The earthquake and aftershocks we've experienced yesterday inspired me to pen down this disaster preparedness piece. Tuesday Notes would have to wait until next week or so.

While it wasn't as strong and disastrous as Japan's, it still scared the shit out of me. There's a lot we can do to mitigate the damage of any disaster and a lot of these can be done prior to it happening. We take these disasters for granted. I know I do. Until yesterday. So why don't we talk about what we can do to prepare for these disasters.

Digital is good but we need hard copies

I am a proponent of digitization and only recently I wrote a piece last week where I said, "Go digital," we still need to have at least one good old hard copy of important pieces of information. We're talking about a disaster here. Dry cells of our gadgets run out, cell towers bug down and the internet could go haywire. Make sure copies of emergency numbers (start with local police, fire department, nearest hospital, ambulance and the nearest barangay hall) are posted near the house phone, on the fridge and in the car. Keep a copy in your wallet for good measure.

Another important thing that one has to have is a copy of each family member's name and their blood type (and other medical info) kept in the wallet. It could just be a card with all the names and blood types and it should be in every family member's wallet or purse to be sure. Allergies, regular medications, medical conditions and the like are going to be critical.

And, oh, a good ID card can be useful as well for identification purposes. I guess you can say your wallet is [still] your best friend, not your iPhone.

"Fix, fasten, forget."

As much as possible, all the heavy stuff that you have must be kept in the lower storage spaces in the house. Those encyclopedias, almanacs, dictionaries and your hardbound Twilight series (I know you have them) must be on the bottom shelf while the paperbacks can be stored on the upper ones. Check your kitchen or pantry cabinets and make sure they don't swing open easily. Falling canned good and bottles are going to hurt. If you have glass picture frames, big portraits or paintings over beds and sofas, those can be lethal. Move them to places where when they fall, no head gets knocked out.

Furniture that can easily fall down must be placed in corners on sides to avoid injury in the event of earthquakes. It's safer if you fasten them to the wall, if your design tolerances would allow it. If there's anything loose, tighten them. Planning to buy new ones? Think first before you purchase. A really big closet that can fall down on you may not be a smart buy.

The idea is to look around your house and find those potentially dangerous things and places. Fix them now and you can forget about it.

Training

It would be wise to join your company's or school's emergency response teams as they have ample resources as far as emergency preparedness trainings go. There are regular emergency exercises the teams go through every year and it would be the best preparation you can buy with your volunteer hours.

Contact person and locations

Agree to have one reliable person that lives a province or two away from where you live, far enough that he or she may likely not experience the disaster that your family may have. This person will be the one each family member will contact in order to reach the other family members. Let me explain.

On disasters, like earthquakes, phone lines go down. And it may likely occur when you and your family are at work, school or wherever. It's going to be chaotic and finding each other would be difficult. When the phones go back up, the battery on your cellphone (if you still have it by then) may have already run out of juice so your only resort is a landline. That's a problem unless everyone is at home or at a location where landline is available, provided you know where they are. So the objective is to call that reliable person (by the way, long distance phone calls are available soonest than local phone calls in the event of disasters), tell him or her you are safe and that you will proceed to an agreed location. Every other person in the family will do the same and the reliable person will let them know the status of the others.

Which brings me to location: family members must have an agreed meeting place. As stated above, disasters likely occur when everyone is outside the house doing business elsewhere. Going home may not be an option. A good meeting place is one of the hospitals that's nearest to the places you frequent on a day-to-day basis. Or a police station. Nevertheless, a rally point is something the family needs to decide early on and to remember when disaster strikes.

Disaster kit

Disaster strikes and you live. Lucky you. Now what?

It can be argued that surviving a disaster is harder than going through the disaster as it happens. To prepare for these eventualities, we need to gear up:

Battery (Photo credit: Sh4rp_i)

1. First aid handbook or guide. I love this book and recommend this.
2. Adequate supply of medications that the family takes on a regular basis (e.g., asthma inhalers) and other first aid kit essentials like ibuprofens, antihistamines, paracetamols, antiseptics, cotton balls and bandages.
3. Flashlights and plenty of batteries.
4. Portable AM/FM radio. And batteries.
5. Map of the city, town or province.
6. Some loose cash.

This kit has to be available in a small knapsack and replenished regularly. At least two should be prepared: at home, in the car or in the workplace.

These are just a few of the things that I can remember from my disaster preparedness training last year (I'm a deputy chariman of an emergency response team in the office) and some tips that I've found online. I am going through this myself and promise to work on doing the stuff I've written here. I sure hope everyone reading this would take at least a couple or so pointers and work on being prepared.

Sources:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq/?categoryID=14