Your "Earthquake Survival Kit"

[Dakki]

Here's a more general question - how long and severe an event should one reasonably prepare for? Scenarios for this sort of thing run the gamut from "three days before the city gets around to fixing power, gas and tap water" to "the complete collapse of modern civilization, complete with Australian punks in mohawks and leather pants." I'm leaning toward the three-day crowd but, hey.

Well that quake yesterday sure scared the crap out of me!

Thanks for checking in. You've been on my mind. I think that goes for a lot of us here on eG.

+1

[Marlene]

So a generator tops my list of essentials for the aftermath, and a stocked freezer and pantry. If I've got meat and frozen veg and rice, we're going to be pretty good for a few weeks if needed. And even though we have a well, we always have a substantial amount of bottled water on hand because my son and I drink a lot of it.

Ditto Marlene for the generator.

Very important to service your generator regularly. I can't give you the exact info here, but you must run it every so often and take care of the gas in it...DH could tell you in a minute but he's not here so I can't ask...or it may not run when you need it. Seriously.

Our generator starts up every Friday at noon and does a test run to make sure it is still working. It runs on propane and the propane company is very good about coming out every month to service it.

[Darienne]

Ours runs on gasoline and in the spring DH drains it and refills it with new gasoline...just regular gasoline. He says the gasoline must be changed at least once a year.

[andiesenji]

Here's a more general question - how long and severe an event should one reasonably prepare for? Scenarios for this sort of thing run the gamut from "three days before the city gets around to fixing power, gas and tap water" to "the complete collapse of modern civilization, complete with Australian punks in mohawks and leather pants." I'm leaning toward the three-day crowd but, hey.

For places where quakes are fairly common, the utilities and local government services are geared up for fairly rapid response but in the north end of the San Fernando Valley power was out in some areas for more than a week and because of ruptured gas lines (with spectacular fires) gas service was out for a month. It just depends on what type of ground you are on and how close to the epicenter.

In my opinion, the folks who should do some preparation live within the area that would be affected if a major quake occurs on the New Madrid, MO fault. Historically major quakes have occurred about every 200 years and we just passed the 199 year anniversary of the last really big one. Bridges will fall, shipping on the rivers will be disrupted and major gas and oil pipelines that also cross the rivers will be shut down. Buildings in that area are not built to withstand a lot of ground movement so there will be a lot of damage and according to historical evidence, anyone withing a 150 mile radius could be severely affected. It still amazes me that so many folks who live in that area have absolutely no knowledge of the seismic history of that area. I was born and raised some 80 miles from there and as my ancestors were there before KY became a state in 1792, and kept journals, there were family stories about the great quakes causing collapse of some bluffs along the Ohio river.

Since this is also tornado country, I'm sure many rural folks are prepared but not so much city dwellers.

After the '94 Northridge quake, a friend moved from here back to a place in Arkansas that is only a few miles from New Madrid, because it was "safer."

[judiu]

For the sake of your peace of mind, DON'T FORGET THE EXTRA GASOLINE! Most gas stations, virtually ALL of them now, depend on electricity to move the fuel thru the pumps, and no electricity = no fuel. No fuel = no generator or motor vehicle. After Wilma, here in Broward County, it took a good week, at least, for any of the stations to open.

[Darienne]

For the sake of your peace of mind, DON'T FORGET THE EXTRA GASOLINE! Most gas stations, virtually ALL of them now, depend on electricity to move the fuel thru the pumps, and no electricity = no fuel. No fuel = no generator or motor vehicle. After Wilma, here in Broward County, it took a good week, at least, for any of the stations to open.

Excellent point!

[andiesenji]

I have 8 of the NATO metal jerry cans for generator fuel - mine are diesel and always keep my van filled with gasoline and have a couple of jerry cans of gasoline.

I also have 4 propane tanks which get rotated. The jerry cans are suitable for long term storage.

This is the emergency water I have.

I bought mine locally at a store that sells camping gear and also emergency kits and supplies but it is widely available, according to other people with whom I have discussed it.

I have a friend who lives on her boat in a marina and she has several cases that are stored as ballast in the boat.

I bought several "church key" can openers and put one in each case. I just remembered that I do have six cans in the van, in one of the bins under the floor.

[Jaymes]

Glad to hear from Bether and Torakris! I hope our other Japan-based eG'ers check in, too!

Here in VA our most common weather emergency is hurricanes and in central VA, not many of those. We are consequently a little lax. I can see from reading this that a few bottles of water would not go amiss. Thanks for starting this thread, Jaymes!

I, too, am glad I started the thread, and am really pleased to hear from some of our Japanese eGulleteers.

And, frankly, learning about that canned water good for 30 years is one of the most valuable tips I've gotten on eG.

[helenjp]

I might store gasoline if I lived in a grand country residence where I could keep my fuel stash at a distance, but I'd rather NOT have it go up right next to my back door!

I'm a 3-dayer...but you know what they say about best-laid plans. As it happened, I was getting my eyes tested in a shop with an all-glass frontage when the quake hit. The staff and I made a hasty exit, me in my black metal testing specs, but we were on the highest, firmest ground in the area, and it was no worse than very scary. Yet when I got home, subsidence had warped our front door and I couldn't get in...so much for the emergency supplies stashed on the OTHER side of the front door. My shoulder is not strong enough yet for serious strong-arming, but fortunately a neighbor I alerted to a broken water-pipe came and forced it open for me...took a while though. Later check showed a lot of new cracks in the foundations, and one inside the house (old, pre-earthquake regulations) Not one of my family were home when the quake struck, so food and water supplies for the immediate post-quake period were not an issue. It took my husband 24 hours, and my younger son 48 hours to get home.

My elder son is still in Sendai, where he was in a bus taking a freshman student and his mother to see the campus when the quake struck...it was just chance that the poor freshman and mother weren't stuck alone in a city they barely knew...home emergency rations not much good in that case either They all walked back to the small dormitory, which was undamaged but had no power, gas, water, or phone, and have been camped there since. The dorm had stocks of food, and I believe they got some drinking and maybe cooking water from an evacuation center. The students also pooled what food they had stashed in their rooms...4 days on student snacks, now there's a frightening thought. What he needs most is cash to pay for tickets home and some form of communication - it took 1 day to get a minute-long phone-box call and 2 days for him to get to an area where cellphone signals could be picked up. He made a phone call minutes after the quake that he obviously thought had not got through...all I could hear was his voice saying "the call won't go through...".

Like Blether, we had a lot of breakage - maybe about 30% of our china survived? I've always liked lacquerware for durability, and sure enough, that survived, scratched but usable. Along with the clunky freebies from the donut shop! It took me half an hour to get into the house, and several more hours to work my way along the corridor, moving several bookcase-loads of books outside so that I could right the bookcases enough to wriggle past them. In the kitchen two cabinets had fallen against the fridge, so the room was literally knee-deep in smashed glass and china and other fallen items. Several more hours work right there.

Cooking? Not a chance! I spent the night alone, in a house with a broken window and a door that couldn't be shut, let alone locked, and it just happened that I had dismantled our old gas cooktop ready to install a new one, so there was no way to cook anyway, and to be honest, I was not interested. I dined on the potato crisps I'd bought for my husband's Friday night beer, and a coke from the vending machine over the road (good old Japan, house subsides but vending machine goes on for ever). I almost never drink softdrinks of any type, so the old adage about sweet food for shock is true. When my family did get home, they wanted soupy noodles with lots of vegetables - something light and warm and not dry or hard to chew.

If you have to evacuate on foot, I guess that a portable collapsible water bag or bucket plus some smaller containers for immediate consumption would be the most useful - if you have a chance to collect them. The worst tsunami in Japan struck a mere NINE MINUTES after the quake - no time to do anything but run.

If you are sitting things out at home, that's a bit different - we had power, water, gas, and phone, though the water is a bit iffy, and blackouts begin tomorrow. My pressure-cooker has been very useful cooking stuff quickly in case blackouts meant loss of fresh food in our fridge. I had just been shopping before the quake struck, which was lucky, because the stores on Sunday were CRAZY with people buying everything they could get hold of. I expect to use my thermal pot to cook food and keep it hot (needs no electricity) once blackouts start too, as we are in the group scheduled for blackouts over breakfast and/or dinner prep time. I've heard that BBQs can be useful too, though I guess that depends on aftershocks....here in Chiba, on filled-in gully land, the house seems to be just constantly shuddering.

We have a radio and a torch with a manual wind-up battery. Since torches and batteries disappeared off the shelves within hours of the quake, that has been an item that's glad to have. I have stored candles AND A GAS LIGHTER together in a box - had not thought to keep the lighter with the candles beforehand.

Supplies - elder son hopes to get home from Sendai very late tomorrow night. he will be bringing two dorm-mates with him to stay the night and then see on their way home (being in the Railway Fan club, it's a point of honor to ensure that his dorm-mates can leave Sendai confident that they will reach their homes and not be stranded halfway). So in the middle of tidying up the mess here, we need to lay our hands quickly on bedding, toiletries, and perhaps underwear for refugees. Impossible to buy more food now, so I'm glad I have a good supply of beans! I always make sure I have some tar-tab cans of fish, tomatoes, and corn, and those will be useful too.

We will just be passing on the favor that school friends did when they took my younger son in for two nights....the biggest lesson for me is that in an emergency, the people you need to look after are the people around you - you have to trust other people to look after the family members who are out of your physical reach. Around my area, it was mostly women at home alone or with young children on the first night after the quake - older children and spouses just couldn't get home.

Money - both my kids should have had more cash on them than they did, even though I make sure my son carries between 1 to 2000 yen with him on his train pass and in cash. I didn't have a lot of cash with me either. We have always had an agreement with our kids on who to leave messages with and where to contact, but I had not considered a situation where evacuating a son would entail transport and other problems at this end as well as at his end.

But in the end, all of us are safe, and I imagine that son's friends in Sendai are thinking more about their good fortune in being alive and unscathed, and are not thinking too hard about the blankets or chocolate biscuits or whatever that it would have been nice to have!

P.S. Forgot to say - sturdy gloves for clean-up - I guess most disasters involve either mud/filth or breakages, if not both. We always have cotton gloves and they were useful. Also lots of garbage bags and assorted plastic bags, some large, duct tape, string/rope. Cardboard. What more could a person need?

Edited March 14, 2011 by helenjp (log)

[andiesenji]

I am also so glad to hear you and yours are physically okay, Helen. I have been thinking about you and others who live in Japan, ever since I heard about the quake.

Having stuff accessible is important. Some of my emergency supplies are stored in a back corner of the garage with a walk-through door that opens outward - I learned after the 1971 quake that doors opening inward often become stuck and sliding glass doors won't move at all (but can be broken). I have a crowbar hidden outside (up under the eaves of the garage) to "assist" in opening doors.

Gloves are indeed important. I have extra gardening gloves with the rubber coating on the fingers and palms. They make it easier to hold onto glass and other slippery stuff and are somewhat cut resistant, as well as being fairly inexpensive.

The wrench to shut off the gas at the meter is hanging in a plastic zip bag on the pipe next to the meter.(new bag every three months or so).

[ScoopKW]

A few thoughts:

1. There is no such thing as ventless heater. All combustion depletes oxygen. "ventless" heater have a sensor to sense oxygen level to shut down the unit. I wopuld not have my family's life depend on a little sensor.

2. If you don't have a generator, at least get an inverter. They are so inexpensive. You can plug into your car, and run the engine for many hour to power up phones, tvs, computers, recharge cell phones, lights, pumps and thermostat for you heating system, etc.

I disagree with generators and inverters -- it's not going to help much for the basic necessities which are:

1) Breathable atmosphere

2) Water

3) Shelter

4) Food

I'm not going to worry about Facebook updates if I have nothing to drink. Phones would be useful, provided the cellular network is up and running -- and in a catastrophe, I have my doubts.

For those interested in honing survival skills, the SAS Survival Guide by John Wiseman is the book to read. He says that it basically comes down to:

1) Will to live

2) Knowledge

3) Kit (survival supplies)

Put a survival kit in place, for sure. But knowing how to make potable water from contaminated water is better than having a few days supply.

[dcarch]

"I disagree with generators and inverters -- it's not going to help much for the basic necessities which are:

1) Breathable atmosphere

2) Water

3) Shelter

4) Food"

"

I am not sure the reasons for your disagreement. Generator and inverter are not to replace all the other meassures which have been mentioned.

My 2,500 watt generator costed me $250 dollars, and inverter $50.00. The additional flexibilities during an emergency is immense.

BTW, there is a very simple and inexpensive way to power up your house with a generator without major investment.

dcarch

[Darcie B]

Ours runs on gasoline and in the spring DH drains it and refills it with new gasoline...just regular gasoline. He says the gasoline must be changed at least once a year.

If you can get to an airport, I recommend buying 100LL airplane fuel (as long as your generator doesn't have a catalyst, which most don't). The FAA requires that the fuel be stable for 3 years, and it does much less damage to carbuerators and fuel lines than regular gasoline. Regular gasoline quality significantly diminishes in a couple of weeks.

[Dakki]

Diesel is (much) safer to store and has a shelf life of ~1 yr.

[cteavin]

I'm from L.A. And I was in Yokohama for this quake, no damage unlike Helen ( so glad to read you and your family are okay).

I'm not the kind to prepare anything special, I just keep my pantry well stocked, so the next day when people made a mad dash to the supermarkets, I just went in for fresh vegetables which I didn't really need. I shop at Costco, so I have bilk peanut butter, cans of tuna, huge bags of chocolate. Because we have often have nabe parties, we have extra burners and cans of gas. The fridge is always stocked with bottled drinks.

One thing I did as soon as I got home was fill the bathtub with water just in case. We were without water for a few days in 94 and it was no fun.

I have to say, cooking is my zen. With the planned blackouts, the horrific news on tv, and the stress about radiation, I've been making candy and let me assure you pulling taffy is a great stress relief!

Edited March 16, 2011 by cteavin (log)

[ScoopKW]

My 2,500 watt generator costed me $250 dollars, and inverter $50.00. The additional flexibilities during an emergency is immense.

BTW, there is a very simple and inexpensive way to power up your house with a generator without major investment.

A generator is great for some things. It's a creature comfort at best. But for a catastrophe -- like a tsunami, major earthquake, asteroid strike, nuclear blast -- what's it REALLY going to do? I'd rather have a satellite phone in my earthquake survival kit than a generator.

I'd also want a means of water filtration -- although sand and a bucket will work in a pinch. I'd also want antibiotics, wound dressing supplies, survival food bars, etc.

[helenjp]

Food supplies - having some kind of supply is probably useful. Elder son is now home from Sendai. He was in an urban area without power, phone, water, or gas, but with less quake damage than some areas and no tsunami damage. Sendai is one of the region's major cities, yet the situation was bad there, and is still truly dire in more isolated areas (I don't understand why they aren't making heli drops to cut-off hospitals and evacuation centers, but maybe I just don't know enough details). Son and his dorm-mates walked and cycled to all the centers they could reach to get water, and noted that none of them had food for distribution, and many had very, very limited supplies even for those sleeping in the centers.

However, graduating dorm residents had clubbed together to buy a stash of long-lasting emergency food supplies such as canned crackers. That plus the snacks they had in their rooms at the time was all the food they had until they evacuated. They donated what they had left to a relief center when they left. Some students stayed behind to volunteer, but those in areas without utilities or food supplies decided it was pointless to stay on, relying on emergency supplies that could be used for others.

I keep my very small emergency stash in a metal bucket with a lid and a cushion on top that doubles as a stool in our front entrance. Usually I just go through it twice a year and replace clothing and cycle canned food back to general use, replacing it with newer supplies, but I'm thinking that I will have a "Glad we're all safe" dinner using the un-needed supplies when I update them.

What's in there:

warm socks

protective gloves

rope

handcrank torch/radio (apart from the ones in general use)

coins

tissues/1 roll toilet paper

wet wipes

big bandaids, bandage clips, cloth to tear for bandage or use as sling,

string and rope

film case with twist-ties, 2 sizes rubber bands

plastic sheet, 2-3 very large plastic bags

can opener, pocket knife

chopsticks, spoons

canned fish

add-water rice sachets

dried fruit

tube chocolate

gas lighter, matches wrapped in foil

ID numbers/photocopies of important documents

may add:

enamel mugs, foil dishes

antiseptic cream, bug repellent

lightweight foil blanket

Water - I used to keep 3 10-liter plastic canisters, but two split at the seams and flooded my kitchen floor, making me worry about the fridge wiring. Have yet to figure out a more reliable way to keep a small supply of water.

Edited March 18, 2011 by helenjp (log)

[dcarch]

My 2,500 watt generator costed me $250 dollars, and inverter $50.00. The additional flexibilities during an emergency is immense.

BTW, there is a very simple and inexpensive way to power up your house with a generator without major investment.

A generator is great for some things. It's a creature comfort at best. But for a catastrophe -- like a tsunami, major earthquake, asteroid strike, nuclear blast -- what's it REALLY going to do? I'd rather have a satellite phone in my earthquake survival kit than a generator.

I'd also want a means of water filtration -- although sand and a bucket will work in a pinch. I'd also want antibiotics, wound dressing supplies, survival food bars, etc.

I still am puzzled why you feel that a generator will mean don't do anything else. You are correct that you cannot eat a generator. A huge population there are in need of electric power right now.

Also, Sand makes a very poor filter for water, especially sea water.

dcarch

[Darienne]

A great topic with lots of useful answers.

We have 100 acres, most of it arable, and can take in a lot of folks. The learning curve would be incredible as we all rebuilt our lives. We would learn again what we can eat and not eat and what grows and what doesn't. We already know some and pooling knowledge would be the answer. Sounds like life used to be. Ed is currently helping a neighbor with his maple syrup production and that neighbor house-sat for us while we were away. Those neighbors also receive much of the confections and things that I make. Now there's a hardship.

It was partly behind DH's decision to relocate to the country.

We have a powerful generator...it sure didn't cost $250.00...and we have an oil furnace which can also burn wood. We have old covered-over wells on our property which no doubt could be resurrected for drinking water.

Thanks again for all the answers.

[dcarch]

------------We have 100 acres, most of it arable, and can take in a lot of folks. ------------ Ed is currently helping a neighbor with his maple syrup production and that neighbor house-sat for us while we were away. -----------We have a powerful generator...it sure didn't cost $250.00...and we have an oil furnace which can also burn wood. We have old covered-over wells on our property which no doubt could be resurrected for drinking water.

Thanks again for all the answers.

100 acres! Wow! for sure you can survive any disaster. Especially if you have a greenhouse.

Please don't laugh. I have a small maple tree in my tiny suburban front yard (NYC). Two days ago, just out of curiousity I drilled a hole in the trunk and fashioned a spile. HaHaaa! I now have two quarts of sap in the bucket, and a few ants drown in it. I think I will be able to make one tea spoon of maple syrup.

You can get large diameter (20'?) parabolic dishes almost for free to make powerful solar furnace. Telecommunications companies are upgrading to much smaller satilite dishes now.

dcarch

[llc45]

My 2,500 watt generator costed me $250 dollars, and inverter $50.00. The additional flexibilities during an emergency is immense.

BTW, there is a very simple and inexpensive way to power up your house with a generator without major investment.

A generator is great for some things. It's a creature comfort at best. But for a catastrophe -- like a tsunami, major earthquake, asteroid strike, nuclear blast -- what's it REALLY going to do? I'd rather have a satellite phone in my earthquake survival kit than a generator.

I'd also want a means of water filtration -- although sand and a bucket will work in a pinch. I'd also want antibiotics, wound dressing supplies, survival food bars, etc.

I still am puzzled why you feel that a generator will mean don't do anything else. You are correct that you cannot eat a generator. A huge population there are in need of electric power right now.

Also, Sand makes a very poor filter for water, especially sea water.

dcarch

Dcarch -

Thanks for letting me know that I can get a generator in this price range. We live in the country and generally go without power 3-5 days at a time every few years when the above ground power lines get knocked out and they power companies focus their efforts on the more populated areas first.

Having a little power periodically flush toilets, use the oven, run electric heaters to help keep the house warm, and keep perishbles from spoiling for that cost sure seems worth it in my "disaster" planning. Can't tell you how unpleasant it is by day three without any power.

Also loved the canned water. We too have the big plastic jugs but aren't good about replacing it. Thanks for this wonderful idea Andie!

[Darienne]

Please don't laugh. I have a small maple tree in my tiny suburban front yard (NYC). Two days ago, just out of curiousity I drilled a hole in the trunk and fashioned a spile. HaHaaa! I now have two quarts of sap in the bucket, and a few ants drown in it. I think I will be able to make one tea spoon of maple syrup.

dcarch

Thanks for the further information. All these posts will get passed on to DH.

And I wouldn't laugh. That's terrific. Now you will have to make one pancake to go with your finished syrup.

It's quite something to help with a big production of maple syrup making. Took the dogs with us last year and their dogs and our dogs ended up having such sticky coats...have no idea how they got sticky.

[Jaymes]

Water - I used to keep 3 10-liter plastic canisters, but two split at the seams and flooded my kitchen floor, making me worry about the fridge wiring. Have yet to figure out a more reliable way to keep a small supply of water.

Andie has said she keeps canned water (good for 30 years) on hand. I have seen it available at camping stores, and I'd think it'd be available in Japan as well. You might do a little investigating.

[andiesenji]

I suggest that folks also might look at Lehman's web site and possibly order their catalog.

I gut got the Spring catalog in the mail.

They sell to the Amish, etc., and their prices are fair.

I know people who live "off the grid" quite happily with composting toilets, their own wells and catch rain water for washing &etc.

They have those large water "butts" for storing the rain water and snow melt from the roof.

There are a couple of magazines devoted to this concept.

Yankee is one

The one that has really gone into it fully is Mother Earth News

I subscribed to it for years and got a lot of good ideas from it.

You can buy one at a newsstand and check the numerous small ads in it, it's worth the price just for them as there are a lot of small manufacturers that you won't find any other way.

Some offer plans for building things that would be necessary in the event of a situation where there was no power, etc. Even if you have no need of them now it is good to have a paper printout of something like this because your computer won't be available.

I have a detailed plan of how to repair my well pump and/or construct a new one, because I'm sure I wouldn't be able to call a repair technician if we had a significant event here.

[SuzySushi]

Helen --

Glad to hear you're okay (even if most of your china didn't make it). I haven't been on eG recently, but checked in to see how everyone in Japan is doing. (I am in touch with Kris via Facebook.)

Anyone hear from Hiroyuki? His home is up north...

Gloves and large garbage bags. Those are excellent suggestions for my own disaster survival kit.

We're not prone to major earthquakes here, and my home is in central Oahu far from the threat of tsunamis, but we're always prepared for hurricanes. Until now, however, my disaster supplies have been scattered throughout the house, with the thought that we'd have plenty of warning for any evacuation. I need to gather a kit together in a small rolling suitcase to keep near the front door.

There's a case of bottled water in the car, and one of those buckets of instant "survival food" from Costco behind the TV. Plenty of canned and dry foods in the cupboards. Emergency lanterns and flashlights, extra batteries, small butane cooktop (and the recreation area at my condo complex has gas BBQs, which we've used during power outages). Friends in California keep a stash of vital medicines and emergency cash in a thermos buried in their backyard, where it would be accessible if their house collapses.