Tag: survival

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 9, 2018.

Yes, it’s fun to pull together survival kits for yourself and family members. For some of us, getting more and better survival gear turns out to be a sort of addiction! (A healthy addiction, we believe.) And creating family plans is satisfying, even though they require constant updating.

But once your immediate household is organized, what then?

When the emergency hits, are your neighbors going to be knocking on your door, looking for help?

They may. And you may not want or be able to help them.

The only way to solve this problem is to encourage neighbors and co-workers to be as prepared as you are!

We have devoted a lot of our time over the past 15 years to helping our neighbors get prepared, trained and organized.  If you’ve been reading our Advisories, you know about some of what we’ve done.

Now we’re adding one more piece to the puzzle.

Building a Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Team — getting more attention.

About 3 years ago, we started a whole new section on building a neighborhood group. Here’s how we started that section:

1. Step One was to pull together all our original material on team-building that we’ve created for Emergency Plan Guide readers. That list starts at the bottom of this post.
2. Step Two was to reach out to other organizations around the U.S. for their best ideas. In fact, many of our blog posts already link to others’ stories and skills, and we’ve added more and more.
3. Step Three was to solicit specific input for Emergency Plan Guide readers. We continue to do this, and you can help by referring us to people or sources you know, or by suggesting a topic you’d like to know more about. We’ll track down and share the best info we can find!

Let’s start with resources for those people who have already made the commitment to starting or building a neighborhood group.

We assume that as the leader, you will have found a way to get formal CERT training for yourself.  Not all members of your team may get training, but you need the framework and vocabulary of CERT so that your group can work effectively together and with local first responder teams.

So to start with Step One for building a neighborhood emergency preparedness team . . .

. . .here is a list of some original material from the Emergency Plan Guide collection. Most of this is ready for download as is, with the first couple of handbooks available for purchase.  We hope you’ll find what you need for YOUR group!

Comprehensive training manuals

• The Neighborhood Disaster Survival Series — our 4 books aimed at building groups in different kinds of neighborhoods. Each book is over 100 pages filled with specific steps and suggestions based on 15 years of growing our own group.  The books are at Amazon, in ebook (downloadable) or paperback.
• Meeting Ideas — A collection of meeting ideas, with a list of what you’ll need, how best to schedule the activities, what to watch out for, etc. $10 at Amazon. Get more details by clicking the link.

Stand-alone subjects for training or discussion

• UPDATED! How to Recruit Volunteers — We just updated this list. Download your copy now!
• How to Hold a Great Meeting — Event-planning basics that you’re probably familiar with, but that can help others on your team get up to speed. Since we started our own group, we’ve been able to provide a great overhead projection and sound system for our guest speakers.  That helps, as long as you have some skilled audio-visual people on hand!
• Finding Leaders — Every member of your team needs to be able to step up to lead. After all, when the emergency hits, you can’t be sure who will be on hand.
• Active Shooter Event — Worth a discussion, particularly given recent developments here and abroad.
• For more, just click on NEIGHBORHOOD in the category listing in the sidebar to the right.

Possible group investments

• Walkie-Talkies for Group Communications — We use our hand-held radios (walkie-talkies) every month and for many non-emergency events.
• Community Cache of Supplies — Read about our group’s decision in this regard.
• Financing Serious Emergency Equipment — These are items that take some real cash and consideration.

More to come! (Be sure to sign up to get our Advisories so you don’t miss anything!)

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. Step Two for Building a Neighborhood Emergency Preparedness Team is to reach out to other organizations. Just last week you saw the results of some of our outreach when we wrote about the Lamorinda California CERT team’s upcoming meeting. Please share what YOUR group is doing!

Do you ever roam the internet, checking out different survival forums and blogs?

Well, naturally, I do – to better understand “the communities,” learn about new products and practices, and stay up to date with some of the latest science regarding emergency response.

When I find interesting or exciting new ideas, I try to share them on our Advisories.

One theme I don’t share very often – the paranoia I see out there.

Here’s sort of how it goes:

“When the SHTF, expect bad guys, marauding gangs, vigilantes, even government troops, to start roaming the streets coming for you and for your supplies so you’d better be ready with weapons and lots of ammunition and be able to turn your home into a fortress or better yet, escape to a hidden, hardened survival shelter where you can wait it all out.”

I’m not saying some bad stuff couldn’t happen, or that having an escape plan doesn’t make sense. What I do question, though, are the implicit recommendations in this scenario. I see three of them:

1. “Treat all others as potential aggressors.”
2. “Arm yourself with serious weapons.”
3. “Pull yourself into your shell and close the doors after you.”

As I see it,

The reality of the most likely emergencies is going to be very different.

For example, last week we talked about an emergency that shuts down your work completely, like a fire or flooding. In a situation like this, you may suffer a personal disaster because you don’t have money in the bank to meet your bills while you are out of work. Others you work with may suffer, too. But roving gangs as a threat? Probably not.

We’ve often talked about the most frequent emergency at work – a power outage. Statistics suggest that as many as 70% of businesses can expect to experience an outage during the next year, whether weather-related or from equipment breakdown. Once again, your company, its customers and maybe even shareholders will suffer – but all of you being well armed won’t make a bit of difference.

In fact, in the U.S., disasters have seldom left people on their own and scrambling for supplies, for more than a few days – the exceptions being Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

So, our recommendations at Emergency Plan Guide are built on a different set of assumptions.

Neighbors. I know them, their kids and their dogs. I may not consider them “best friends,” but they’ve never hesitated to lend a helping hand. They’ll be the first to show up in an emergency. Why wouldn’t I look to them for help?

Self-defense. Yes, as I wrote in my bio, I grew up with guns and I’m comfortable with them. But I think the emphasis on guns (handguns, shotguns, automatic weapons) — and also tomahawks, and machetes — encourages people to arm themselves who have no business having weapons. They will make an emergency situation even worse.

(As embarrassing as it is to admit, when Joe went through specialized weapons training with the military, he learned how to shoot all sorts of weapons. Unfortunately he couldn’t qualify as a marksman with any of them! So weapons may be more dangerous for us than for intruders . . .!)

Self-reliance. Yes, be sure you have a sensible stash of food, medicines, etc. But to count on one family to have everything it needs? How much easier to share the cooking, child or elder care, and medical knowledge and skills. How much more effective to share tools and work together on repairs. Share the fear — and share confidence and hope when you can. Self-sufficiency is positive; isolation is lonely and negative.

And as for the government . . .

Again, some survivalist blogs and forums have members who are passionate about hating the government, the police, and, in fact, any “authority.”

Here at Emergency Plan Guide we have been fortunate to build good relationships with all kinds of “authorities” in our community. I write often about the fire fighters and police and the CERT team members with whom we work closely.

One of the advantages to these relationships is that we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the authorities in an emergency. In an emergency, we won’t be guessing – or second-guessing – what they are likely to do.

For example:

• We know how our police department has been trained to respond to active shooters – and how their procedures have changed in the past year or so. (We’ve even been invited to participate in a drill as civilians caught in an active shooter situation.)
• We know what emergency facilities our local first responders have. Heck, we’ve been inside most of them, and seen the equipment in action!
• We’re tuned in to local emergency services that deal with homelessness, missing people and drug overdoses. We know who to call and what to say to get an appropriate response.
• We’ve checked and are clear on how our local police force is handling coordinating with ICE on immigrants in our community.
• We receive regular bulletins on how local schools plan for emergencies.

This isn’t everything we’d like to know, but it’s a pretty good start!

What does it take to get up to speed about local policies and procedures?

Here’s some of what our local group members do on a regular basis.

• We follow what our city is doing by going online to the city website.
• We take tours when there’s an open house at a fire station or the police department.
• We sign up for official emergency alerts (AMBER alerts, etc.).
• We track the police department via its Facebook page.
• We’re on the list to get invitations to CERT follow-up trainings. (The most recent one was on terrorism.)
• We invite “the authorities” to come to our local emergency response team meetings as guest speakers – and then ply them with questions. (Yes, we have put them on the spot from time to time!)
• We subscribe to various online industry news feeds.

If you’ve been reading our Advisories, then you know we also share what we learn from these various field trips and events – so our immediate neighbors and several hundred Emergency Plan Guide subscribers from across the country know what we know.

In our estimation, by choosing NOT to know details like those above, and NOT being open to working with a group,  you are sabotaging yourself and your chances of coming through a disaster.

No, I don’t expect the authorities to “save us” in an emergency. In fact, they have made their limitations clear. Frankly, I’m glad to know that they WON’T necessarily show up immediately . . . because it gives me an incentive to do a better job of my own preparedness.

But our philosophy has been, and continues to be, to include family, friends and co-workers in our planning, because . . .

The more we all know, the safer we all will be.

Thanks for reading.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Top Ten Items For Your Emergency Plan

If you think you are already prepared, use this list as a quick check. If you suspect you’re missing a few things, use the list to fill in the gaps.

Food the Means to Prepare It and Eat It . . .

Water, Food and Medicines – Enough for the entire household including pets, to last for a minimum of 3 days . . . up to one or two weeks if possible. Best to stock up on the canned soups, staples and packaged foods you normally eat, and then rotate to keep supplies fresh. (We have enough sardines and packages of instant latte coffee to survive for a month!) Don’t overlook a 14-day supply of important medications (think customized first aid kit) for you, your children and your pet.

Prescriptions, Medical Devices, etc. – In a serious event, electricity, running water and plumbing facilities may not be available for hours or days. Without power, ATMs, computer systems and electronic cash registers will be inoperative, making the renewal of prescriptions challenging if not impossible. Likewise, life-sustaining devices such as oxygen machines that require power may have to be run on “inverters” (alternative power devices that convert the direct current of a car battery to alternating current). Inverters or small solar panels can also power small appliances, laptop computers, etc. and serve as a recharging source for smart phones, iPods and other electronics. In all these, wattage requirements will determine if the system works for you. Test everything in advance! Note: Power generators are both expensive and unwieldy and are not practical in most residential settings.

Camping Stove, Hand-Held Can Opener & Eating Utensils – Disposable plates & eating utensils may prove satisfactory but keep in mind that if the emergency continues, leaving you without power, water or garbage disposal or pickup, you will need to think outside of the box to survive. We recommend a propane-powered camping stove even if you have an outside barbecue.

Communications Are Your Link to Friends, Family and the Reality of the World Around You.

Emergency Radios that Receive NOAA and Local Government Broadcasts – With TV and internet out, the only sure way you will know what’s happening is via emergency radio transmissions. Have at least one full service radio for the home (two or more for larger, multi-story homes or community residences) and one smaller hand-held model for each family vehicle.

Walkie-Talkies – These hand-held multi-channel, battery-powered communicators will work regardless of a power outage. They are the best way for your CERT Teams to communicate with volunteers and for you to keep in touch with your neighbors following an emergency. We have extra units strategically placed throughout our house and a pair in each car.

Emergency Contact Numbers – When local telephone circuits are down or overloaded, you may be able to use out of state relatives or contacts as a way to relay messages to family members, employees or associates. But this works only if all parties are in on the scheme before a disaster strikes.

You Will Need Light and Heat When There is No Power.

Flashlights and Battery-Powered Lighting – With the widespread availability of LED (light emitting diode) devices, we use far fewer batteries than we used to with incandescent bulbs. Flashlights are cheap; have more than one. Keeping a small 250+ Lumen flashlight in a handy location in each room in the house ensures you can safely navigate in the dark. But you will also want a couple larger, more powerful (500+ Lumens) flashlights and possibly even a headlamp or two that leaves both hands free. And you’ll appreciate some LED table lamps or lanterns for general lighting needs.

More on Batteries From Our Experience – We need batteries for everything from radios to flashlights to smart phones and other devices, typically AAA, AA, C & D sizes. Most batteries manufactured under the Duracell and Energizer brands are guaranteed to have a 10-year shelf life. In our experience, this is misleading. Ten years may be possible under ideal conditions . . . whatever those are.

With few exceptions, we have found the batteries to lose some of their power midway through this period, and many start to corrode. The basic “copper top” Duracell batteries seem to deteriorate more rapidly than the standard Energizers – 3 to 1 in our experience – but the new (and more expensive) “red-top” Duracell batteries seem to perform better. We only have a few months experience with them.

The bottom line: Whatever brand batteries you use, don’t leave radios or electronic devices sitting for long periods of non-use with batteries installed. Take the batteries out and look at them carefully before reinstalling. If you have devices with corroded terminals, they can sometimes be rejuvenated by using a cotton swab to apply a water & baking soda paste (which will absorb the corrosion) and removing the resulting dry crust with a wooden toothpick or a single prong of a broken plastic fork. This works about half the time, seemingly depending on how bad the buildup or corrosion was.

Clothing You Can Count On to Keep You Warm – Even in moderate climates nights get cold. Your emergency kit needs to contain at the very least a warm coat and sturdy shoes. It’s easy to add a space blanket and rain slicker. (A large plastic garbage bag is better than nothing.) Blankets in the car will be welcome when you’re stuck trying to get home.

Take Care of Personal Needs. 

Hygiene and Sanitation Items – From brushing your teeth to disposing of trash, garbage and body waste, a world without electricity or running water presents several significant challenges. The bigger the household (including pets), the greater the problem. In addition to trash bags, toilet tissue, cleaning and disinfectant supplies, you’ll want heavy-duty “compactor bags” to insert in toilets for collecting solid human waste. If you’re part of a community that includes elderly or frail residents, you may be faced with managing deceased humans. As distasteful as all this may be, pre-event planning will yield big dividends in comfort.

Who Will Be Turning To You?

Most Important Preparation of All is Your Neighborhood &/or Workplace – Take a moment and think about what a major calamity will mean to your immediate environment. If you are the only one who is prepared, your circumstances will be little better than your neighbors or co-workers. In the Tsunami that caused widespread devastation in Japan, it was neighbors helping each other that saved lives and made community survival possible.

While hard-core, serial “survivalists” devote considerable (often inordinate) resources to building “bug out bags” and even acquiring arsenals of weapons to protect themselves, the reality for most of us is not likely to be something out of Mad Max. Major roadways and potential escape routes will probably be congested, unnavigable or even impassable. Where would you go and how would you carry what you need to survive? For most of us, “survival in place” is the most realistic option. What can you do to help your co-workers and neighbors focus their energies on emergency preparation . . . for their sake and yours as well?

Virginia 
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Virginia Nicols, CERT graduate living in Southern California, has helped lead her local neighborhood emergency team for over a decade. Her website, http://EmergencyPlanGuide.org, reflects much of what that award-winning volunteer group has struggled with and accomplished over the years. This month, El Niño tops the preparedness agenda.

 

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I admit, the word “preparedness” is pretty dull. Besides, it has too many syllables.

On the other hand, “alive” is exciting! Easy to say, easy to grasp!

How do we convert “dull and boring” into “interesting” if not actually into “fun and exciting?”

The answer: “Questions for Survival!”

If you’ve been reading our Advisories, you know that for the past dozen years Joe and I have worked closely with our community emergency response team.

And for 12 years, we’ve done our best to convert staid old “preparedness,” and its cousins “advance planning” and “disaster prevention” into bits and pieces of information that will help keep people interested – and alive.

I just counted: we’ve published 109 Advisories on these topics!

1. We’ve tried guilt. “How will you feel when your children turn to you and ask why you don’t have any food for them?”
2. We’ve used cynicism. “Oh sure, the authorities will come to rescue us . . .some day!”
3. We’ve appealed to the universal love of gadgetry. “The best single tool you have ever balanced in your hand!”
4. Competition works sometimes. “Don’t let someone else take credit for the work you’ve put in.”
5. Then there’s plain old fear. “Buried under a pile of rubble, will you be able to signal where you are? Will people even be looking for you there?”

All these approaches work to a certain extent. When we see that people have been looking at our equipment reviews, or commenting on our blog posts, or actually buying emergency supplies, we know it’s all worth it!

But, of course, we can’t stop.

Awareness is a perpetual mindset.

If preparedness is important to you, YOU can’t stop reminding other people about its importance, either.

So here’s another tool for you to use to turn a preparedness conversation from something boring into something that could be really interesting!

Questions for Survival – Series One

This is a series of simple “problems” that you are likely to face if, for example, the electrical power goes out.  Some ways to use the list:

• At home.

Bring up one or a group of related problems at the dinner table. Spend 5 minutes, or twice that, coming up with solutions. You’ll be amazed at what family members will come up with (or maybe WON’T come up with) – and having once talked about it, they’ll be ready to respond when the problem really occurs.

• In a group.

Use a few of the questions to stimulate discussion at work, or in a group setting at your church, your child care center, your AA meeting, wherever. You may uncover some things that people have completely overlooked BECAUSE IT WASN’T THEIR JOB! Interesting how disasters don’t discriminate . . .!

• Forward to others.

Our goal is simple: to make people aware of potential risks, give them a sense of confidence that they will know what to do and thus have the best possible chance of surviving whatever emergency arises!

Click here to get your free copy of “Whew. I’m alive! Now what?! — Questions for Survival”

And share it!  Simply forward this email to friends, or via Facebook. We’re busy putting the finishing touches on Series Two, and will have it out soon.

Don’t miss any of them!

Joe and Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

The first few minutes following a disaster (earthquake, fire, etc.) are the most critical for saving lives and minimizing disabling injuries. Historically, neighbors are the first on the scene and willing to help.

The unfortunate reality

Unfortunately, most communities are not organized and residents are not sure how to react.

 

There is no time for training at this stage and people who are not pre-trained may follow the wrong instincts!

 

 

 

 

 

When pre-planning counts

Contrast this scenario with a community where residents have at least some basic training in how to react to save lives, turn off gas and electricity, etc. And, since phone service is likely to be interrupted, consider the value of knowing how to communicate within the disaster area, using inexpensive walkie-talkies.

This acute aftermath is followed by a period of post-disaster survival, which lasts until official help arrives . . . which, in the case of a major earthquake event, could be a number of days or weeks. More pre-planning is required to be sure you have enough water, food and medicine on hand for all members of the household (including pets) for at least 10 days, and preferably longer.

Where to get training

All things considered, advance “Community Emergency Response Team” (CERT) planning and training – which is offered at no cost by many cities and counties – can mean the difference between life and death for you and your pets.

And, it’s equally important to you to have your neighbors prepared as well. You can’t be expected to provide food and water (much less medicines) for the whole neighborhood.

It’s much easier to help neighbors prepare in advance than it is to turn them away after the fact . . . especially if they’re bigger than you are!

Here’s a quick 2 minute video that emphasizes the importance of training: Who Can You Really Count On In An Emergency?

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. This is a good article to share if you have someone you care about who hasn’t done any planning!