When leaving, what would you drink in an emergency?

This morning I had an interesting conversation with one of my grandchildren, my wife read us an article about disasters. The North Korean nuclear bomb threat in particular, in the article said that we should all have at least a 14-day supply of emergency supplies on hand. I asked my grandson what he thought of all this and if he had ever thought of situations where he would have to support himself. The scenario I asked you about is a very real situation for people living in the earthquake country. (I must say that I am not in the least concerned about a North Korean nuclear attack, all I will say about it is that it is all boastfulness and hype.) However, living 50 miles from San Francisco in the Greater California Delta, the possibility of a major earthquake is very real. I asked him if he was in the city and there was a big earthquake that disabled all public services, what would he do? He told me he would be leaving town immediately, okay, I guess that was my answer. The second question I had was where he would go, and of course he told our house, that it is perfectly fine for us. Then I asked him how he would get out of the city, he answered by bus, train, car, walking, etc., I told him that there would be many people with the same idea. There are 3 ways to get out of San Francisco, 1) The Bay Bridge. 2) Golden Gate Bridge 3) Highway 101 through South San Francisco. Everything packed on a normal business day, during an emergency evacuation it would become an impossible situation in my opinion. In my opinion, the first thousand vehicles could leave, then, with breakdowns and accidents, the roads would fill up quickly. Then he told me he would go, I just asked him “where? Oakland? Hayward? In other words, in my opinion, there is no one going anywhere after the” big one “happens, we have been told a and again. it will happen. We ended the talk with no other solution than a better understanding of what can happen, grandchildren sometimes take the train to the city for a day so it was a worthwhile conversation (everyone is around 20 years) Although we did not have a conclusive decision on our discussion, a more relevant question arose: “If a major disaster happened and you were at home, what would you take when you left?”

I’m thinking of a wildfire, a house fire, a flood, an earthquake, or any other situation that takes away all utilities. Four and a half years ago my neighbors’ house burned to the ground in the middle of the night, the house on both sides was damaged by fire, one was 80% destroyed, and although it was never rebuilt, to this day. today it remains like a fire. helmet. If the prevailing wind had blown (it wasn’t) and if it was dry (thankfully it was misty rain), my house would probably have burned down as well. It is a haunting sight to see neighbors, very good neighbors, running around in their pajamas with garden hoses trying to save their houses. It was an extremely dangerous situation, a neighbor was in a nightgown and flip-flops 30 feet from the house fully involved, she was next to a large pine tree. I could see that tree burst into flames and possibly seriously injuring her, it didn’t happen but the tree was destroyed by the heat. The fact is, the week before I saw her spraying the tree with her garden hose, of course I asked her what it was about. She replied that she has allergies and that the pine tree was full of pollen, that she has an allergy to that tree and they were thinking of removing it. The tree was soaked that night and most likely saved her from serious injury or worse. After the fire department arrived (we are in a very rural area in the middle of nowhere, so it usually takes at least 20 minutes for a response), I realized that we had nothing in the way of emergency supplies , the neighbors who responded had their nightwear and nothing else. I started thinking about preparation and the question I asked myself was “If that was me, what would I grab when I left?” So I began to form the basis of my disaster emergency plan and what I would need to prepare for a home emergency preparedness kit. That event inspired me to create a website dedicated to helping people become as self-reliant as possible. Then I came up with the list below:

1) Get up and get dressed, keep a set of clothes next to the bed, shoes, pants and a T-shirt.

2) Go get my 95-year-old mother-in-law, assigned to my wife or me, out of bed.

3) Find my emergency backpack that contains my laptop and all the information from my website, if I lose it, it could be a disaster.

4) Put away my wheelchair, okay, lower it if I can, if there is a fire upstairs, I will lose both of my mobile devices.

5) Get my ukulele, guitars and banjo

6) The computer in the tower above, just the tower

7) Pour all these things into the dike and then

8) Take out my big mobility scooter, I keep it on the back porch next to the door.

9) Oh the crazy dog, good pain that will be a challenge

10) All the car keys!

That’s not even the complete list! After I put it in writing, reality slapped me, like in a class B western movie, “what the heck am I thinking?” If I were to take all those things, in fact, if I could gather them all in a short time, it would be a major task. By my estimate, after watching videos of fires made by various fire departments, I have come to the conclusion that I have one minute to evacuate. It occurred to me a minute after watching a video of a Christmas tree made by a fire department. A small building was constructed with a replica of the living room containing a Christmas tree, a sofa, a chair and a small table. The light string was faulty, after the lights were turned on, it immediately started smoking, the wiring then caught fire. The whole room was wrapped up in less than a minute, a minute max to evacuate my home, it placed a whole new perspective on my idea of ​​what time I had to gather and escape. If I were to try to take all those things with me, I would need a truck and trailer, they would have to be installed at all times and ready to be loaded. Wait a minute, I tweaked my list by a substantial amount, now it’s:

1) Get Grandma

2) Put the dog on a leash

3) Take my emergency preparedness kit (contains my laptop)

Get out! If I can use my wheelchair well, if not, they made millions this year alone and I have insurance. Same with my ukulele, banjo, and guitars, there were plenty of each of them this year too. There is nothing more important than grandma, wife, dog, and me. Even now, leaving my laptop would not be a major problem, since I have put all my files in the “cloud”, Google+, I can retrieve them from any computer. anywhere as long as I have my passwords. Everything else is replaceable, all my only priority is grandma, wife, dog, then me, outside the door, someone will call the fire department if I don’t, just get out in less than a minute. In conclusion, I hope I have inspired some people to start putting together a family disaster plan, as well as putting together or purchasing a pre-assembled home emergency preparedness kit. FEMA recommends a 72 hour kit, a 14 day kit is a much better prep kit. That is my opinion due to this fact, my neighbors are not now and will never be prepared for such a disaster. My personal way of being prepared is to get to a point where we have a lot for ourselves and more to help other people when the need arises that I think will present itself. I’ll never be able to deny someone a drink of water or something warm to wear, just because they didn’t prepare doesn’t mean they are anything other than “human.” Events can easily occur at any time of the day or night, doesn’t it seem like the nastiest grams arrive during the worst storm of the year in the middle of the night?