There's a mistaken assumption that disaster preparedness means looking for the end of the world, the Apocalypse, the "big one" to hit California, a virulent disease pandemic that wipes out millions, nuclear war, or another terrorist attack. The fact is that in the US, far more people are affected by seasonal weather events or wildfires than any other disaster. Across the world, it's more likely to be drought or flooding, other seasonal weather problems, or regional conflicts. And with economic woes affecting everyone, it might be nothing more than the breadwinner's loss of income. In short, it's the "little" ones that are more likely to get you. And if the big one (whatever that turns out to be) ever comes along, you'll be prepared for it too. It's like installing smoke detectors in your home. You don't do that because you think you will have a fire. You do it so that if a fire should ever occur, you'll be able to respond in time.
Moreover, just as your response to the smoke alarm might not be the same in every circumstance (flames would cause instant evacuation, the faint scent of smoke might call for further investigation), disaster responses should be adjusted to the degree of severity. One thing that stops many people from making any kind of disaster preparations is the mistaken idea that they have to anticipate every possibility. It seems like too overwhelming a task, and so they never begin.
Governmental organizations use phases to define the extent and severity of a disaster, and the type of steps to be taken at each stage. Your family should do this as well. Using a fire as an example again, you wouldn't begin your fire preparedness plan by hiring a private fire engine and the people to operate it. You'd install smoke detectors, and talk to your family about what to do if the detector goes into alarm. Depending on where you lived, you might have other considerations (removing shrubbery from around the house if you're in a wildfire high-risk area, for example). But the first step would be to ensure that your family could get out of the house in time, and you should begin your disaster preparedness plan with the same prioritized concept.
Here are some of the common stages used for personal and family preparedness.
- Bug-Out Bag (BOB) -- if you have to leave everything behind but the essentials
- Phase I -- enough stored food and water to take care of your family for a stated period (for some, this is a year or more)
- Phase II - self-sufficiency skills to keep you going for a longer period (growing your own food, for example)
- Phase III - completely self-sufficient within your community
The focus of this site is less about getting out safely and with all the essential items packed than it is about staying alive and comfortable where you are (sometimes called "sheltering in place"). Even if you did have to evacuate your home for a time, you might be able to return. If the structure is habitable and your stored supplies are intact, you'll be in far better shape to sit out whatever comes after the hurricane, wildfire, blizzard, earthquake, toxic spill, etc. than you would be otherwise.
On the other hand, if you do have to flee, do it properly with a . . .
Bug-Out Bag
Wikipedia describes a bug-out bag as "a portable kit popular in the survivalist subculture that contains the items one would require to survive for seventy two hours when evacuating from a disaster. It is also known as a 72-hour kit."
That's an overly narrow definition. The bug-out bag is what you'd want to grab if the house was on fire, the flood waters rising, you had to run for the tornado shelter, or a railcar overturned near your home and a cloud of toxic fumes was on the way. Those are survival situations that have nothing to do with a "survivalist subculture."
The specific items you need to keep in your bag depend on several criteria, but consider these questions. What would you need to get away from your home, establish your identity wherever you found yourself, enable others to care for your medical conditions if necessary, and prove the existence of insurance policies or bank accounts? Would you need other special documents (green card, passport, citizenship papers, etc.)? How about money if credit cards weren't working (no credit card terminals or ATM's if the power is out). Could you continue to work if your workplace was unaffected, even if your home was destroyed? Could you establish your credentials in order to seek another job if you had to leave the area altogether? Could you live for a day or two, if necessary, on what you put in the bag?
A bug-out bag has to be customized for each person and family's needs, but here are some suggestions.
Wallet and car keys
Birth and marriage certificates
Copies of wills
Copies of insurance policies for home and vehicles
Copy of one statement from each bank account, to have account numbers
Copies of your credit cards, in case something needs to be canceled
List of medical conditions, including recent hospitalizations and results
List of all medications and dosages, and the name and phone number of the prescribing physician
Several days worth of all non-perishable medications
At least one change of clothing
One gallon of water in quart bottles
Enough snack bars for a couple of days
Any work-related materials without which you couldn't continue employment (laptop, for example)
Just as an example, my bug-out bag actually consists of two bags. One is the fancy new laptop bag I was given this year, which turned out to be less useful on a daily basis than my old one. It holds the laptop when I'm at home and using the desktop computer. It also holds the external back-up hard drive, and an assortment of things required for my work--the second camera, copies of all the essential keys, another flashlight, a card reader, and a few miscellaneous things that, while not expensive or hard to obtain, would be a nuisance to have to replace at short notice. My work runs on tight deadlines and a personal emergency, such as a fire, wouldn't be an excuse not to turn it in on time.
The other bag, a backpack from my hiking days, holds personal items such as a change of clothing, important documents, my wallet and car keys, water and snack bars, a first-aid kit and some small tools. It stays at the foot of the bed and can be snatched up in an instant if necessary. On the nightstand, I keep my cell phone, a crank-up flashlight and the NOAA storm radio, all of which would be dumped into the backpack if I had to vacate in a hurry. If the emergency were of such a catastrophic nature that I could take only one bag, it would be the backpack.
The blog Listening to Katrina has the best suggestions I've seen for a bug-out bag, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to put together their own. In fact, I suggest starting at the very beginning of the blog and working forward. The site is thorough, well-written and often humorous.
If you don't have to run for your lives, or you're able to return to an intact dwelling and stores, you're likely to be in Phase 1, the early stages of assessing your personal situation and making decisions about the future. This is when having a reserve of food, water, fuel and skills is essential. It gives you time to determine the true extent of the disaster, unstressed by having to come up with food and other necessities. You're in a far better position to sit back, listen, judge and then decide than if you were fighting everyone else for that last can of Spaghetti-O's on the supermarket shelf. The larger your reserve, the less you'll be affected by factors outside your control--wrong season for growing food, legal restrictions on movement, infectious disease, social unrest, overburdened social services--whatever the problems everyone else is having to deal with.
This is also the period of time that my site is intended to address. What happens when we get beyond that time, if "normal" conditions haven't been restored (Phase II, in other words)? I feel strongly about being as self-sufficient as possible, but the range of required skills is beyond the scope of one website. Here is what I consider to be a minimum list, however:
- Growing most of your food (and perhaps tending livestock)
- Hunting or fishing for some items
- Gathering some items from the wild
- Knowing the proper preservation techniques for each kind of food
- Knowing how to get water, and how to purify it if necessary
- Competence in preparing all the different kinds of available foods
- The skills to clothe your family with different kinds of raw materials (yarn, fabric, leather), and to repair that clothing
- Some degree of medical competence (set a bone, treat a burn, manage an uncomplicated birth, do CPR, care for the terminally ill or dying)
- The ability to pass on one's skills and knowledge to others, especially the children of the family
Does that seem very daunting? A typical 19th century farm family in the US would have taken those skills for granted, and in many parts of the world they still do. Not every member of the family has to be competent in every area. The younger and stronger individuals will do the physically demanding jobs; the older or less physically able will take on the others. In most communities, people will begin to specialize, so that as life moves into Phase III, there will be considerable exchange of goods and services within a widening area.
The links at the top of this page are all associated with making it through Phase I, the time when panic, chaos and social unrest are likely to be the greatest, and individual stress the highest. Most of the pages have links to other information, so you can develop and refine the skills you learn here. You may find that you enjoy living a self-sufficient life even if you don't have to.
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