I am not done with all my asking around yet. Most of the contacts are related to getting better at recovery, which will be a community effort. How long will it take PGE to get electricity running again? How long does ODOT think it will take to get the roads in good order again?
Some of my thoughts come from a preview of an Oregon Field Guide that will be airing on Oregon Public Broadcasting on October 1st. That's not really that far away. Some conversations may be more productive afterward, though there is no reason not to talk about things now.
Even assuming the best case scenario, where communities up and down the coast prepare, with different levels of government cooperating with each other and with businesses and private citizens, it will not rule out the need for at least some level of personal preparedness.
I had noted a while ago that 72-hour kits seemed to have gone out of vogue, mainly because they were not going to last long enough. I am starting to hear a lot about kits again, but no longer with the 72 hours. They are less likely to give a time period.
The reality is, its hard to predict how long you might be roughing it, and the longer it seems like it might be the more discouraging it gets. It is nonetheless very empowering to prepare.
I think a good starting point is the results of the Aftershock tool, which were on the PBS site. For my address, these were the megaquake results:
Water will be available at distribution centers within about 2 weeks.
Natural gas will be back up within about 2 months.
Electricity will take closer to 3 or 4 months.
Police and fire response could take about 7 months to recover.
Water and sewer will take over a year to get operational again.
The restoration of top priority highways will take about a year and a half.
Getting health care facilities back to normal will take about three years.
There had also been details like structures being damaged, which means we might not be able to stay in the house.
Let's take it line by line.
Even under best-case scenarios, it's very likely that there would still be a two week delay on water, so putting in a two week water supply is smart. If you have your own well, that may seem like a non-issue, but study what issues would be likely to cause operation issues or contamination. A lot of our food storage will require water for cooking, so that is another factor to consider.
There will probably be a time period without heat. Do you have extra blankets. If you are having to sleep outside, do you have sleeping bags and tents that can endure lower temperatures. Personally, I worry more about losing air conditioning on warm days than heat on cold days, but both are possibilities.
There will likely be a time period without electricity. Do you have flashlights? Do you have replacement batteries for those flashlights? Do you know how much light they give, and whether it will work for necessary tasks? Do you have an alternative means of cooking, and know whether it is safe to use in the house (most are not)? If gas comes back before electricity, which is likely, will your gas appliances work without electricity available for the controls?
Also, and this is very important, if electrical power has been knocked out but you have gas where the lines have potentially been disrupted, so there could be a leak, do you have glow sticks so that you will not cause a spark by turning on a flashlight and possibly ignite the whole place? (There are sparkless flashlights available, but you would have to seek it out.)
With health care facilities, roads, and emergency services, there are a few different things to think of. Having a 4x4 can be nice, but that's a bigger investment than buying a Sterno stove or some lanterns. There will probably be some time cut off from resources.
Food storage is good. Food storage that contains variety, including some things that can be eaten without cooking, is even better. We are working on three months, but we would love to have a year. Having a garden where you grow some of your own is nice.
Knowing first aid, so you can be of assistance when you cannot get the professionals, is really good. Also, thinking about things like if you have some time where you can't get prescriptions filled, or if you have a household member who uses oxygen, or equipment that requires electricity, takes some thought.
It is great to get neighbors involved too, so that they know that they can come to you, and you know you can go to them. If we get a year's supply of food for the house, and none of the neighbors had food storage, we could help feed them and that would be great, but supplies would run out pretty fast. If everyone has a few months worth, that helps us get along better. It takes away a lot of the stress because we know we won't starve or fight each other over food.
I know that some people could see that there are seven months without the cops and decide the best response is to stock up on guns and ammo. People who encourage you to buy gold are also anticipating the total breakdown of society, but where they still believe that gold will be valuable for barter.
I still think I would rather have a supply of food than gold, because if there is no one to trade with, or they are trading more gold, or ammo, well, the food is going to be useful no matter what. More to the point, I think a great part of preparedness is to prepare to not have a total societal breakdown. There are a lot of people I care about out in society. There are people I don't know too, but I would probably like them if we met - I'm pretty good at liking people.
So when I am looking at what Metro is doing and wondering what OHSU's plans are, that's why. I'm not interested in being a survivalist if that means cutting myself off, and not caring about the people around me. That can't possibly be right.
So on October 1st I will be watching "Unprepared". I will be recording it. I will be listening for the part I can play. There are some good resources at the site already.
I will be thinking about me and my household, but I can look beyond that too. That's something we need to do together.
http://www.opb.org/news/series/unprepared/
No comments:
Post a Comment