Disasters: During and afterward

What you need to know

• Isolation is BAD BAD BAD! Your first priority is to plug into your network of family, friends, and neighbors. Start helping each other. The one who helps others the most wins.
• Do not be selfish. Work hard to help others. Share your stuff. People who work together do all right. People perceived as selfish don't get help when they need it.

Most people freeze up

• Brain fog (inability to think of the right thing to do; easy things become hard)
• Stand there doing nothing (the classic freeze)
• Spend time doing something unimportant (like looking for a purse while the ship sinks)
• Priority inversion (running back into a burning house for a wallet)
• Denial (taking photos in the danger zone)
• Not using resources (hampered by a phone taking up one hand, and not thinking to call for help)
• Fighting over insignificant things (this is really fighting over control)
  
• Tunnel vision (focusing on one thing, not on what needs to be done)

Immediately after the trouble:

• Some disasters can knock phones off the hook. Check the phones and hang them all back up. A phone off the hook doesn't just tie up your phone, it ties up a telephone line in the system.
  
• Start preparing to evacuate if you think it might be necessary.
• Stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. They will be clogged with other cars who aren't going anywhere. Try to keep the roads open for emergency vehicles.
  
• Knock on the neighbors doors, make sure they are OK, and tell them all to stay off the phone. After a disaster, the phones are ONLY for distress calls.
• The Red Cross has a "Safe & Well" web site where you can register your status for your out-of-area loved ones who can't reach you. https://safeandwell.communityos.org/cms/index.php.
  
• If the power is out, unplug the expensive electronics. There could be a damaging power surge when it comes back on.
• Emergency lighting can be had by plugging an LED lamp into your UPS. The UPS will probably beep the whole time.
• If you can't charge your devices, put one cell phone at a time into low-power mode and keep the rest off.
  

Check the house

• Don't enter an unstable building. If the structure looks crooked or the doors are stuck, DO NOT GO IN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! It is waiting for a victim to collapse suddenly upon. Wait and have it checked by the fire department.
  
• Check the house & garage IMMEDIATELY after an earthquake, windstorm, or anything else that can damage your house. Check for fire, shorts, and gas leaks. Do not flip any switches or plug/unplug anything until you check for gas leaks (switches commonly make a small spark, so do plugs). If you need light to check for gas leaks, use a lightstick or a flashlight that runs on a single 1.5V battery (it takes 2 volts to make a spark). Turn multi-cell flashlights on & off outside.
• If power goes out during a disaster that can damage the house, turn off the main breaker. Power surges can damage your expensive electronics when it comes back on. Sniff for gas leaks. Restore the main breaker AFTER the power comes back on, and IMMEDIATELY check every part of the house. Too many people have had their house burn down when power came back on.
• If you smell gas or think there is a gas leak, turn the gas off and stay out of the building.
  
• Expect to step on nails and broken glass. Wear shoes that will protect you. Over a third of all post-disaster injuries are from this. After a disaster you need to be able to walk, fix your house, and not be waiting in long lines at hospitals
  

Preparing, Repairing, & cleanup

• Most disaster-related injury comes from preparation and cleanup. People are rushed and stressed, so they fall off ladders and hurt themselves with tools. Some of these injuries are grievous. So keep reminding everyone to be careful and not rush. Safety is the most important part of preparing or cleanup up!
• If you do get injured, treat it immediately. See a doctor, clinic, or emergency room if possible. This isn't the time to ignore an injury; take it more seriously than you normally would.
• Someone needs to watch the small children. The can become alarmed by anxiousness or activity, and do unpredictable or time-consuming things. Drop off the children with neighboring parents for a short time if necessary, but only if necessary (it gets them out of the way so you can handle the emergency, but may increase their anxiety for the long run).
  
• Pace yourself physically and emotionally. It is way to easy to push yourself too hard, focus too much on one thing, or become emotional. You can make some very costly mistakes if you do. Little mistakes can cascade into big problems at a time like this.
  
• If trouble is on the way or just happened, don't forget that you can get almost anything with next day delivery. This can save you critical time running to stores when you should be preparing or repairing. This is a good way to get things the local stores are sold out of.
  
• The hardware stores will sell out of critical items almost immediately if an area is affected. Only buy what you need if everyone else will need it, too.
  
• Dilute bleach 10-1 for disinfectant solution.
• If buildings are wrecked and dust is in the air, wear a respirator (a dust mask with two strings). There may be dangerous asbestos in the dust and this will help protect you. Go to http://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/natural-disasters/ or  http://www.mesotheliomasymptoms.com/asbestos-and-natural-disasters for post-exposure information.
  
• Photograph damage for insurance.
• There are many organizations who would like to help you get back on your feet. The best way to contact them is through a local church, Office of Emergency Services, or Red Cross chapter. You can even try contacting them directly, you might get lucky (an agency list is at http://www.disastercenter.com/agency.htm).
  

Communications

• Stay off the phones! Nobody can get through to 911 because everyone responds to an emergency by calling their family & friends to talk about it. When people call, tell them to stay off the phones.
• Make sure the phones have not been shaken off the hook. Those phones tie up the lines.
• Do not hang up if there is no dial tone, wait for one. You have to start waiting all over again if you hang up.
  
• If you can't get a dial tone, unplug all telephones from the wall and from power. Try again with a single phone. If that doesn't work, try a second.
  
• Pay phones are the most likely phones to work after a disaster.
• The most reliable telephone is an old rotary dialer. Note that modern phone lines may give them enough current to operate the ringer. VIOP systems do not support rotary.
  
• Some modern phones won't operate when the power is off. This is often true of cordless phone systems (the handsets are fine but the main base station needs power). Cell phones can't be recharged without power. Make sure you can make calls without power.
  
• Text messages are more likely to get through than a cell phone call. Try to text even if you can't make a call, it might get through.
  
• Email and the Internet is remarkably robust. It can work even when there are telephone problems.
• Some government agencies have portable cell towers. They might not be in place for days, and they won't be able to handle the volume of calls, but they will eventually be in place to deliver text messages.
  
• Limit non-emergency cell calls to conserve battery power and free-up wireless networks for emergency services.
• Only turn on one phone at a time, and keep it in low-power mode.
• If you don't expect power for a while, preserve cell phone battery life if you can't recharge. Establish "on-air" times, and only turn the phone on to receive calls at those times. Turn off background applications.

Gas & Electricity

• If you know the electricity may go out in advance, recharge everything and buy some batteries.
  
• Unplug your electronics if the power might be affected. Wind storms, electrical storms, and floods affect the power. Power line problems can damage your electronics.
• Be prepared to shut off the gas, water, or electricity if you need to. Do not shut off the gas unless necessary, because only the gas company can safely turn it back on. This could take a month if they are busy.
  
• Don't turn the gas on yourself. Air in the pipes mixed with gas turns your pipes into pipe bombs. The explosion could severely damage your house.
• Do not open the refrigerator or freezer unless necessary if the power is out. Keep the cold in. Tape the door shut right away so nobody forgets. An unopened half-full freezer keeps food safe to refreeze for about a day, a full freezer lasts about 2 days. Cooking when this time is up can save food. Food with ice crystals can be refrozen.
• Buying ice converts a refrigerator into an icebox to preserve food. Dry ice keeps the food in a freezer frozen.
• If the utilities are out for days, the water supply will probably fail, too. Most municipalities use electricity to pump water up into water towers, and the backup generators usually only have a day or two of fuel.
• To do laundry in an extended power outage: Fill a bucket or dishpan 2/3 with water. Soak the clothes. Agitate by hand, with a soft brush, or with a toilet plunger that has never touched a toilet. Use about 1/10 the soap and/or bleach your washing machine would use, or just rub the dirty spots with a bar of soap. Hang on a line to dry.

Flooding

• If your house may get flooded, turn the power off quick. Water can create a short that starts an electrical fire that burns your house to the waterline. Messing with the electrical panel while standing in water is a bad idea, so turn off the power when flooding threatens.
• If your house may get flooded, get those power strips off the floor. Make sure you find them all.
  
• Floodwater usually contains sewage. Treat floodwater like it came right out of the toilet. Since the sewer lines and storm drains are connected, it probably did.
• If there is flooding, warn children to stay away from drains, culverts, ditches, and floodwater. Places that were safe before can be really dangerous in a flood.
  
• Floodwater renders food, pots, and dishes unsafe. Wash thoroughly and then disinfect for 15 minutes by bleach disinfectant solution or boiling.
• In case of flood, assume the tap water is contaminated until tested.
• If you touch something that touched floodwater, and later eat before washing your hands, you may get violently ill.
• Pump the water out of the basement as soon as possible.  Shovel the mud out, and hose the mud off of everything. Shop-vac out the last of the water. Use bleach disinfectant solution on everything that will take it (1/2 cup bleach per gallon of water). Then open the windows and install fans to dry everything out.
• Do not drive through water. Just 3 inches of water can stall an engine and less than 12 inches can float the car (this is a bad thing). Most Americans who die in floods do so in their car (unverified).

Water problems

• If you know the water may go out or become contaminated in advance, fill the bathtub with cold water and turn off the cold-water valve going into the hot water tank. Both hold a large volume of water.
  
• If you drain the water heater for potable water, be sure to turn it off. Running it empty can ruin it.
• Some disasters can affect the water supply. These include water outages, floods, and strong earthquakes. Turn off your water main to prevent contaminated water from entering your pipes.
• Do not use the toilet if there is no water. Tape the lid down right away so nobody forgets. Dig a hole and rig a privacy tarp. Digging a hole is a problem in cities, so line a wastebasket with plastic garbage bags, tie it after use, and put it in the garbage outside. Use a bucket to fetch pool, hot tub, or creek water if someone uses the toilet.
  
• Improvised sanitation bag: Line a plastic grocery bag with newspaper, and line that with another grocery bag. Here is an article about what to do: http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/survival-sanitation-how-to-deal-with-human-waste.htm
  
• Use 1/4 teaspoon of unscented bleach to sterilize a gallon of drinking water. Mix & wait 30 minutes. Add 6 more drops & wait again if you cannot smell the bleach. The fragrance in some scented bleaches is poisonous.
• If the tap water is not safe, prepare bleach disinfectant solution for washing.
• If you must use creekwater, filter it through 2 coffee filters before sterilizing with bleach.
• If you touch something that touched floodwater, and later eat before washing your hands, you may get violently ill.
• Some water sources should never be used for drinking. Never drink from automobile radiators, waterbeds, or floodwater.
• Pools, spas and hot tubs are a good source of wash water.

Fire

• Discard food exposed to smoke or firefighting chemicals. Scrub pots, dishes, etc, and then use bleach disinfectant solution.
• Do not use sources of fire you are not experienced with, especially oil lamps. A disaster is much harder to deal with after burning oil goes everywhere.
• Resist using candles in most situations. They can tip over and start fires. Lit candles are irresistible to children, who might burn the place down.

Garbage

• Do not put food in the garbage disposal when the power or water is out, lest your sink clog and stink. Cover it so nobody forgets.
• Here is an article about dealing with garbage: http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/survival-sanitation-disposing-of-garbage-off-grid.htm
  

Injuries

• Hospitals cannot handle disasters that produce lots of injuries. Do not waste time going to the hospital unless there is no other way to save a life. They probably have one emergency room bed per 20,000 residents. If there are more than half a dozen emergency patients they expect to send them to nearby hospitals.
• Do not try to "help" animals. A frightened small animal can tear you up.
• Someone trying to help a small animal sounds like this: "Oh the poor little thing! He needs help! I'll help you little fellow. AAAAAHHH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! I sure wish I could get seen at a hospital!"
• Do not use power tools you are not experienced with, especially chain saws. Wait for someone experienced.
• Disasters displace snakes & rodents. Expect this and be careful.
• Fires and earthquakes cause big shards of broken glass to fall from upper floors like knives. If you run outside, get away from multi-storey structures.
• Fires and earthquakes can damage buildings. Structural damage may not be obvious. Don't get too close to potentially damaged buildings, part of one can fall on you.

Other information

• In a chemical spill, turn off the heater, air conditioner, bathroom fans, and all other fans that suck in outside air. Retreat to one room of the house and seal the cracks around the doors and windows with wide tape. Put towels along the bottom of the doors, too.
  
• If law and order has broken down and the police are occupied, all women and girls should stay in doors and out of sight. It is shameful that things are this way now.
  
• Major hotel chains have generators and emergency systems. They probably have hot showers, phone service, and internet as well.
• Local news radio stations are a good source of local information. People call in with vital information about coping with the situation in the days to follow.
• Churches are an excellent resource after trouble. Many have prior arrangements with disaster management agencies. Even if they don't, people will show up there to talk about what they went through and what worked. Whatever the problem is, the closest church may yield the best solution.
• To reduce long-term trauma for small children: keep the family together, involve them in getting things put back together, let them talk about it without brushing them off, resume old routines, give them special privileges while they are going through it, and give them control over some things.
• Go to this page for tips on emotional recovery: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/residential-fire.aspx