Earthquake/Tsunami Preparedness Ideas & Tips

[carolochs]

Living with Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest

"As insurance companies in the Pacific Northwest begin to base earthquake-insurance premiums to the details of construction of your house, as they now do in California, reinforcement will almost certainly reduce your premium."

[wmweeza]

Things I'd do:
- Strap down your water heater as the line may break in a quake.
- Bolt your house to the foundation. Most homes built after 1990 are bolted (with basic bolts, you can buy MUCH better bolts yourself), and older homes are required to be as they change hands I believe.
- Set aside enough food and water for at least 2 weeks and include pets in that estimate.
- Get pet carriers for ALL your pets
- Find several routes out of your neighborhood and either memorize them or keeps maps, do the same for your work as your usual route home may be blocked off due to fallen trees/powerlines/downed bridges
- Set up 2 meeting spots for your family, two just in case your first spot is inaccessible, put these in writing and keep in each car and make sure kids know how to get there or who will come get them.
- Set up an emergency contact out of state who will serve as a message center. Local phone lines will be jammed up BUT calls out of state can get through a little easier (though still not a guarantee)
- If you live in a Lahar zone or Tsunami zone know the evacuation route by heart
- Look at replacing glass in frames with plexiglass, nothing like having a glass framed painting above your bed crashing on your head or walking on glass on the route to the door out of the house because family photos are all on the floor ( pets paws especially, keep that in mind)
- We personally each have a backpack for each person, in it we have: 2 bottles of water, a VERY basic first aid kit, a basic change of clothes and 2 pairs of socks....socks are often the first thing to get ruined and can act as gloves in a pinch. One roll of toilet paper and a few tampons (yes even 2 in the guys bags because they are great for packing wounds and they might need them for a girlfriend or to help a stranger). We also have pictures of each family member so if we get separated we can show the picture to others if we need help finding eachother, and yes pictures of our pets. Granola bars, they are portable and you can survive on just that for a few days. Also put an alternative form of identification in each bag, you might not be able to find your wallet or purse in a hurry. If you are on medication keep some set aside and put those in the bags too.
Now these bags are just BASIC bags, we have other bags packed with more supplies, bedding etc, these bags I described are in each closet, if an emergency hits we just grab the pets and a bag each, we can be out of our house with basic supplies in under 5 minutes.
- Keep several hundred in cash on hand because ATM's will probably be down and power will be out, therefore at least in some spots credit cards will be useless.


Gee, I haven't thought about this at all...lol. This is just the basics, there's TONS more you can do but preparing allows us to relax a little instead of worrying as much. I'd rather grab my dog, cat, and son and just run out with our bags then evacuate with nothing.

[carolochs]

EXCELLENT wmweeza!!!
As I was reading last night......"The worst disaster is not preparing for disaster!"
In that book Cascadia's Fault (https://www.amazon.com/Cascadias-Fau...words=cascadia)
........it broke down in hindsight, all the major earthquakes of our lifetimes, ...and the ones where people were prepared and REACTED WITHOUT WAITING, despite being same or near-same size quakes, were the ones where the most people survived.

There's a great-example story in the book, of a little girl on the beach in the Sumatra quake/tsunami. Just two weeks prior to the event, the girl had learned in school the warning signs of a tsunami (receding water). When she saw this begin to happen at the beach while on vacation with her parents, she immediately knew what it was, told her mother, and they managed to warn and get everyone on the beach in front of their hotel up to the upper floors and roof of that hotel. Hundreds of them did not die because that little girl and her family did not wait, did not doubt, they ACTED, and acted fast.

[carolochs]

This article was referred to me by Brian Atwater...reknown geologist.

Estimates of earthquake impact......

https://huxley.wwu.edu/sites/huxley....sing_low_1.pdf

[carolochs]

The M9 Project:

The M9 Project is a team of experts whose goal is to reduce catastrophic potential effects of a Cascadia megathrust earthquake on social, built, and natural environments through the advancement of methodologies, early warnings, and community planning.

https://hazards.uw.edu/geology/m9/

[carolochs]

Another truly fascinating book with un-ignorable evidence, and what I consider to be a must-read if you live in the PNW, or plan to:

https://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Tsunam...sunami+of+1700