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It’s only a matter of time.
No matter whether we’re talking about a natural disaster like the recent earthquake and consequent tsunami in Japan, or the epic man made idiocy associated with last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, disasters will strike, and when they do there’s precious little any of us can do about it. All anyone can do—from individuals citizens right up the crisis management food chain to the very top levels of government—is to plan for the worst and hope for the best. That said, when it comes to protecting your family and loved ones it’s better to do a lot of planning so that you can afford to keep the hoping to a minimum. Not sure where to start? No worries. Maximum PC has put together a list of tips, technologies and gadgets to help to help you weather any storm—man made or otherwise—as stress-free and comfortably as possible.
Got some better ideas? Take 'em to the comments!
Mike Tyson said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. When it comes to emergency preparation, that jab to the cake-hole can come in many forms. Your disaster preparedness plan won’t be able to anticipate everything that could possibly happen in such a big, dangerous world but we all know the rule about the ounce of prevention, right? It used to be that planning for an emergency situation and stockpiling supplies was the domain of government officials and conspiracy-crazed survivalists, with much of the information on continuity planning and disaster survival advice relegated to some of the seedier locales of the internet.
Fortunately, since suffering the embarrassment and loss of human life that came from being underprepared for Hurricane Katrina, America’s state and federal agencies have seriously upped their game, bringing disaster preparedness into the mainstream. If you’re new to emergency preparedness, Ready America is an excellent resource to start with. The website offers a wide range of resources for developing your own disaster preparedness plan including helpful tips, downloadable PDF checklists, and an Online Emergency Planning Tool that can be printed off and put to use as soon as you’ve completed it.
After you’ve created your emergency plan, you may still feel ill-equipped to deal with a disaster situation. If so, there’s no better way to prepare to be prepared than by looking up the closest chapter of Citizen Corps. Conceptualized after the the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Citizen Corps was launched in 2002 as a community-centric resource for disaster response and provides educational materials, seminars and assistance to individual citizens and volunteer community groups who want to gain a better understanding of how to safeguard their homes, neighborhoods and communities in the face of a disaster.
Another essential site is 72hours.org which will help you make an emergency plan, put together a disaster kit and give you advice on what to do in a variety of situations from earthquakes and flooding to evacuation and contagiuos diseases. The only thing they don't cover is the zombie apocalypse, and there are plenty of other resources for that. Yet another worthwhile site is StuffSafe which can help you inventory your home by storing photos, descriptions and information about your belongings. It's web-based, and free - as is the similar site Know Your Stuff from the Insurance Information Instititute. While an inventory of your gear isn't going to be essential to keeping you safe after a disaster, it is going to make it easier to put the pieces back together once everything starts to settle down.
Turning to your iOS or Android powered smartphone is also an option. On the Android side of things, iAppThat’s Are You Ready application is a wealth of emergency planning information that fits in the palm of you hand.
It’s worth noting that despite its rocking the FEMA logo, the application is not officially endorsed by FEMA. All the same, it allows for access to FEMA’s YouTube channel videos, emergency planning checklists and a wide variety of disaster-specific information for everything from coping with the aftermath of tornadoes on through to nuclear blasts. For iPhone users, phoneflips’ $1.99 Disaster Readiness app is a great option. While most of the information included in the application can be found through multiple sources online, phoneflips has gone through the trouble of compiling a treasure trove of disaster planning and mitigation information in one easy to browse, offline location.
In the event that you lose access to the internet or a cellular connection during the course of a prolonged emergency, this is one app you’ll be thankful to have on your phone. Just remember to figure out how to charge your smartphone without any electricity. (More on that in a bit).
There are a slew of additional apps for disaster preparedness for both Android and iOS-based phones - Android users can check out Disaster Alert by PDC which gives real-time alerts on active hazards around the world, and Scanner Radio Pro which allows you to peruse the databases of police, fire, EMS and coast guard transit radio. iOS users can find a similar service in the Emergency Radio app, and everyone can grab the Pocket First Aid & CPR app.
As much as we’d like to think that disaster will strike with everyone we care about under one roof, it’s not a realistic scenario. People go to work, they shop; they head out on a Friday night to dance the boogaloo (electric or otherwise). When an emergency situation occurs, your first priority after seeing your own way to safety will no doubt be to find out whether your family and loved ones are safe. Unfortunately, this will also be the first thought of every one else in the area effected by the emergency. This typically results in a massive flood of calls to and from cellular phones, often bringing the network to its knees. The same can be said for landlines. To accommodate for this, your disaster preparedness plan should include provisions for communicating with one another if you end up being separated when the going gets crazy.
Your first and most valuable communications option is as low tech as it gets: Sit down and make a plan with the folks you want to stay in touch with about how exactly you’ll stay in touch should a disaster occur in your area. Cell phones and landlines should be considered a first, best option, provided you’ve got the power and network connections to use either one. For cell phone users this is as simple as making sure your battery is fully charged before leaving the house in the morning. If you’re using a landline, things can be a little more complicated. The majority of landline telephones being used today—be it a multi-line Cisco-engineered monster at your office, or a cordless handset at home, or VOIP units—require electricity from a secondary power source in order to operate. That’s bad news if the disaster you’ve just survived managed to knock out the electricity for your area. Fortunately, older style corded handsets aren’t hampered by the same power requirements.
These landline handsets operate on a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) system, which sees them powers the telephone via a −48V Direct Current connection fed into to it by the telephone cord coming out of your wall. That means so long as the phone lines are up, you should be able to make and receive calls. Should you be lucky enough to have landline or cellular service, you still may not be able to make any local calls, due to system congestion. For this reason, many sources, including those cited earlier in this article, suggest pre-arranging an out of area number for you and all of your loved ones to contact in the event that you are separated. (You can also set up a Google Voice number to ring multiple family members at once).
Your long distance contact can be used to relay important information to and from the other individuals participating in your disaster preparedness plan, such as letting you know they’re safe or allowing you to plan for a secondary rendezvous point if returning home is not an option. Cellphone users may also want to consider sending SMS messages instead of calling, as a text message may be able to find its way past local congestion to its intended recipient where conventional voice calls fail. It's also probably worth noting where those few, lingering payphones are in your area.
In the event that you’re unable to reconnect with your loved ones, you have a few avenues open to you. If your home internet connection or smartphone are up and running, you’ll want to check out Google Person Finder. Most recently used in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami this past April, Google People Finder provides a forum for individuals seeking out their lost loved ones in the wake of a disaster, as well as a message board for anyone that has come across information regarding the whereabouts of a missing or unknown person. The International Committee of the Red Cross has a similar service called FamilyLinks.
If your internet connection’s stable enough to load Google People Finder, it’ll also no doubt be able to load local news services, or the webpage for your regional or municipal government, to receive instructions on where to gather for assistance or shelter should you requite it. Additionally, your far-flung friends and family will no doubt appreciate it if you hopped on Facebook to let them know you’re alive and well. Last but not least, let’s not forget about Twitter—the current web-based King of up to the minute first hand crisis information, as we’ve seen during the uprisings in the Middle East in recent months and in the hours after this month’s tornadoes in the midwest.
If power and internet are a no-go, your best bet for staying on top of the situation in your area is to use an multi-band radio. Since our readers deserve only the very best, we recommend something among the lines of TK Eton’s Solarlink FR600 TK, which can be powered by AAA batteries, and AC adapter, hand crank or solar power. If that’s not enough for you, the FR600 also incorporates a flashlight and USB cellphone charging outlet.
Comments are closed on this article
janenobelk285
December 25, 2011 at 6:51am
we are all supposed to keep some on hand, but SteriPEN had the sidewinder, that uses no batteries, and would be a much better solution in an emergency. Melissa and Doug Easel
AETAaAS
June 10, 2011 at 2:05am
Interesting article, after the Cold War nostalgia. I did think the food bit was a little excessive depending on how much time you think you will be isolated. If you just want to hit the 72 hour target, I'm sure most people have more than enough food right now and carrying 3 days worth of food is probably only a small bag.
Plus its not as if when your fridge reaches room temperature; all the food rots immidietly. Some things people put in fridges like fruits, jams, bread, cake (Portal anyone? :p), pre-cooked food and probably some others will still be good for a while.
Mobility may not be a big consideration in some circumstances, your home is where people are going to go look for you, and if you don't know what is going on, moving anywhere else could be worse than staying put.
nsvander
June 10, 2011 at 12:07am
Funny that you selected a product that requires you to use lithium batteries. In an emergency, you may not have access to such items, I know we are all supposed to keep some on hand, but SteriPEN had the sidewinder, that uses no batteries, and would be a much better solution in an emergency.
