of “sea vegetables”!  There are a number of firms online selling dried vegetables and fruit for long-term storage, as well.

One word of warning:  a good many dried fruits and vegetables (including all “golden raisins” I’ve found) are treated with sulfites to retain color and retard mold growth.  Sulfite sensitivity is extremely common — and to some people, including many asthmatics, quite dangerous — so unless you know everyone in your family can consume significant quantities of sulfites without health issues, try to buy the less colorful untreated products and be more diligent about storing them in moistureproof containers.

Protein

Beans, beans, beans, beans, beans.  If you’re thinking of stocking up on dried beans for long-term storage, though, make sure you have a camp stove with plenty of fuel, a decent-sized pot, and access to plenty of water.  For your “go bag”, if you’re evacuating to a motel or shelter in an unaffected area, some packages of dried beans might make sense — they’re relatively lightweight and easy to pack.  For short-term sheltering in place, though, you’ll probably want a stash of canned beans.

Meat storage may not be practical for you, unless you’re in the habit of drying your own jerky — the commercial stuff costs the earth.  If you are, though, note that the US Department of Agriculture advises that home jerky can be stored only one to two months, instead of the year that commercially prepared jerky can last.  They also add:  “The danger in dehydrating meat and poultry without cooking it to a safe temperature first is that the appliance will not heat the meat to 160°F and poultry to 165°F — temperatures at which bacteria are destroyed — before it dries.  After drying, bacteria become much more heat resistant.” (Those temps are 71 and 74 degrees Celsius.) So if you dry your own, rotate your stock monthly — and make sure you cook it sufficiently (in an oven or on a barbecue cooker or grill) before (or while) drying it!

Eggs, believe it or not, can now be stored long-term — various suppliers can sell you powdered dried whole eggs, which are easy to carry, present a low risk of bacterial contamination, are full of protein, vitamins (including D) and minerals, and can be stored a year or more depending on conditions.  You can use them in baking or scrambling; heating after reconstitution is recommended, although they’re already pasteurized, but they can be consumed as part of a drink or other preparation if you’re in need of a protein boost.  (Just take care before doing this for a child or elderly person.)

Here’s hoping you never have to use your stored food, but if you do — enjoy!

Who do you suppose will help you, during the first days and even weeks after the catastrophe?

Not the emergency medical technicians or police or firefighters; not the National Guard or similar at-home military force; not international aid agencies.

No, the people who will save you, if you’re at home and you need assistance, are your neighbors.  (If you’re at work, the first responders will be your coworkers and workers in surrounding offices or shops or buildings.  If your children are at school, they’ll rely on their teachers and school staff.  With luck, eventually, you can all reunite at home — if it’s still there — and then you’re back to working with your neighbors.)

Now I live in a cohousing community, a kind of neighborhood designed by the people who live there; we’re committed to knowing our neighbors and working together on a regular basis.  Not everyone is so lucky.  But if you’re in the same sort of bind we were in our previous house — where you live on big lots out in suburbia, kids need playdates to see each other, and you can’t even remember most of your neighbors’ names — there are ways to get to know them.

• If there’s an existing neighborhood association — or even a PTA or similar group with heavy representation from your neighborhood — go to one of their meetings or events, and say hello to people.  If there isn’t one and you think there’s a good reason — many of you oppose a certain development in your area, or need to lobby your town for better water, or whatever — start emailing a few people and create one.

• Hold a block party.  Put flyers on everyone’s mailbox suggesting a gathering and soliciting a team to help plan it.  If your locality requires permits or fees for street parties or alcohol consumption outside homes, cross your t’s and dot your i’s before you continue:  being shut down by the police is no fun.  Plan several activities (popular ones include face-painting for children, live music, races or contests, bouncy castles, talent shows, and sprinkler or other water play), issue another round of flyers inviting everyone to the party, and enjoy!

• In small towns, there are often unexpected hangouts:  the town dump (or “transfer station"); Town Meeting.  Go socialize at these whenever possible.

• Invite the dozen closest families to a party at your house with games for the kids and tasty-but-light beverages for the adults.  (This might be a look-it’s-spring! celebration, barbecue, back-to-school party or even holiday party, depending on the season.  If holiday, though, make it as secular as possible, so neighbors from different religious and cultural backgrounds will be more likely to attend.) Find openings to chat with each neighbor and to introduce them to each other.

• Take a walk around the neighborhood with small packages of cookies or home-baked bread, introducing yourself to everyone.  (If you’ve lived in the neighborhood for years and so have they, this will feel completely intimidating; I know, because I chickened out on doing it myself.  But depending on how extroverted you are, you might succeed.)

And think of all the other benefits of getting to know people.  Not only are you more likely to work well together in an emergency, but everyday safety will be enhanced (neighbors are more likely to look out for each other, and for the other children in the neighborhood, when they know each other).  You’ll be able to borrow a cup of sugar more easily when you need it, or find a babysitter in a pinch.  You’re less likely to argue over minor annoyances like barking dogs.  And you’ll find people who potentially share your interests.  If luck is with you, you may even expand your circle of friends!

Many evacuees had high blood pressure or asthma with no way to control their disease.  Kidney recipients escaped without their antirejection medications, and lost function in their transplanted organs.  Type I diabetics were stranded without insulin.  By some estimates, six percent of the people of New Orleans had some form of diabetes, and a medical professor was quoted as saying that if fifty thousand people were crammed into shelters, that was three thousand diabetics “with no medication and no testing supplies.”

Which made me wonder:  what would happen to my friends and neighbors in a similar disaster?

“The miserable have no other medicine/ But only hope: ” —Shakespeare (Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene 1)

My dear friend Colin (all names have been changed to protect identities) has Addison’s disease.  It’s an adrenal-gland insufficiency which (like HIV infection) used to be a death sentence, but now is a perfectly manageable chronic illness — providing a patient takes meds on a daily basis.  He takes dexamethasone (or prednisone) and fludrocortisone every morning; without them he’d be dead in three days.  I asked him his plans in the event of a disaster.  “I have a month’s worth of prednisone,” he said, shrugging.  Fludrocortisone?  Nope.  He talked to his doctor about stockpiling it once, but was told insurance wouldn’t pay for it.

Kerry and Aidan carry EpiPens (epinephrine injectors) — Kerry’s due to unfortunate experiences with stinging insects, Aidan’s because of a dangerous food allergy.  Last summer Kerry discovered the EpiPen in her purse had expired two years earlier, which might have been a tragic oversight if the dive-bombers at her picnic had been a tad more aggressive.  Aidan, a second-grader, has already gone into anaphylactic shock during his short career at school.  Yet Melanie, a school nurse in Washington, notes that because EpiPens are specifically prescribed for certain children, her school could not keep extras on hand:  “If a kid was dying of a bee sting and they had a different kid’s EpiPen in the cupboard it would be against the law to use it.”

Melanie also told me about a child she’d encountered with adrenal hyperplasia syndrome:  “She was too young (or the dosage was wrong) for pills, so she had to have a liquid form that needed replacing constantly.  They wanted to keep a backup amount but it was very expensive, so they always had to remember to put the new medicine in the ‘backup’ spot and use the former backup medicine up.  It was doable, just something they had to constantly do properly.”

James and Robert are young cousins with moderately severe ADHD, and both take stimulants based on methylphenidate.  While their parents are able to cope (with gritted teeth) on days they don’t take their meds, the need to focus on tasks in hand in a real emergency might make a difference in their risk of serious injury or death.  While stimulants are tightly controlled by the United States government — it’s not even possible, in many cases, to replace a prescription that’s been lost or damaged — James’s mother has carefully saved enough pills over the months they’ve been filling prescriptions (by not always giving meds on weekends and holidays) that she’s squirreled away an entire month’s backup supply, ready to go in case of emergency evacuation.

Ann has epilepsy.  After years of experimentation, she hit upon a drug which works very well for her, carbamazepine; without it she’d be “a complete mess.” But she lost her job and has lived without health insurance for a long time, surviving partly on the contributions of relatives toward her medications.  The drug used to cost over $100 a month without insurance coverage; she considers herself lucky right now, because a big-box retailer offers a special discount program on certain selected medications, and she can now buy carbamazepine for $17/month.  It prevents her from having grand mal seizures, leaving only myoclonic jerks.  Another drug she takes daily, clonazepam, smooths out the “kinda twitchy” aspects; she says she wouldn’t function well without it, but at least she’s able to obtain it at reasonably low cost from warehouse-store pharmacies.  She hasn’t tried to stockpile either drug, however, and is now curious about how to do that; she gets a month’s worth at a time, and is often down to a four-day supply before replenishing.

She points out that epilepsy, like many illnesses, is made worse by stress and lack of sleep; with exhaustion and anxiety, seizures become difficult to control.  And if her illness is not controlled, she cannot live an independent life.  But she wonders how people on limited incomes, without access to extremely discounted drugs, can manage their illnesses on a regular basis — much less in an emergency?

Doreen has a thyroid disorder, which she takes pills for.  “I am pretty sure I wouldn’t die without it,” she says, “but it is fairly essential to proper metabolic function.” Her mother, in an independent-living retirement community, has Parkinson’s, Crohn’s, and major depression, and is on “a boatload of drugs” for these and other chronic conditions.  “We normally all have at least a week’s supply, maybe two, extra,” says Doreen.  “I don’t think we can make any plans to stockpile, because the pharmacy won’t let you renew beyond 15 days out by mail order, one week out in person.”

“How do each of you plan to make sure you have your meds with you in case of emergency evacuation — earthquake, wildfire, hurricane, flood, that sort of thing?” I inquired.  “Have you talked to your doctors about emergency backup plans?” No, she admits:  “That’s a good thought; I’m realizing just how unprepared we are.  You’re right, we all need a disaster plan, especially with ill parents, pets, kids, spouses that work in different directions, and so on.”

And hers is an excellent summary.  We all need a disaster plan — and if we take essential prescription medications, we need to be prepared to manage for days or even weeks without a pharmacy. 

There went all the lights, and the fan, and the music!  (And, if you’re in one of those unfortunate homes where furnaces and well pumps depend on the power company, maybe the heat and water too.)

So how long are you likely to be in the dark this time?  And what are you going to do with yourselves while the power’s out?

In my previous neck of the woods, power outages varied from a few minutes to much longer, though in a decade I don’t think we had one longer than fourteen hours (during the ice storm of December ‘08).  We fell into a routine pretty quickly, though: 

• Shut off anything we didn’t want coming back on unattended — computer equipment, a video/DVD player, the electric stove.
• Check with someone in another neighborhood, to see if they were out too (they often were, though sometimes it was just our street).  Note that this requires a working landline or cell phone, as your Internet service goes out when the power does.
• Call the power company to see if we could get through and get an estimate (estimates were notoriously unreliable, but at least gave us something to work with).  If it seemed like a long wait, often we’d give up and pile into the car for a day trip to some comfortable place which served food.
• Decide how long we could live without power, heat and tap water (yes, we were in one of those houses).  On one particularly memorable occasion (during the ice storm), we packed our bags and went to stay with friends in another town.

Now let’s say you live in a household with no special needs — no people or pets requiring life support (that includes aquarium fish!), or with a major disability, or under the age of one.  You expect the outage to be more than a few minutes, but less than a couple of days.  What should you have on hand?

1. Light.  Always on hand at our house:  candles, matches, flashlights, batteries, light sticks, emergency lights (the kind that hang on walls and in closets, and can be pushed on and off) and camping lanterns.  Never, ever leave candles unattended, or near combustible items like curtains — especially when people are sleeping!  You don’t want to die in a fire just because your lights went out.  If you want always-on light at night (we certainly do), stock up on various sizes of camping lanterns.  Stash all of these items where you can easily reach them in the dark.

2. Warmth.  Depending on your climate and the season, this could be anything from a long-sleeved shirt for everyone in the house to spare blankets and pairs of knit stretch gloves to down-filled, below-zero sleeping bags and winter hats and Gore-Tex parkas.  If you live in a wintry climate and have a woodstove — and a clean chimney for it — by all means burn some wood to keep the place warm.  (Do you have some on hand?  and kindling, and matches?)

   There are two things you should not rely on for heat.  Fireplaces (the kind without woodstoves) often suck more heat out of your house than the provide — warm air escapes up your chimney, as cold air is drawn in through poorly insulated walls and windows elsewhere in the house.  (We learned this the hard way.) Non-electric, non-vented space heaters (the ones which run on kerosene, gas or propane) are intended only to be used outdoors, as they’re carbon monoxide factories, become extremely hot during normal operation, and frequently burn people’s houses down while they sleep.

   Note that I’m in a cool climate — if you’re in a hot one, this item might actually be about ways to stay cool without your air conditioner or fans.  If your faucets still work, try a cool shower or draping cool cloths over your head and neck.  Drink plenty of water (not, mind you, beer), and don’t forget to keep your pets hydrated too!  Keep the curtains closed to prevent heating your house further.  And if you can, go spend the day at a movie theater or other cool spot.

3. Drinking water, of course.  (If your tap works and it’s a simple outage, great.  If not, you know where your bottled water stash is, right?)

4. Hygiene supplies, if you live in a house with a well pump.  (You won’t be able to flush, or wash from the tap — so have separate bottled water, baby wipes and hand sanitizer, and either a way to flush your toilet or an alternate plan for bathroom functions.)

5. Food you can get to and prepare during the outage.  You do not want to open your refrigerator (or freezer) during a power outage expected to last less than a day, as it’ll let the cold air out and spoil much of the food.  So you need canned, boxed and bagged convenience foods, along with a can opener and scissors (and maybe a bottle of juice you’ve stashed for the kids).  If you expect a long outage, you might want to break out the paper plates and cups — or even a camping stove.  (At the point where a simple blackout makes me feel like I’m camping, I generally start thinking about motels and restaurants, but I’m high-maintenance that way.  I have been known to put a pot of canned soup on the grill, though.)

6. Entertainment!  I don’t know about you, but without an Internet connection I’m often a little lost these days; I have to consciously remind myself of how much I love reading books, too.  So have books everyone will enjoy at hand — if you have kids, this is an excellent time to start a family read-aloud session — and games that are easy to play by candlelight (cards?  Trivial Pursuit?  whatever works for you) — and a few favorite toys for every member of your family (for adults, this might mean a knitting project, or crosswords, or a guitar).  Have a singalong!  Play charades!

For a multi-day, can-we-tough-this-out-without-going-to-a-shelter outage, you’ll want other stuff on hand:  extra first-aid supplies and medicines (if the blackout is related to a storm making travel difficult); that camping stove, and fuel for it; even a generator.  But extended camp-outs are a topic for another day.