Evacuation- Some tips

http://blog.totallyready.com/survivor-stories-emergency-preparedness-emergency-management/05/26/

I took this whole quote from the May 5, 2010 blog post of Totally Ready. I love to read that blog because she constantly talks about things we should be thinking about for emergencies.

It was interesting what things this woman did and did not remember to take when she evacuated from the San Diego fires two years ago.

"We had a half hour notice to evacuate. A friend called when he was called by a friend who received a reverse 9-1-1 call. My initial thought was, this is a drill, we’ll be back tonight, we’ll be the only ones on the road. All of these assumptions were wrong. My husband grabbed the kids and told me to grab a few things. What did I grab? Makeup! Of course when he came in and saw me I woke up to the important things. We ended up taking three days worth of clothes, photo albums, camera, computer, file documents, journals, scriptures, 72-hour kits, and the kids each picked one toy. There was no forethought; I just grabbed what I could, what was visible.

I wish I had taken....."

And you'll have to go to the blog to read the rest.

Rolling Can Storage

Here is a video of a clever way a woman made a storage unit that fits behind her sofa. She made it from an old dresser, and put in rolling shelves for canned food storage.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCnXfO7YMfk&feature=related

(Added July 19, 2010: I just found out this video was made by my friend K. J. of the Green Level Ward! I had no idea I was watching a video made in my own town!)

Thinking of Hurricane Season

Tuesday morning I was walking with Patti, and we were reminiscing about Hurricane Fran, which was our last big hurricane here in the Raleigh area, in September 1996. She was out of electricity for nine days, I was only out for one day. There were fallen trees blocking all the roads. We knew of plenty of people with trees on their house or car. Stores and businesses were closed.

I said to Patti, "If we found out there was a big hurricane heading straight for us right now, what would you do to prepare?"

And we both started brainstorming.

(Remember, we both already have lots of food and water storage, so these are just extra things we would do.)

(For those of you who have moved here since 1996, and have no idea what to do to prepare for a hurricane, pay close attention.)

Here is the list we came up with:

Buy another propane tank for the grill. (For cooking outdoors.)

Do all the laundry. (You may be out of electricity for awhile.)

Fill up all the spaces in my freezer with 2-liter bottles full of water. (A full freezer stays frozen longer. And ice is always handy when the power is out.)

Fill up all the cars with gasoline. (Gas stations can't function without electricity. Also, if there is a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, the refineries might be nonfunctional for weeks.)

Get the bikes repaired. (It is good to have another form of transportation if gasoline is unavailable.)

Get sandbags. (I'm going to get 4 bags of playground sand from Home Depot, to put across my front door. During Fran, we had 9 inches of rain in one day. I think my front door is low enough that I fear some water is going to come in there if the water can't drain from my front yard fast enough.)

Obtain a battery or solar radio, buy a replacement for my little portable TV. (We threw it away because it was analog. We loved that TV during hurricanes because we could plug it into the car and find out what was happening. So now we need a digital TV with an antenna.)

Texting

I just read a really good book, Survival: How a Culture of Preparedness Can Save You and Your Family From Disasters by Lt. General Russel L. Honore' (U.S. Army, retired). He was the commander of Joint Task Force- Katrina, the officer on the ground in charge of all active-duty military forces sent to Louisiana and Mississippi.

At the end of every chapter he gave ten- to- twenty "Lessons Learned for Building a Culture of Preparedness."

One of the tips that I got from the book was to teach myself to send and receive text messages on my cell phone.

"Text messages were still working for many people even though the cell towers were down. There were a few cell towers out there somewhere with just a hint of life in them. They had enough power to enable people to send text messages.

Anyone who has a cell phone needs to know how to send text messages in the event of an emergency. A text message is a burst transmission and uses only a fraction of a signal whereas a voice call will eat up a lot of bandwidth.

It is especially important for the elderly or the disabled who live in areas prone to hurricane, floods, earthquakes, or wildfires to have a cell phone and be able to send text messages. Learning that simple skill could mean the difference between life and death. " page 117

"Shortly after our arrival in New Orleans, my headquarters in Atlanta began receiving text messages from people trapped in their homes...These people would send a text message to a friend who would forward it to the Times-Picayune, which would then send the message on to First Army headquarters. The message would be sent from there to the Coast Guard search-and-rescue officials with information about where these people were... " page 116.

(Not from the book) I was also thinking about communicating in a disaster where there are no cell towers left. I am really proud of my friend Patti, who just got her Ham Radio license. I am definitely planning to take that training someday and get my license too.