<p>Topic that has come up in the last few days at our house.
We have fire at the doorstep of our town. We can see flames in the distance at night plus lots of ash and smoke depending on the wind. It is still far enough away from my actual house but it is nerve racking to see the flames. Plus friends who have had to pack up and leave their homes.
We have experienced power outages the last two nights. The first day it went out just before dark and I had enough light to scramble around looking for flashlights and batteries. We used to be fairly well stocked because we had lots of outages but once they put our streets lines underground we have been pretty good. So of course the flashlights have all since migrated to who knows where in the house.
We have a house guest who is giving me a hard time for not having emergency supplies on hand in a dedicated place. She also was insisting last night on having a escape plan in case we had to leave our home. (this was not really necessary since the winds would have to shift and blow pretty hard to reach our house. Plus we pointed out the Red Cross Shelter was located between the fire and my house)Though from past fires I know that things can change quickly and just because we are safe now that could change and fire can spread quickly. She also gave a lecture on having cash on hand at home and in my car in case of emergency. Plus water. She actually had two flashlights that she always travels with and puts by her bed.
I know we are not well prepared. I don’t want to obsess but would love to hear what other people believe is essential supplies and things to have on hand.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that people really obey the no fireworks law.</p>
<p>Here’s one list: [Wired</a> Magazine: The Smarter Emergency Kit](<a href=“http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/st_emergency.html]Wired”>The Smarter Emergency Kit | WIRED)</p>
<p>We always have water, flashlights (and batteries), candles, cash, and canned food on hand, as well as a radio that can be operated by a hand crank in case you run out of batteries. We’re woefully deficient in the tool department, since my husband and I are about the un-handiest people on the planet. Even if we had them, we wouldn’t know what to do with them!</p>
<p>Here’s the Red Cross info:</p>
<p>[American</a> Red Cross](<a href=“Disaster Relief Services | American Red Cross”>Disaster Relief Services | American Red Cross)</p>
<p>[American</a> Red Cross](<a href=“Disaster Relief Services | American Red Cross”>Disaster Relief Services | American Red Cross)</p>
<p>Not on this list…but what I remember from a presentation I went to…is cash (reinforcing what your friend said.) If there’s a long power outage, it’s possible money machines won’t work and banks won’t be open…so I recall something like $100 per person…</p>
<p>Also…if you have a pet…don’t forget things you’ll need for the pet.</p>
<p>When we lived in hurricane country, we got a Coleman rechargable fluorescent lantern that comes with a car charger also (in case the lights are out for a long time but you can still drive around?). We keep it beside the bed, kind of tucked out of sight but immediatly available. FIrst thing we grab when the lights go out.</p>
<p>There are flashlights available now that don’t have batteries but instead, have a crank you can wind for 30 seconds or a minute to give minutes worth of light. I keep one in the car and in the house.</p>
<p>With the fires it’s a good idea to have a rough idea of an evacuation strategy which means having a good understanding of the roads out of the area, especially in the event the local freeway is closed (as happened here in the last fires last October). It’s also good to think through up front what you’d pack in the vehicles for evacuation. Surprisingly, there’s very little I have that I really care much about. Last time we packed up it was really just the photo albums/slides, videos of the kids, and a few sentimental heirloom kinds of things.</p>
<p>I think what really need to happen is that this house guest needs to go home 
Stay safe!</p>
<p>There are two different strategies: 1 for staying put and 1 for having to evacuate. I agree with UCSD-UCLAdad about the evacuation strategy.
We have a folder of important documents ready to grab should we have to leave the house in a hurry (that’s on top of our safety box).
For people who do a lot of work on the computer, it might be a good idea to back everything up on CDs and flashdrives,also ready to grab.</p>
<p>I usually operate on the assumption that if we are prepared, nothing will happen. We don’t have fires, but we do have tornadoes and are near a fault line, though there hasn’t been a major one in more than 200 years. I guess that means it’s about time.</p>
<p>We usualy have cash and pet food on had as well as canned food, but don’t always have water, medicines, access to a working flashlight, although we do have candles. I guess we’ d have to depend on the car radio, too. One thing I have been meaning to do for years is to learn how to turn off the gas outside the house. I have a wrench somewhere but am not sure how to do it. I think I heard somewhere you could ask the fire dept. and they would come and show you, or should I call the gas company? Anyone know?</p>
<p>Mom60 - I’ve been keeping track of Big Sur. My S2 is in Santa Barbara for the summer, and I wondered what kind of plan they might have if they have to evacuate all the Music Academy performers, since most of them do not have cars with them. Last summer it seems there were fires that were even closer. But this year, they’ve lost power a couple times already. I know they asked for everyone’s cell number, for emergencies, but their housing is in the mountains, and S doesn’t have reception there. Hopefully he has friends!</p>
<p>I hate to be obsessive about things, but I also hate to be totally unprepared. It seems like there is no way to plan for every eventuality. Last summer when Atlanta was running out of water, I remember wondering how to prepare for that!</p>
<p>The horn, binx… make sure he grabs the horn.</p>
<p>I agree that this friend needs to go home!</p>
<p>We’re not super prepared, but I think we’d be fine. Things that come to mind: fashlights (one or two which you could find in the dark, then you can chase after the others!), candles, batteries for the flashlights and matches for the candles, we buy water if we know a bad storm is coming (we have a well and lose water when the power goes out), food that doesn’t require heat preparation or cold-keeping. If you have small kids, I think it’s more important to have a well organized evacuation and emergency plan that they know about. They should also have flashlights near their beds, especially if any child is particularly scared of the dark. We have a great radio which we can play in bad weather. This has been very useful in the past. You also, of course, need to prepare based on risks in your area. We have power outages and storms where I live, so that’s what we concentrate on the most.</p>
<p>Binx- The Music academy is safe. The fire right now is in the foothills above Goleta. They are calling it the Gap fire- The SB county website has been putting up updates with evacuation maps. The main problem is the wind. It can come up and totally change the direction of the fire. Also the hills are very dry and it just takes one spark or some careless person to set off fireworks and start another fire somewhere else in the hills. I would also have confidence in the people running the Music Academy to have a plan. Also they seem to be giving people lots of time to get out. Going on the side of caution. Also they are using reverse 911 so if his housing has a land line they would get the information.
The electricity is a problem for the entire area. The press conference at 2 today asked that everyone conserve electricity all the way down to Carpinteria. The prediction is the power is going to go out and you should be prepared. Binx you might try to reach your son today during the day. The last two days the power went out in the early evening.
I did go get cash today. I also got water. I tried to get a battery operated radio but the stores I tried were sold out. I have heard it is impossible to find one at this point. I took the passports and put them in a place that I can easily grab. I always have plenty of food on hand and a hand operated can opener. I am going to also put all the flashlights in a good place. Hadn’t thought about meds and first aid kits. I also am going to get the sleeping bags together in case we have to leave. Next on the list is to think about photo albums.
In the past we have had a family plan for emergencies but we have not updated it. It obviously in our case takes an emergency to remind us that we are unprepared. I did make sure we have full tanks of gas.
We had to leave New Orleans during Katrina while moving our child in and remember how the roads were at a standstill. Our roads will be worse if mass exodus ever needed to occur. Only one highway going south and north.
We are lucky that if we need to leave our home which is in a rural area we have our office which is in the downtown area that we can sleep at.
Any thing I am not thinking of.</p>
<p>A few more things -</p>
<ul>
<li>Be ready to transport pets - leaving room in the car for them and making sure they’re adequately restrained. Also make sure they have visible ID on them. Pets can easily get sppoked in the exodus and run off. If you have horses, head out early to a place that can handle them. I know some people who had to move their horses 2 or 3 times in the same fires since the places they moved to later needed to be evacuated.</li>
<li>Keep the cell phones charged up</li>
<li>Walk from room to room in your house looking around and imagining what you really care about and what you don’t. Think about what’s in the closets and drawers also - like jewelry/watches handed down in the family. Most things are readily replaceable but the things you care most about aren’t.</li>
<li>For papers - passports, birth certificates, car titles, insurance company policy numbers and contacts. </li>
<li>Know where you’d go. Most communities have designated evacuation centers but with wildfires those sometimes get evacuated later on. Usually someplace in the urban area (downtownish) is relatively safe from the fires. The evac centers in SD County were very well planned and run and had plenty of water, etc. for everyone. </li>
<li>Don’t forget the meds for everyone. We had a small issue when the pharmacy was shutdown due to the fires while presriptions were otherwise ready for pickup. If you have any pending for refill, get them early.</li>
<li>For fires - try to make sure you have some breathing masks around if you can get them. It’s best to get them beforehand because the hardware stores can easily run out of them. These masks help immensely when you have to be out and about.</li>
<li>If you’re getting a lot of smoke, stay inside with the windows closed and the a/c on if needed or at least the fan on recirculation to filter some of the smoke particles. Close the chimney flue to prevent smoke coming in from it. It’s also helpful to have a HEPA filter running - at least in a room where everyone can retreat to.</li>
<li>Know which hospitals are opened or closed. They closed some hospitals here last time which caused some problems for people trying to go to them.</li>
</ul>
<p>Reverse 911- many people have gotten rid of their land line to save money. Register your cell phone for reverse 911 if you don’t have a land line. In our community this is done through the sheriff.
Also if your phones are cordless they work off of electricity. Reverse 911 won’t work on those phones if your electricity is out. Have an old style phone on hand. Also if your home has a phone system such as mine that is electric. (we have one phone hooked up direct and not linked to the phone system.
Also if you have an electric gate- make sure all family members know how to disengage. Also how to open the garage door in case of power outage.
Also learned something else new. Plasma tv’s use as much electricity on as off. If you have a regular tv unplug the plasma if you have been told to reduce electric use.
Just got the dogs new tags. Also important with the 4th tonight to put your dogs inside.</p>
<p>
Actually, plasmas use next to nothing in standby compared to the normal powered on state.</p>
<p>[HDTV</a> power consumption compared - TV power consumption - CNET reviews](<a href=“CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news”>CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news)</p>
<p>UCSD Dad- repeating what Edison said at the press conference.</p>
<p>Town next door from us evacuated during last time SoCal burned and it was the first time that I loaded the car with stuff just in case of evacuation. </p>
<p>Things that you don’t think about in the rush–</p>
<p>back up your computer and take the back up;</p>
<p>scan your irreplaceable photos so you can transport them easily–losing all the baby photos or wedding photos can be depressing;</p>
<p>pack your high school yearbooks (dumb, I know, but irreplaceable);</p>
<p>cash is king so be sure to have some on hand;</p>
<p>water, water, water–I could live off of my spare tire for a while, but you need water.</p>
<p>One friend I know puts her emergency kit in a big pack–you may have to move on foot.</p>
<p>Nobody likes to think about having to move in an emergency, but sometimes you may need to do it. Don’t shoot the visiting messenger.</p>
<p>
That’s weird - I wonder why they’d say it since it isn’t true? Most plasma TVs on standby (powered off but plugged in) use far less power than a night light. </p>
<p>Regardless, if it’s suspected that power might be going off and on it’s a good idea to unplug the expensive plasma or big LCD (and computers) to protect them against possible surges or at least have them plugged into a good surge protector.</p>
<p>Big thing is food and water - I would recommend MRE’s - you can get entire cases of these for cheap online, and they have a huge shelf life. </p>
<p>All the other recommendations around here have been good - computer backups, etc, etc. I don’t remember seeing medical supplies on there - make sure you’re stocked up with medical supplies… and not just band-aids either. Go online and get some professional-level dressings (large trauma dressings, pressure bandages, etc.)</p>
<p>Finally (and I know this will stir up some problems around here)… <strong>if you are comfortable with it</strong>, have a defensive weapon on hand, especially if you will be camping out in your house for a while. A good 12-ga shotgun would work here, and a handgun for if you need to be mobile. A lot of people seem to loose all sense of morality in a disaster and those of us who that hasn’t happened to need to be prepared to defend ourselves and others. Just my $.02</p>
<p>We have a fireproof safe–guaranteed for two hours of a 1200 degree fire (average house fire is far less than that. All important papers are stored in that, along with a small amount of “walking around money” for the three days after an earthquake. (An earthquake is our most likely disaster.)</p>
<p>While I stock food and water, I also do a few other things.</p>
<p>I always make sure we have bleach, because it’s useful to purify water and deal with toilets. If a big windstorm is forecast, I fill the bathtubs.</p>
<p>I like to keep the cars’ gas tanks at least half full so that I can drive a few hundred miles to get out of town if I need to.</p>
<p>My computer is a dual drive mirroring system so it always makes a backup of itself automatically. My email is through GMail so it’s web-based and backed up.</p>
<p>My photo albums are stored in one place so they can be grabbed easily. More recent photo albums were printed by <a href=“http://www.mypublisher.com%5B/url%5D”>www.mypublisher.com</a> so that they store a copy of the album in their databases which means those are backed up too.</p>
<p>We have regular “what if” conversations. Everyone knows who to call to get the news–important because often long-distance is easier than local. There are backup plans. After the 2001 Nisqually quake, my daughter was able to instant message us even though the phone lines were down at her school.</p>