Category: Family Survival

“Do you smell something funny?”

If you are being exposed to high levels of Carbon Monoxide, enough to kill you in just a few minutes, you won’t smell a thing!

Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless and tasteless!

I just read the story of a Chicago family that had moved into their new house on Saturday in October. The utilities weren’t going to be turned on until Monday, so they set up a generator in the garage to provide some heating and to run lights.

By Sunday morning they were all dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.

College educated folks. Suburban neighborhood.

How is this possible? They just didn’t know any better!

Given the weather reports lately, with power outages and threatened historic cold weather, be sure you know better. Here are the basics.

What is Carbon Monoxide poisoning?

When you breathe in carbon monoxide, it combines with the hemoglobin in your blood, taking the place of the oxygen that should be there. Breathe in too much, and you will become sick and ultimately die from lack of oxygen.

What are the symptoms?

Very similar to flu, and can come on gradually if you are exposed over a period of time. They include headache, fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness.

What produces carbon monoxide?

It’s produced when carbon products – like wood, gas, kerosene, charcoal – are burned but only partially consumed. Most common situation – when someone operates a stove or engine (car, lawn mower, power washer, generator) in an enclosed space like the house or attached garage. (In the Chicago situation, the generator was running in the closed-up garage.) Second most common situation – when a gas heater or gas stove isn’t properly set up, allowing the fuel to escape into the living area without being completely burned.

What’s the real risk in the U.S.?

First Alert quotes the Journal of the American Medical Association as saying that “1,500 people die each year” because of carbon monoxide poisoning. FEMA says that “more than 150 people die” from “non-fire” related carbon monoxide poising each year. Another source mentions “at least 170 deaths as a result of poison from “non-automotive” consumer products. ” Take your pick. One death is too many when they are all preventable.

How can I prevent carbon monoxide poisoning?

1. First, of course, simply be sensible and don’t set up any kind of non-vented engine or temporary gas heater or cooker in the house!
2. Buy and install a carbon monoxide detector – and pay attention to it! Remember, it probably gives off two kinds of “beeps.” One is soft and repetitive, and means that you need to change the batteries. The other is loud and insistent.
3. If the detector goes off, trust it! (Don’t do like one lady did, wait several hours because “I didn’t smell anything!” Odorless, colorless . . . remember?) Take steps to protect your family. Get out into fresh air. Call 911 or the Fire Department.

My friend Russ Flanigan, a BPI Certified contractor in Vermont, adds these recommendations to the basic ones above:

1. Install your detectors intelligently. They can be fooled by humidity, so don’t put them in the kitchen over the sink or dishwasher, or in the bathroom. Put them outside every separate sleeping area.
2. Getting a new kitchen or cookstove? Insist on having it tested for carbon monoxide when it’s installed. (Per Russ, furnaces are routinely tested, stoves not so often.)
3. Own a self-cleaning oven? Be sensible; don’t turn it on and go to bed. Rather, operate the self-cleaning function when you can keep the kitchen well aired.

Action Item: Add carbon monoxide to your “preparedness list.” Buy and install the appropriate number of carbon monoxide alarms.

Click here for a review of the different types, features and costs. 

(We’re updating this post today because we’ve had some new experiences!)

I know this may be an unpleasant subject to deal with, but even a moderate disaster can turn out to be more than an inconvenience. The issue?

Coping with primitive sanitary conditions.

Even if you have to put up with them only temporarily, dealing with such conditions requires ingenuity as well as fortitude. But deal with them you must.

What could trigger a sanitation emergency?

• Broken pipes. Even a moderate earthquake can result in broken water pipes. Within minutes, you’ll be unable to flush your toilet. People near the break may be faced with seepage of raw sewage.
• Power outage. A local water tower functions using gravity, but most urban systems depend on electrical pumps to move water and manage sewage. In a severe storm, these systems may shut down or overwhelm their back-up generators.
• Flooding. If too much water pours down into the drainage system, drains and ultimately sewage treatment plants may be overwhelmed, even without any actual breakage.

Any one of these circumstances could pose a serious health threat to you and your family.

What options do you have?

In the home, what’s important is to act IMMEDIATELY to seal off your home from contamination if you suspect a breakdown in either the water or sewer systems.

Shut off the water.

Even if your home isn’t damaged, you don’t want contaminated water flowing into it. At the first suggestion of problems, it’s easy enough to protect yourself by turning the water off at the house.

Block off the sewer.

You’ve surely experienced clogged plumbing, with waste water rising up in the shower, or a toilet overflowing instead of flushing neatly down. This is what we want to avoid!

If you know the sewer system has been compromised, AND YOU HAVE MADE ARRANCEMENTS FOR THIS IN ADVANCE, you could consider plugging your main sewer line with an inflatable plug to keep sewage from backing up from the system into your home.  (Read on for more about this.)

Keep people from using the toilet!

Of course, you can’t keep people from having to go – so you need to arrange a safe place for collecting feces, bile material and sanitary napkins.

We’ve written before about temporary toilets.

• The easiest solution? Line your regular toilet with heavy-duty plastic bags – the kind that are made for trash compactors.
• Second best solution? Line a 5-gallon bucket with the same compactor bags.

Some duct tape may help keep the bags where you want them.

How to dispose of sewage?

When you use your temporary toilet, add some disinfectant. (See below for suggestions.)

After bags have been used a few times, close and seal the bags, remove from the home, and store in a designated place – perhaps in a hole in the ground, preferably at a distance from the house and from traffic, where bags won’t be accidentally damaged.

Next steps? Store supplies BEFORE the emergency.

These are “general suggestions” that may or may not be appropriate for your situation. Talk over the alternatives at one of your community emergency response team meetings or discuss with your local police and fire authorities.

In any case, think it through and make sure you have the supplies you need. Here are some of the items discussed in this Advisory. (As always, click on the images to go directly to Amazon for full details and current pricing. If you buy we may get a small commission — your price won’t be affected!)

Compactor bags. These are NOT ordinary garden or trash bags!  They are made specifically for trash compactors. Get the sturdiest you can find. Costs start at about a dollar apiece and go down dramatically, the more you buy. Click on the images for details. These examples show a price range, but if you are buying for emergency use, you need more than just a dozen!

Disinfectant

Use your favorite. I prefer Clorox – the original, unscented kind, of course.

We’ve also used toilet deodorant chemicals in our motor home travels. This brand is specifically for portable toilets. Cost at Amazon is less than $10.

Rubber gloves – not the lightweight nitrile ones you see in the doctor’s office, or the simple rubber ones you might have under your sink for washing dishes. Here’s a pair designed for heavy duty use. Again, click the image for details and exact pricing.

Inflatable sewer plug

Get professional help to know what size to get and how to install it. Note these come in 2,3 and 4″ sizes to fit your pipes. Prices range from $20-$40 depending on size.

.

Bucket

Different colors have different prices (starting at around $15). Here’s one from a popular manufacturer, without a lid:

And with lid (different manufacturer), add about $5 – $10.

You may already have some of these supplies around the house.  Just be sure you don’t inadvertently run low or run out and find yourself in a fix if an emergency hits.

I know some of our readers have purchased different types of travel toilets. If you have experience with them, let us know in the comments!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Dear Loyal Subscriber,

Each week, when I sit down to send out a new Advisory, I picture you, my loyal subscriber, waiting eagerly for the message to arrive.

Maybe I’m fooling myself about the “eagerly,” but it’s a great pleasure to know that there are people out there who care about emergency preparedness enough to follow at least one person’s learning curve!

This week I tried something different in an attempt to get the word out.

I put up two Emergency Plan Guide videos on YouTube!

Why go to the effort?

On the one hand, I thought this would be an opportunity for me to figure out just “How to Turn a Power Point Presentation into a Video.”

I’ve used Power Point for years to create business presentations, training materials, and one-page flyers. This seemed like the next logical step. As you can imagine, it wasn’t without some effort – but I figured it out!

The second reason I made the videos was because I want to have more ways of getting the word out to the 50% of the world that has done no planning! I’m thinking, since everybody else is using video, maybe it will work for us, too.

So here are my videos. Not perfect, but workable! (I still have to master the timing of the voice-over and the slide turning . . .) Please check them out. Feel free to comment either here or on YouTube. And send me ideas for more of them, or direct me to YOUR videos. I’ll be happy to share!

Thanks!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

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If you read our posts regularly, you know we’re all about stocking up on food, water and medicines to tide us over in the case of a major disaster or emergency event until over-taxed emergency services can arrive.

 A Small Generator and a Camping Stove Can Be a World of Luxury in an Emergency!

If you have a small generator (say, 3,000 watts ) that you can run for an hour or so a day, you can probably continue to utilize your refrigerator and freezer. (This is particularly good since I don’t like being without my sour cream herring!) And, since we enjoy our coffee and are big latté drinkers in our house, we began experimenting with packets of instant latté. Most were pretty dismal . . . but, one turned out to be exquisite . . . exceeding our hopes.

Vinacafe 3 in 1 Instant Coffee Mix, 20 Sachets (Pack of 3)T

The surprise was that the brand, Vinacafé®, is actually a Vietnamese brand.

And then I remembered that The Vietnam of today used to be “French Indo-China.” (Yes some of us are old enough to remember ancient history.) And, if anyone knows how to make a good cup of latté (or should I say Café au Lait) it’s the French (no slight to the Italians intended).

It’s now all we drink. We’ve packed up the latté machine and forsaken Starbucks except when we are on the road.

Not All of Us “Up-Scale Survivalists” are Ready to Grab the Knife Between Our Teeth and Stalk Wild Animals for Dinner!

If there are any cool-headed, luxury-inclined “survivalists” within earshot, (wordshot?), I warmly recommend you try Vinacafé®. It only costs about 20-30 cents a packet, depending on where you buy it. (Compare that to $3.00+ a cup) So far, the only places that carry it are some Vietnamese grocery stores and Amazon.com. (Go back and click on the image to get current price at Amazon.)

If you don’t have an outside barbecue, you’ll probably want to pick up a one or two-burner camping stove (we chose a Coleman out of loyalty ) that runs on butane. In addition to boiling water for your coffee, you can also cook some of that food you have stored up.

The point to this dissertation is simply that there are some things in life you don’t have to give up, even in difficult times! 🙂

What are your favorite “luxury” items that you’ve stashed in your survival kit or among your emergency supplies?

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

I think we all can bring up an image of flames shooting out of an apartment or hotel room in a high-rise, with smoke billowing. It’s so that when I travel, I request a room on a lower floor, and near the stairs – all because of those images!

Where are the exits?

The recent fire in West LA got me to look into the realities of emergency preparedness for people living in high-rises, however, and the results weren’t exactly what I was expecting.

Here’s some of what I learned.

The danger of fire in a high-rise is LESS than in other structures!

The National Fire Protection Agency, excellent resource for all things fire-related, reports that only 3% of structural fires are in high-rise buildings. (They define high-rise as 7 stories or taller. There are other definitions; I’m defining high-rise as anything above the height of the local fire department’s highest ladder.)

A fire in a high-rise results in statistically less damage.

Modern hotels and apartment buildings, where about half the high-rise fires occur, are far more likely than other structures to have:

* Construction that resists fire. Steel with spray-on coatings or encased with concrete resists fire far longer than wood construction. If you’re familiar with fire insurance, you know that buildings are rated for how resistive their construction methods are.

* Systems to protect against fire. Depending on size the building, it may have fire alarms and automatic sprinklers. Larger buildings may have camera surveillance, controlled access and even 24-hour monitoring.

OK, that’s great for statistics. But what about me?

If you actually plan to live in a high-rise apartment, what should you find out about the building?

Take a tour of the building with management, and get answers to these five questions:

1. What fire safety systems does the building have, and who maintains them? Don’t assume anything! The LA fire happened in a building with no sprinklers.
2. Are exits clearly marked? In an emergency, elevators won’t be available.
3. Are the fire exits unlocked? Are fire doors kept closed, not propped open?
4. Does the building have a fire evacuation plan? What about fire drills?
5. Does the fire alarm system have a public announcement capability?

And if a fire breaks out, what should you do?

The U.S. Fire Administration, part of FEMA, offers guidelines for how to protect yourself and how to save yourself. Here are highlights:

• Call the fire department yourself to report a fire. Nobody else may have called!
• When you hear a fire alarm, feel the exit door of the apartment with the back of your hand.

a. If it’s cool, open the door carefully. Do you see smoke or flames? If all clear, head for the nearest exit. If you encounter smoke, turn back! According to FEMA, smoke and toxic gases kill more people than flames do.

b. If the door is warm, or you see smoke, do not go out! Stay in your apartment. Stuff the cracks around the door with towels or bedding. Turn off the air conditioning. Keep smoke from coming into the apartment. To quote again from FEMA, “Asphyxiation is the leading cause of fire deaths, exceeding burns by a three-to-one ratio.”

• Call the fire department to let them know where you are. Signal from a window. Don’t leave it open if smoke is coming in.
• Listen for instructions from the fire department.
• Be patient. It may take hours for a high-rise to be fully evacuated.

Do you live now in a high-rise apartment? If not, who do you know that does?

Since nearly 40% of Americans are renters, and the majority of them live in apartments, you are bound to have friends or family in this category.

Action Item:  Please share this information. You can simply forward the blog post, or copy and paste it into an email or onto an attachment or link to it on your own Facebook page.

Thank you.  Your action may save lives.

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

(Joe sent this letter out this morning to our whole email list . . .)

10,000 lives lost in the storm-ravaged Philippines is just another wake-up call about the realities of surviving major catastrophes, on the heels of the devastating earthquake in Haiti as well as Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina.

The popular TV shows about Doomsday Preppers, extreme survival with 100-lb “bug-out bags” and building arsenals of automatic weapons to “protect your stash” are not only ridiculous fantasies, they’re actually diverting people’s attention from the actual realities of survival:

• 1. Government cannot possibly respond to everyone in need at once following a major catastrophe. The logistic challenges are impossible to surmount and it may be days before “official help” can be mobilized.
• 2. The first few minutes and hours of a disaster are the most critical for saving lives. YOUR BEST HOPE OF BEING RESCUED OR HELPED ARE YOUR IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORS! And you are their best hope as well. Period!
• 3. The easiest way to prepare – together with having your own 10-day supply of Water, Food and Medicines – is to take advantage of the Free training offered on line by FEMA as well as local cities and fire departments: CERT, Community Emergency Response Team. This fabulous training is “community focused” and deals with the ordinary citizen realities of disaster situations.

The fact that we have been able to get over 40 of our neighbors trained and equipped through our city (Irvine has trained literally hundreds of people who work or live here – all for free!) has made it possible for us to organize actual teams to respond to emergencies. Our biggest concern here in California is, of course, the likelihood of major earthquakes and the probability that family members may be in various parts of the community when a quake strikes.

If you want to give yourself, your family, your neighbors and co-workers a better chance of survival in an emergency, Virginia and I urge you to look into the programs offered by your city, fire department and Red Cross. We list a number of organizations, links and tips for survival on our website: www.EmergencyPlanGuide.org. And we urge you to share this information with your family, neighbors and employers. It’s the best way we know of to protect what’s most important to you. You can simply forward this email.

P.S. If you want to help out in the Philippines, go to the Rotary.org website and make a donation to the Rotary ShelterBox program. They have stockpiles of 10-person tents & survival tools ready to be airlifted to disaster zones as well as standby volunteers. Rotary’s ShelterBox program is one of the most widely recognized and respected projects in the world.

Sincerely,

Joseph Krueger &  Virginia Nicols

Joseph Krueger and Virginia Nicols

EmergencyPlanGuide.org
www.EmergencyPlanGuide.org

4790 Irvine Blvd., Suite 105
Irvine, CA 92620
JKrueger@MktgMach.com
Telephone: (949) 733-3778
Direct: (949) 733-1778
Fax: (949) 559-6993

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Over the past month we’ve seen heartbreaking photos from Colorado: homes washed off their foundations, stores filled with mud a foot deep, livestock perched on islands in a sea of brown water.

Pain of dealing with legal problems

Our first concern is for the lives of the people involved. Then, typically, the news coverage moves on, and we are left to our imagination to consider the mess left behind.

Physical mess we understand. But what about the legal mess?

Physical mess we understand. Mud, water, shovels, sweat.

But every picture of a damaged car or home, of a business or farm or highway, represents a potential legal problem, a problem that could last weeks or months and complicate that family’s life forever.

Can we prepare for legal disasters? Yes, we can.

Here are a few questions every family needs to be able to answer.

1. Can you prove who you are?

These days many, many “families” are not legally related. Some family members may not be legal citizens. In an emergency, your problems will be magnified if you don’t have the documents to prove who you are and your legal relationships to others. These documents may include a rent agreement, custody for children or powers of attorney for parents. Have copies of these documents made and store the originals in a bank safety deposit box if possible.

2. Can you prove that you own the lost or damaged property?

Several years ago when a mobile home park in California was evacuated at 4 a.m., residents had no time to gather important papers. 80% of the homes burned to the ground. Months later those homeowners were still having problems proving they had owned the property! Again, add ownership documents (car, home, insurance) to your “Go-Bag” so you can grab it and take it with you even if you have only minutes. Electronic copies work as well as originals in this case.

3. How will your personal obligations be handled if you are out of work or out of your home?

Bills don’t stop just because your house has been flooded. If you pay by check, your check and checkbook may have been lost. If you pay bills automatically, you’ll at least have a few days reprieve. In any case, you’ll need to notify all your creditors of the situation. Do you have a list of who they are and how to contact them?

4. What about business contracts if your business is shut down?

Once you’ve ascertained that your employees are safe, you’ll turn to keeping the business alive. Do you have standing orders for delivery of product – either to or from the place of business? What happens when you default on those contracts? Does your business emergency plan include contacting all employees regarding the work schedule, contacting all vendors and customers to tell them what to expect? What about being ready with an announcement to the news media? These communications plans need to be set up BEFORE anything happens.

These aren’t all the legal problems that may come up, but if you have made preparations to handle at least these four questions, you’ll be in a lot better position to make it though a natural disaster.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT TOPIC.  PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS.

Copy and paste this link:  https://emergencyplanguide.org/legal-problems-surface/.

Ever happen to you?

Last week we got the notice. “On Tuesday your utility service will be temporarily out of service.”

Clean it up!

We live in a community with a fragile infrastructure. We’ve had electricity outages, burst water mains and even four natural gas leaks over the past few years. (Actually, three of the gas leaks were because of construction, so they weren’t because of the infrastructure. But hey, an outage is an outage, no matter how caused.)

Anyway, this time it was our water service, “Off starting at 8 a.m., until the leak can be found and repaired.”

You realize what happens when there’s no water, right?

No shower or bath, of course. (Easy to do without.)

No flushing the toilet. (Less easy.  It takes GALLONS of water to flush a toilet.)

No rinsing of dirty dishes. (A nuisance only.)

No rinsing hands after picking something up off the floor, or pulling a weed, or wiping up spilled coffee. (Yuck.)

No rinsing the counter after wiping up the spilled coffee. (Sticky!)

You get the picture!

Of course, we were warned, so we were prepared.

It wasn’t even an emergency. Here’s what we did:

• Made sure we had plenty of clean drinking water.
• Filled up the plastic trash cans and set them beside the toilet to allow for flushing.
• Filled up some large pots and pans and set them on the kitchen counter for cooking and rinsing.  (ended up labeling them as “drinkable” or “rinse only”)
• Filled the dishpan with warm water (heated on the stove) and dish soap and put the dirty dishes to soak for the afternoon.
• Opened a couple of packages of handi-wipes and placed them strategically.

I was amazed at the number of times I started to turn on the tap and then had to remember – no water!  But this was a planned event, for a limited time only, so no real problems for us. What would it be like if this went on for a whole 24 hours, or several days?

What sort of water outages have you experienced?

What did you do to plan? What was it like if unplanned? Share your stories in the comment box. We want to hear about it!

As a part of National Preparedness Month, we’re going to be staffing a table at a neighborhood preparedness faire. So I pulled out of my car the emergency kit I had first put together after my Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training.

Don’t use these!

Look at the photo and you’ll see some of the yucky things I found!

* Corroded batteries in my flashlight! (Upper right arrow) The kit actually has two flashlights in it. One was the high-tech model (from Sharper Image, no less) that holds AA batteries. Look closely and you’ll see the totally blown-out end of one of them! We find that batteries need to be replaced every 6 months if they are in a light or radio.

* Dried up and useless first aid items! On the left in the photo you can see the shriveled up antiseptic wipes and the stained band aid packages. Although they had been stored in a plastic bag, not one of them was usable.

* Melted and leaking pens! CERT training reminds you to have a way to write on a door when you’ve searched the room, write on a piece of tape to label someone, or write right on their skin. We assembled a variety of writing implements for these purposes, including crayons and permanent markers. Again, stored in a plastic bag, they melted and leaked. I could hardly get that one crayon out to be able to photograph it!

What’s the state of your Survival Kit? How about your CERT bag? (These are two different things, of course. Survival Kit is to help you; CERT bag is to help others.) Consider setting up a schedule to update and refresh your kits.

Use the twice-a-year time Daylight Savings Time change as an update reminder.

In addition to replacing old items, here are a couple of other suggestions for keeping your kit ready for use:

1. Best battery solution. Store batteries in a bag taped to the flashlight or radio. Whereas they seem to deteriorate quickly when stored INSIDE the device, they keep much longer when stored separately.

2. Rubber gloves. Your CERT kit will have disposable nitrile gloves — the thin rubber kind that your doctor wears – for use in an accident. These gloves are very fragile; replace every six months.

3. Environment. Think about where the kit is kept. I keep my kits in the trunk of my car – where temperatures reach over 100 degrees. Obviously, crayons aren’t going to be happy in this environment.

4. Backpack. If your kit lies in direct sunlight (in your car, for example), the duffle bag or backpack material will deteriorate over time. The first to go on my CERT kit were the carrying straps.

5. Clothing. I have a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, and hat in my kits. While they don’t deteriorate, a wash and fluff keeps them more usable.

Reviewing and updating your kit takes only a few minutes – less time than it has taken me to write this article! You’ve made the investment – be sure to keep it tuned up.

What have YOU found in unattended survival kits that we should be warned about?  Let us know in the comment box below!

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

You made it through alive, but . . .

It’s bad enough to weather a storm or ride out an earthquake that leaves you with many thousands of dollars in damage. But, if local power is out, roads are obstructed and you can’t get to your money in the bank, chances are you have bills that are going to go unpaid for some period of time . . . long enough to incur late charges and even serious damage to your credit rating.

That’s compounding the damage! So what’s the remedy?

One solution – and a simple one — is to pay your bills as early and as automatically as possible.

The benefits:

• First, if payments are transferred automatically, even if YOUR power is out and you can’t access your computer, the transfer will be made timely.
• Even if you haven’t set your accounts up for automatic transfer, having a history of prompt and up-to-date payment gives you more options in contacting creditors and asking for relief. If your history includes being behind, and perhaps having black marks on your credit, even when you get through in a panic to your creditors (“Just went through the storm, couldn’t get to you until now!”) you are not likely to receive a hearty welcome.

Of course, if your paycheck stops because of the disaster, ultimately your bank account will empty. That’s another problem to be addressed another time.

An Interesting Parallel?

We don’t really have scientific evidence that people who take preventive measures to prepare for emergencies are more likely to pay their bills earlier than others, but anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate a parallel approach.

People who act responsibly on matters of self-protection are more certainly more likely to survive an emergency. Those that take a step further, looking out for their neighbors’ welfare as well as their own, can mean the difference between preservation of our society and its social values and allowing it to regress into chaos!

The question is, “Are you willing to help persuade your neighbors to take responsible preventive measures to protect themselves and their neighbors . . . or are you resigned to meet them at your front door with a shotgun when they are thirsty?”

Something to think about . . .

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team