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#1
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Disaster plan in place for your family?
It's difficult for me to believe that there has been zero traffic on
misc.kids.moderated regarding Hurricaine Katrina, when practically every other on-line forum (web or usenet) has had so many messages. In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. For us, the most likely disaster to strike would be an earthquake or similar seismic disturbance. I guess we'd likely have some sort of warning if Mt. Rainier or one of the other volcanic cones were to erupt, but an earthquake could happen at any time. As a result, our family plans have mostly focused on the idea that there would not be any chance to evacuate before a disaster. One of the big concerns for our family has been that typically one or both parents have had work or school in the city, and there's a major body of water, Lake Washington, between the city and where we live. In case of a major earthquake, the bridges across the water would be down, further delaying a parent's ability to get home. Contingency plans have included who the girls could go to and stay with in our neighborhood, with conversations with and instructions for the kids, the school, and the neighbors. I'm sure that people who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area have similar concerns and plans in place. The other set of plans in place have centered around setting up camp at home. We have two large 2.5 gallon jugs of fresh water stored, and food for about five days on hand. We have camping equipment, so we have things like the coleman stove (the backpacking stove too, in a pinch), water purification tablets, and so on. We have a bag stowed with items such as a hand-crank radio, flashlight, batteries, deck of cards, and other items that would be helpful. To be honest with you all, I never thought that we'd really need items for beyond a few days. Now, after Katrina, I'm beginning to think that five days' worth of supplies is a bare minimum. Something else we never considered -- if there really was a catastrophic earthquake, would we want to evacuate from the Puget Sound area entirely? How far would we have to go to get to where there were any sort of services? How would we get there? My husband and I were jokingly fully loading the tandems and pedalling over Snoqualmie Pass with the girls, in an effort to flee the area. A bike can overcome obstacles that a car can't. It's a somewhat fun image at the beginning of September -- it'd be less fun as a reality at the beginning of, say, January. -- Warm Regards, Claire Petersky Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/ See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky |
#2
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In article ,
"Claire Petersky" wrote: In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. We don't really have a disaster plan, because we live in roughly the middle of Greater Sydney. We're a long way from bushfires, earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes etc. Our most likely scenarios a House fire Terrorist attack on infrastructure (anthrax in the water, destruction of gas or electricity supply, bombing or road/railway) Deaths of both DH and me in car accident; survival of children DS1 and DS2 are too small to be drilled in fire escape procedure, so we haven't started that yet. The thing we do need to do is rewrite our wills to cover DS2, to make sure the boys go to the people we think they ought to go to. -- Chookie -- Sydney, Australia (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply) "In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is nothing worth being eager or vigorous about." Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893. |
#3
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Chookie wrote: In article , "Claire Petersky" wrote: I haven't had a chance to read the whole thread yet...just wanted to make a coment or two. In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. We don't really have a disaster plan, because we live in roughly the middle of Greater Sydney. We're a long way from bushfires, earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes etc. Our most likely scenarios a House fire Terrorist attack on infrastructure (anthrax in the water, destruction of gas or electricity supply, bombing or road/railway) This one does worry me a bit. I live a suburb of a major metropolitan city in the US. My husband works downtown in one of the Federal Buildings. My husband was supposed to be in NY on Sept 11 2001. Two of his coworkers were in the WTC the night before it came down. They watched it happen from their hotel room. Deaths of both DH and me in car accident; survival of children I think DH and I need to rethink this one. We each have our opinions regarding the ability of our parents to raise the boys if something happened to us. We had thought that DH's brother would be a good option, but my brother recently became much more stable (married, now with a little one of his own). He had been in a long term relationship when DS1 was born, and no one in the family could stand my brother's girlfriend(they broke up a couple of years ago). DS1 and DS2 are too small to be drilled in fire escape procedure, so we haven't started that yet. The thing we do need to do is rewrite our wills to cover DS2, to make sure the boys go to the people we think they ought to go to. DH and I have some things for various emergencies, but nothing is remotely organized at the moment as a result of our attempts to pack and store things as we get closer to our move (which keeps getting further away instead of closer...it's now supposed to happen at the end of December). -- Chookie -- Sydney, Australia (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply) "In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is nothing worth being eager or vigorous about." Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893. |
#4
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Claire Petersky wrote:
In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. We don't have any but I think I'll be making some! :-( First and fore most I'm going to stock pile some water. I can't imagine no water and I have none for emergency use at all. I plan to put copies of important papers in a small lock box so that I can grab a small container and keep it with me. I'd have to haul half the house to get a few bits of important info. If I had time I'd hit the ATM machine and withdraw all my money so I had cash if I needed to leave the area or what have you. For us, the most likely disaster to strike would be an earthquake or similar seismic disturbance. A tornado would be the most likely threat here. Blizzards happen but they are a bit different. Tornadoes generally happen to quickly to evacuate a whole city but there is warning to get someplace safe - a basement if you have one or various buildings in the city are identified if you don't. The thing with a tornado is the destruction is not so far reaching. If you are in its path you are destroyed but it doesn't have near the impact that a earthquake or hurricane does. I also live next to the Missouri river so I'm going to see if my house would be underwater if the dam was taken out. I don't think a force of nature could do that (even a tornado) but it could certainly be blown up! I have no idea how to prepare for that. Get out if I had enough forewarning to do so but I imagine I might not. One of the big concerns for our family has been that typically one or both parents have had work or school in the city, and there's a major body of water, Lake Washington, between the city and where we live. Oh my. Earthquakes are scary things. We are all on the same side of the river and there is always storms before tornadoes so if one was bad enough our family would be able to get together. Same thing with blizzards. A blizzard now that I live in town is not such a major problem but when I was in the country I did a lot more planning/preparedness. They are generally forecasted as well so you can often avoid problems. We have a fire place and try to keep enough wood to keep us warm if the electricity was out a long time (not nearly enough for 5 days though!!) and a propane heater we can aim at the pipes to keep them from freezing. Of course you don't have to worry about your house being destroyed in a blizzard. In some other kind of disaster one wouldn't have pipes or a fire place at all! Over all I feel good about the area I live in as far as horrific natural disasters. plans have included who the girls could go to and stay with in our neighborhood, with conversations with and instructions for the kids, the school, and the neighbors. All the rural kids in our area have to list a town address that they can go to in the event that they can't get home. The other set of plans in place have centered around setting up camp at home. We have two large 2.5 gallon jugs of fresh water stored, and food for about five days on hand. We have camping equipment, so we have things like the Coleman stove (the backpacking stove too, in a pinch), water purification tablets, and so on. We have a bag stowed with items such as a hand-crank radio, flashlight, batteries, deck of cards, and other items that would be helpful. Good ideas! I had not thought of water purification tablets - didn't know they existed actually ;-) To be honest with you all, I never thought that we'd really need items for beyond a few days. Now, after Katrina, I'm beginning to think that five days' worth of supplies is a bare minimum. Yes - I'm in total agreement. I never thought it would take 5 or more days to get to people in this country. It has sure been an eye opener. Something else we never considered -- if there really was a catastrophic earthquake, would we want to evacuate from the Puget Sound area entirely? How far would we have to go to get to where there were any sort of services? How would we get there? If we couldn't drive out (and I can think of lots of reasons we wouldn't be able to) I have no idea what we'd do. We could try to walk out I suppose but I think that as long as we had the bare necessities for survival I'd try to stay a couple weeks and wait to be rescued. That is after the fact. I'd certainly evacuate before the fact if I had the chance. -- Nikki Hunter 4/99 Luke 4/01 EDD 4/06 |
#5
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Claire Petersky wrote:
snip In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. snip If I were home with DS when disaster struck, between the military gear and camping gear filling my house, I think we'd be fairly well off. My biggest worry right now is that hubby is active duty military, and I'm considering a job on post. In the event of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc, post would be locked down (no one in or out) and we have no family near enough to come get DS from child care were the lockdown long or inconveniently timed. illecebra |
#6
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Claire Petersky wrote:
In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. The biggest change is that we've realized we would resist a forced evacuation to a large sporting arena in the event of a National Disaster. Given where we live, this would only occur due to a terrorist attack, and we're semi self-sufficient here in the short term. The likelihood of disasters here a - Blizzard/extended power outage - Terrorist attack in nearby (20 miles away) city For DD1's school, we had to list 5 emergency contacts (dual land-line and cell-phone numbers). At the point of calling the 5th contact, I personally believe that it'd probably be safer for her to remain at school, given everyone's propensity for carrying their cell phones all the time. We have ample water, 1/2 cord of old wood, and generally have food (unappealing, but food nonetheless) for about 6 days on hand. I only do grocery shopping every 2 weeks, and keep the rotating through the food that we really aren't psyched about. For us, when the power is out, the heat is out, and the water is out, so we're a little paranoid w/r/t water and heat. We also keep two 2.5 gallon gas containers filled in the garage (again, rotating with another container) -- with my car, that could get us about 80 miles when loaded (children, pets, and supplies). We've arranged a meeting point with DH, as I work out of my home, my children attend schools within a 4 mile radius of home, and he works in the city and/or travels frequently. Our wills, power of attorney, and guardians are lined up, and said documents are dispersed across the country. We have not talked about this with the children, as they're too young (DD1's only memory of 9/11 was when the 'man with the gun' took away her toddler ABC fork at Logan in October 2001. My bad. How was I to know that toddler forks were banned?). Caledonia |
#7
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Claire Petersky wrote:
In any case, considering Katrina's aftermath, I was wondering what people's disaster preparation plans were, and if they've been changed. In Santa Cruz, the most likely natural disaster is an earthquake, and it is not likely to cause much destruction---most of the old brick buildings collapsed in the 1989 quake and the building code is pretty strictly enforced. We are high enough up (elevation 50 feet) that tsunamis are not likely to get to us, and our house is on heavy clay that did not liquefy or shake much in the last quake (most of the damage was concentrated downtown, which was built on silt and fill). We should stockpile food and water, but we don't. It is hard to keep emergency supplies ready when you use them about once or twice a century. We do have emergency lights and some wood for the fireplace, since power failures are pretty common (due to inadequate investment in infrastructure by PG&E). We also have camping water filters (somewhere) and a shallow well of non-potable water that could be used in an emergency. (By shallow, I mean about six feet to the bottom of the well---the water table is typically about an inch below the surface. We would not need electic pumps to get water out of the well.) We could expect to be without power or natural gas for a few days, which would be uncomfortable, but not particularly dangerous in this climate. Most likely, the biggest problem would be getting food, as we shop for fresh food almost daily and don't have a stockpile of canned goods or other nonperishables. Medical emergencies may be a bigger problem, since all the hospitals and most of the bigger clinics are clustered together on the other side of the San Lorenzo River. Losing the few bridges across the river could result in serious difficulties in getting treatment for seriously injured people west of the river. ------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics (Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB) life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Affiliations for identification only. |
#8
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In article .com,
"Caledonia" wrote: We have ample water, 1/2 cord of old wood, and generally have food (unappealing, but food nonetheless) for about 6 days on hand. I only do grocery shopping every 2 weeks, and keep the rotating through the food that we really aren't psyched about. For us, when the power is out, the heat is out, and the water is out, so we're a little paranoid w/r/t water and heat. Perhaps you need to lay in some barbecue fuel? -- Chookie -- Sydney, Australia (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply) "In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is nothing worth being eager or vigorous about." Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893. |
#9
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We don't have a real plan, mostly case by case planning. Our
emergencies tend to run to power outages, the longest so far being 3 days at the time of Hurricane Fran. Not bad considering lots of people were out the better part of two weeks with that one! Our winter weather runs to ice storms with ensuing power outages; since we're on a well, no electricity means no water. We've considered getting a generator, but haven't made that leap yet. I just don't forsee this area have a kind of natural disaster that would wipe out infrastructure and make stockpiling food and water a good idea. We do have iodine tablets in case of a real emergency at the nearby nuke plant. Lesley |
#10
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On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 17:55:48 EDT, Lesley wrote:
We don't have a real plan, mostly case by case planning. Our emergencies tend to run to power outages, the longest so far being 3 days at the time of Hurricane Fran. Not bad considering lots of people were out the better part of two weeks with that one! Our winter weather runs to ice storms with ensuing power outages; since we're on a well, no electricity means no water. We've considered getting a generator, but haven't made that leap yet. I just don't forsee this area have a kind of natural disaster that would wipe out infrastructure and make stockpiling food and water a good idea. We've got a generator, and about 7 days worth of gasoline ( assuming the generator runs about 4 hours a day - enough to keep the house warm, and the food cold ). As for water, we have 15 gallons, some of which are kept in the deep-freeze as thermal mass. At least 2 weeks worth of dried food - canned veggies & fruits, pasta, cheeses, and so on. The one thing we have left to get is a small chainsaw, since we have a heavily wooded property, and being able to remove a tree from the roof would be a good idea. ;-) We're in Rochester, NY, so while the worst we've had to deal with is the occasional ice storm and blizzard, they've still caused enough disruption that we've dipped into our supplies in the past. I see it as a basic function of a family to prepare for these sorts of things, since when something bad really does happen, you're not going to have time to go shopping. - Rich |
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