Happy Labor Day.
Today begins our September series on family preparedness. Over the next month, I’m going to put up information, challenges, and resource lists that will help you become more ready and more resilient in the event of an emergency.
To get started, let’s talk about our personal philosophies of preparedness. Preparedness isn’t a checklist – although we will go through a few – it’s a way of thinking about and responding to potential challenges. I have a certain philosophy of preparedness that will influence everything I share with you this month. Other people who are just as committed to emergency readiness have different philosophies. That’s ok. There are a lot of roads to the same destination.
Our first step is to talk about what readiness means to you, what motivates you, what scares you, what your goals are, and what’s going to let you sleep soundly at night knowing you’ve done the best you can to responsibly look after yourself and your loved ones.
I’ll show you mine, and then if you want, you can show me yours.
Why I’m Serious About Family Preparedness
A couple years ago there was a windstorm in my town. To set the stage, I live in a climate so mild that you can be very comfortable indoors without any form of heating or cooling for about 7 months out of the year. The other 5 months, you’d be more comfortable if you had a heat source at night, but otherwise healthy people could bundle up and live without one.
In very late August, which is arguably the most pleasant time of the whole year in this area, there was a freak windstorm. The trees were still in leaf, many fell down onto power lines, and thousands of people were left without power for about a day.
Without power. For a day. In late August. In Seattle.
I’ve experienced more physical hardship completing the paperwork to buy a new car.
For the first hour, the adrenaline kept people going. But after six hours, when the power lines didn’t all magically fuse back together, the indignation, recrimination, and aggravation grew louder.
Soon, people had lost their goddamned minds. The Twitter feed to the power company was overwhelmed with accusations and insults about how long it was taking to restore power. Between rounds of Forbidden Island with my family, I scanned Facebook from my fully charged phone and was amused/horrified to see women describing themselves as “having a literal panic attack” because they “can’t use their flatiron.”
Holy leaping overreaction, people. You know in a real emergency, we’re gonna eat the needlessly hysterical ones first, right? Do try to keep it together.
I was already one of those people who kept a flashlight in the kitchen junk drawer, filled up the gas tank at the halfway mark, and kept a big ol’ pantry. But watching my town have a histrionic breakdown over an 18 hour power outage convinced me that it was time to get serious about my family’s emergency readiness.
I realized that – if at all possible – in an actual emergency:
- I never want to have to “run out” to get supplies.
- I never want my family’s basic comfort or survival to require that we place ourselves in a crowd of scared, panicky people.
That’s how it started – a stubborn, almost curmudgeonly, conviction that in the event of an emergency I needed to be able to avoid crowds of people at all costs.
My Philosophy of Preparedness
I’ll be honest – I don’t really like groups in normal times, and I’m still pretty damn committed to my “don’t ever go to the store during the windstorm” approach to readiness. However, as my preparedness has matured, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of community resilience.
More goals were added to my list:
- I want to be in a position to take care of myself, my family, and my loved ones so that we are not a burden for first responders or on emergency services or resources.
- I want to be in a position to help my family and neighbors if shit goes sideways.
A bunch of singles, couples and families who are all individually ready to (literally) weather the storm, are even stronger when they act in resilience together.
If anything should make you proud of America, it’s the way the people of Houston have come together in common purpose to survive and recover from Hurricane Harvey and the massive flooding it caused. (Go ahead, read this, and try not to cheer/cry.)
Houston has done great. Now just imagine if everyone in Houston had a family evacuation and communication plan, a fast-grab binder storing all their essential documents, a back-up battery for their phone, emergency water, non-perishable food, a little back-up fuel and a 72-hour bag for fast evacuation.
Would that have stopped the damage? Of course not, Harvey was an absolute beast. Houses still would have flooded, stadiums still would have been turned into shelters. But it would have greatly increased the average resilience of the people caught in the storm.
- It would have prevented some last-minute, needless panic over empty grocery shelves, out-of-stock bottled water, and gas pump closures.
- It would have simplified life for those who needed to evacuate.
- It would have made the lives of all the people caught in the secondary effects of the storm – gas shortages, boil notices for water, temporary supply disruptions, road closures, etc. that much easier.
What Preparedness Is (And Isn’t)
I see preparedness as the rational, ethical choice to take responsibility for yourself and your family’s wellbeing as best you can.
If you have auto insurance on your car, that’s preparedness. You’re saying: if there’s a problem and I get in a car accident, I have secured the resources to help make a difficult time a little easier. If you put money away each month for retirement, or build up a financial buffer so you can replace your water heater when it, inevitably, craps out in February – that’s preparedness.
Let’s be clear: the Doomsday Preppers like you see on the TV are idiots. In the rare situation when their style of prepping isn’t itself idiotic, they’re still idiots for going on that show in the first place. (::cough:: OPSEC ::cough::) The vast majority of people who are prepper parodies have some sort of insane “I’ll be the phoenix that rises from the ashes” Genesis fantasy.
That’s not what I’m about, that’s not my philosophy of preparedness, and that’s not what you’re gonna see this month. Family preparedness does not mean a giant underground bunker, cases and cases of ammo and a year of freeze-dried lasagna. It also does not mean acting out of fear, panic, or paranoia.
Individual and family preparedness is being a grown-up. It’s looking at reasonable and foreseeable risks, and putting resources in place now to help mitigate those risks. Those resources – including gear, skills, community engagement, and knowledge – will help you sleep better at night knowing that if you are caught up in an emergency, you’ve done everything reasonable to assure your family’s resilience.
Today’s challenge will help you define your personal philosophy of preparedness, goals, areas of concern, and areas of motivation.
Today’s Preparedness 101 Challenge
Think about and complete the following sentences. You can use the comments section below (although be sensitive to what you disclose publicly if you do), you can answer these questions privately (download a PDF of the questions here), or write up a blog post and share a link below. Where you answer doesn’t matter. The important thing is to think carefully and clearly about your answers.
There are no right or wrong answers! Your personal philosophy of preparedness doesn’t have to be the same as mine. What’s important is that you get thoughtful about your own situation, family, and ethical responsibility to your loved ones.
1. Individual or family preparedness is: _________________________ .
2. When I think about a natural disaster* hitting my town, I feel: _________________________ because _________________________ .
(*Major earthquake, hurricane, tornado, ice storm, wind storm, etc. Select a natural disaster likely to impact your region.)
3. When I think about the news coverage of disasters or threats*, I feel: _________________________ because_________________________.
(*Hurricanes Katrina or Harvey, the ebola or zika viruses, The September 11th attacks, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the ongoing North Korean nuclear program, etc. Think both about your reaction to the general coverage of these kinds of situations, and to your response to specific threats.)
4. When I think about personal, regional, or large scale emergencies, the scenarios that make me the most nervous are: _________________________ .
5. The three places I spend the most time are: _________________________ . The emergency readiness of each of those places is: _________________________ .
6. If my home lost power for 72 hours, I would: _________________________ .
7. If I had to leave my home with 10 minutes warning due to a sudden emergency such as a chemical spill or a fast-moving fire, I would: _________________________ .
8. If I was trapped in my car for 24 hours due to a storm, flood, or road closure, I would: _________________________ .
9. If I was unable to get groceries for 14 days due to supply chain and transportation disruptions, I would: _________________________ .
10. If I lost my primary source of income for 60 days, I would: _________________________ .
11. If a major emergency hit me or my family, I know I could count on help from: _________________________ . If there was a major emergency, these people could count on me for help: _________________________ .
12. I am responsible for the following people* and animals: _________________________ .
(*Don’t forget to put your own name on this list.)
13. My additional thoughts about emergency preparedness are: _________________________ .
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Good thoughts here. I lived in Florida for 8 years and that really helped in the preparedness situation for us, knowing what we needed and didn’t (5 days without power after Hurricane Wilma) but we had a few years off after we left the state and now we are living in the Houston area the last five years and are having to face the reality of similar situations again. I confess we get some of it right(gas, water, food, etc) but some of it we don’t—like having a go-back ready, etc. My husband actually went out on Wednesday before the storm even landed and got supplies, before anyone in Houston was worried. We went back out on Friday night (it wasn’t bad here yet) to get out of the house and it was amazing to see what was empty on the shelves.
We are thankfully fine, water was in the yard and over our edible garden but we saw worse flooding in May 2016 in our area of town. And yes, I have flood insurance.
*go bag* Doh.
Thanks for doing this! Like many people, Hurricane Harvey got me thinking. I have ordered supplies off Amazon and stocked up at Costco. I printed out a handy earthquake preparedness article from FEMA. But I can see already that I missed a few things. I look forward to your advice!
This is so great- I think it is going to help us and a whole lot of people. We were in South Dakota when Winter Storm Atlas dumped a few feet of snow in October when the leaves were still on the trees. We were without power for 5 days and our road wasn’t plowed out for 6 days. A neighbor and their family joined us to clear a path out to the main road with nothing but shovels. We cooked soup and warmed water for bathing on our grill and had to move the mattress into the living room near the fireplace (with LOTS of blankets). We pulled water out of our garden cisterns for flushing the loo. It got down to 55 in the house, but we were never in danger or scared because we prepared. It made ALL the difference in the world.
So, Gov. Inslee declared a statewide state of fire emergency. I’m ready for earthquakes, but not so much for fire. This is a copy of a post I made on Facebook just a while ago. I’m fairly proud of myself for this, rather than mad at me for not doing it sooner:
Sometimes, I get anxious. Yesterday’s declaration by our governor about a statewide fire emergency hit me right in that place in my throat where I get the anxiety feels, kind of a choking sensation.
We live in an area of mixed woodlands and open grassy fields. We have limited water. If some fool starts a fire we’ll be really lucky to get out of here safely.
So, I did what I should have done yeeeeears ago: I walked all over the house and took exhaustive photos of every little damn thing in this house, and shop, and greenhouse, and sheds, etc. I’m putting them all a USB drive and also on our external hard drive. The USB drive will go to our safety deposit box, and the evac plan Doug and I have made includes grabbing the external hard drive, along with our bags of gear, boxes of photos I haven’t digitized yet, and stuff for Cooper and Purrl. Those bags of evac gear will be done by bedtime today.
If we need to load out in a hurry, we can do it, even if we need to take the Suburban across the neighboring fields.
I feel a lot less anxious now, because I’m as ready as I can be.
This is a great reminder to me to update my photos! I did it a couple of years ago, but now I own a house, and there’s just so much more that can go south. Thanks for the reminder!
Certainly no Doomsday Scenario but I’m dealing with something that it’s nice to not have to go anywhere for provisions.
Smoke. The forest fires here in Oregon have made it extremely unhealthy to go outside and breath the air. A PM (particulate matter) Level of 200 is considered toxic and we’ve peaked at 440 two days in a row now. They say this will likely continue for several more days here in Eugene.
Indeed I had some paper masks on hand for dealing with debris but when I pulled them out to use them, I realized they aren’t rated for this sort of thing. I need an N95 rated respirator, not a cheesy little paper mask. Poor planning/research on my part.
It doesn’t take a lot to put someone into a tight spot. Be prepared….
The ice storm a few years back in January… we are south of Seattle. 8 days and 7 nights with no electricity. Firewood for the fireplace, lots of wool stuff :), propane grill on the deck to cook and canned food… water taps and our landline phone worked. Our biggest hardship was the dark… no reading after five (have head lamp now 🙂 We had gone through several outages, but that was longest. Afterwards, hubby got gas generator, and 2 indoor propane heaters and made holes in the walls to connect, when necessary, to propane tanks outside on the deck. (We later sold gas generator on Craig’s for a dual gas/propane generator…. gas deteriorates over time. Of course, we’ve only had to use it once for two hours 🙂
Along with canned food, there are always spuds in the garden 🙂 Auto fuel tanks always topped at half way…but we didn’t even consider trying to get a motel… too cheap. I’m going to start having a lot of water in the car… I’m reading about keto diets, and we can go for days/weeks without food. My little chainsaw is electric, but I have numerous hand pruning saws.
Also… a back up supply of pet food… and maybe livestock feed, if I ever get chickens again 🙂
Looking forward to the rest of September 😉
Having been though the Hanukkah Eve storm, and several snow storms in which mine, or a close relatives power was out for 5+ days, I have revised my preparedness plans to a minimum of 7 days. You don’t need to be a “prepper” to be prepared, and not be a burden on emergency response.
I’m looking forward to reading your posts in the coming weeks!
I can’t wait to see future posts and you can bet that I’ll pass them on. I’m passionate about emergency prep but had been ignoring “the bridge factor” in that I live in the Gorge, WA side but work in Oregon with a bridge to cross every work day. An OEM presentation explaining what will happen along the river and to the bridge during the BIG one (overdue earthquake) made me realize I could no longer ignore the possibility that I needed to carry a huge personal survival kit in my car at all times. While I know there are more items I could carry, I have reached a point where I can relax just knowing I’ve got a plan backed up by action (even earned my HAM license.) Now I’m working on others at my work place who are in the same position as I was but don’t know how or want to begin planning. I was able to schedule a Red Cross presentation for the office as an all staff meeting. I also started a emergency prep facebook page for my rural neighborhood consisting of a lot of retired folks. Everyone should take this seriously. Emergency prep isn’t just for natural disasters. Anyone can lose a job or get sick. Thanks again for getting us started this month.
Our biggest weakness (I think) is also the car/away from home scenario for my husband. He’s got a long commute and it’s conceivable that he could be stuck away from home for a solid chunk of time. As I jot notes, I’m going to be thinking, in detail, about what we could put in our two cars so that no matter which he took, he’d be well-equipped.
We moved to the PNW from a suburb of Houston about 5 years ago. I started thinking about the major earthquake scenarios up here in the past year or two, but seeing the rolling, prolonged devastation throughout the metro area in Houston has pushed up my “Get a d— plan together” motivation.
Q#11 hit home for me because when the WA microburst hit last year, our power was only out for an hour and our apartment was fine. But 3 days later I learned from my mother that my aunt (who lives just 2 miles away from me) had had her power out for those 3 days. I was so ashamed to realize that I hadn’t even thought about checking to see if she was ok or if she needed any help. We could have saved some of her groceries in our fridge, and offered hot showers, and recharged her electronics. Next time I’m going to be more proactive in checking on my community!
Thank you for a great post to get folks thinking. Our neighbors are all like minded and have met to survey our strengths and needs should an emergency happen. This after the city forest land burned within a few blocks of our homes.
Our family made a home school project out of stocking several ‘earthquake’ barrels after the Nisqually Quake. We have first aid supplies, water purification, cooking and sanitation supplies, as well as easily prepared comfort foods(mac n cheese+ hot cocoa). Now that my kids are grown we have more adult food +coffee! Over the years we have also stored our camping equipment, a rocket stove, and surplus sleeping bags and tarps. We have a wood stove and wood also. It is comforting to know we are equipped for several weeks, if not months.
Living in Northern NV, our threats are wildfires, earthquakes, & intense weather (both heat & cold). We always have a minimum of 2 cases of water, a full pantry, my own canning items, and wood for the fireplace. I am always concerned about fuel for all vehicles, including the quads. I wish I had a safe area to store fuel. I also admit I don’t have a “go-bag” either.
Excellent questions. I do well on the pantry, stored water etc list and have been doing that for years. Power outages are frequent here in the boondocks. However, evacuation would be a whole other matter. Why did I never think of having a mini prep bag in the car? I love your mentality and the emphasis on community. Someone mentioned not being able to read. That is where the e reader comes in. It uses less power than a tablet and can be a sanity saver.
Great article Erica and certainly the coming ones in this series too. Also great reads are the comments here. You and the community have given me a lot to think about. We had a windstorm in Spokane two years ago and we were without power in November (cold but not snow-covered) for a week. Relatives with power offered to house us but we couldn’t accept because of the number of personal and fostered cats we had at the time. After 4 days, hubby’s work loaned us a generator but until that time we’d gotten by on keeping the house warm with candles. Literally 54 candles in safe places around the house that I maintained all day kept us at a comfy 53 degrees. We had water as well as hot water from our gas water heater and I cooked outside on the side burner of our propane grill. After that my prep goals changed: I’ve learned pressure canning to cut down the amount of frozen food we maintain, bought extra sources of emergency lighting, canned sterile water, keep extra prescription meds and have a go-bag packed. We still haven’t gotten our own generator or gotten our chimney flue repaired…those are biggies.
I used this as my daily writing exercise today. These were really good prompts and a valuable use of time.
FWIW, the August storm from a couple of years ago cost my friend her home. When I lived in Seattle, I lost sight of the degree of destruction that these storms wreak in the surrounding area. It wasn’t until I moved out here and went through my first five-day windstorm – the one that was the deal breaker in the first season of Alone – and watched the many very large trees on my property bend sideways, that I started to really get it. I also remember that day because I had to drive from Lake Tapps to Snohomish literally dodging falling tree branches in my big truck because one of the horses in the care of my rescue organization was colicking in the hospital and we had to make the decision to euthanize her. It was the type of bad day I’ll remember for awhile, not just a wee windstorm.
Anyways, this was a super useful exercise. My biggest concerns revolve around not having a water supply when the power goes out. We’re on a shared well, which is not on a generator. My second biggest concern is that when we get hit with a massive earthquake, my entire support network will also be getting hit with the same massive earthquake all at once. And that is actually going to require some *individual* preparedness. And I’m not entirely there. I would also like to have emergency bags in both vehicles. I am well set up for a road-side emergency as far as the vehicle goes, but not for a natural disaster.
Please keep this series coming!
I loved your comment about the hair flat iron. I recall reading an interview wiht survivors from wildfires in SoCal and one lamented that they wanted life to get back to normal so she could color her hair. The irony of priorities.
After hurricane/super storm Sandy and being without power for 5 days, I switched the house from all electric to gas. We have earthquakes but they’ve been mostly minor ones that are deep in the crust. With addition of gas, I had a whole house generator installed. I learned how to service the generator from watching youtube videos so every six months I change oil, oil filter, spark plugs and filter to keep it running efficiently. Lost a chest freezer full of food last time, had a neighbors tree destroy my backyard and basement flooding. Now I have 2 chainsaws and a handsaw so I don’t have to wait a long time to get the debris cleaned up. Sump pumps are on generator and back up deep cycle battery. Bought 50 gal drum with insertable pump specially to hold potable water for 3 people. Have 25 lbs. white/brown wheat, corn kernels, peanut butter, dried legumes, sugar, chocolate and home canned food stored.
Installed 50 gal rain barrels on fiv gutters. This water supply will be used to flush toilets. Use outdoor grill and camping rocket stove as backups for cooking. Rocket stove uses very little wood fuel.
Have five rechargeable solar lights for use at night. I don’t like the danger of candles due to pets, so I hang solar powered lights in the heavily traffic area at night, near bathrooms. Also, have a solar powered foldable panel for recharging cell phones. Put in place a disaster plan with kids in the event something happens when they are at school or when I am out of town on business.
We became avid campers after Sandy hit so kids are now accustomed to camping mentality – setting up tent, sleeping outside while it is pouring rain, having to walk to go to bathroom at night. They know how to bake bread, make pancakes in cast iron over a firepit or cookstove. Our bikes are tuned up, with backup tires and will be used as transportation if we don’t have access to gas and we need to go someplace. I could modify a trailer to hitch it to the bike, if I need to haul something.
I have not focused on stockpiling $$ because I don’t believe it will be useful with price gouging after a disaster. Saw this with hurricane Harvey and water supplies.
Recently, we had a carbon monoxide detector go off due to a faulty valve on the water heater. Nobody did anything about it so they all had to go through a household emergency response training. We now have a code word for when the situation is urgent. No brushing hair or looking for cell phones, immediate evacuation process goes into effect.
I’m looking forward to seeing if there is anything else we should be doing.
I live in the UK in a similarly benign meteorological and geographical area which lulls people into a false sense of security.
Like your flatiron anecdote, it only takes one evening of no power to find the village queued out of the door of the fish and chip shop in the next town, for no one to be able to wash or make a cup of tea if the water main bursts or for everyone to have run out of milk if it snows heavily. Yet, until they were upgraded by the electricity board a year or two ago, our power lines were ALWAYS coming down if it was windy. Or a swan flew into them or the trees had got too tall. The Victorian water main that always bursts when it gets cold was only replaced last month and we live in village in a valley, so it’s uphill in every direction to get out and hard to negotiate in a small car in the snow and ice. So why were people still taken by surprise every time? Why was I constantly sharing stored water, frozen and powdered milk, and the only one able to cook at home without power (there’s no gas to our village)? Extraordinary.
Thanks for doing this, your blog is a goldmine. I’m in the pacific northwest, and my only emergency plan involves my family surviving the initial shaking. I seem to be stuck in the terror of that first minute. Thanks for extending my view. There is a great example of a earthquake community impact here: https://issuu.com/north-shore-news/docs/when_the_ground_shakes_earthquake_r/1?ff=true&e=8667569/12565369
We just survived a wildfire in Utah; the house next door and behind us burned to the ground last week. We were evacuated for 3 days. I had my 72-hour bag and got out with the pets while my husband was as work. My bag is actually for a week because I have important meds I need. Tip: Keep extra underwear and baby wipes in your bag; it’ll make you feel human!
Other tips:
1. Keep important documents at a safety deposit box at a bank
2. A comfort item in each evacuation bag is wonderful
3. My evacuation bag is actually my airplane carry-on; I keep liquids in a plastic quart bag for flying
4. Extra glasses is you wear contacts; smoke and chemicals don’t mix with contacts!
Hi there, Great tips by the way and thank you. I did have a
question though. I’m hoping you can answer it for me since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about gardening.
How can I make a raised-bed vegetable garden (lots of land, economical, deer)?
If you had some insight I would greatly appreciate
it.