In California, an estimated 70 percent of residents have no emergency plan and fewer than 50 percent of households even have a disaster supply kit. No stored water, no stored food, no medicine. Nada.
It seems a lot of us are in complete denial. Since we don’t live below sea level, protected, or not, by levees, it’s understandable there’s little concern about floods like those that devastated the Gulf Coast. But what about earthquakes and ensuing liquefaction or tsunamis?
In the midst of wildfire season, shouldn’t we be thinking just a little about the floods and mudslides that inevitably follow? Then, of course, there are the riots (excuse me, civil unrest) that follow unpopular court decisions and insensitive police work. Not to mention the big T word, which has no season, that we know of, and for which we are told the government is in charge. Yeah, right.
Most of us won’t be waiting around for a FEMA rescue. And now we learn of other federal agencies charged with public health and safety that are staffed, even led, by political appointees of zero experience and meager qualifications beyond presidential fund raising. Do we feel safer now?
In a word, no. So why aren’t we all making preparations to ensure our own safety and health if the earth shudders at a 7-plus magnitude? Scientists say it will happen sometime in the next few decades. And what if rain storms of biblical (or at least El Niño) proportions soak our fractured hillsides filling our valleys with mud and rocks?
My daughter found it inconceivable that folks in New Orleans hadn’t evacuated when first told they were smack dab in the middle of Katrina’s path, protected only by poorly maintained levees. Well, she understands now that all families don’t have SUVs and pickups in two-car attached garages. And that many of those who had to stick it out in their attics and roof tops were the very ones who live paycheck to paycheck, scarcely able to feed their families a decent meal every day much less stockpile food for emergencies. Some of us can stash cash, but if Social Security and disability checks are made as direct deposits to one’s bank account and the ATMs aren’t working, even if you could get to one, and the post offices are flooded and there’s no food stamps or open markets to trade them for food, those folks are at the mercy of government’s first responders, which, in this case, seemed to be dispatched by the village idiot. In some areas neighbors relied on each other. But in poor ghettos, all neighbors are in the same boat, so to speak, or without a boat.
Those of us who consider ourselves self sufficient, have the means and smarts to organize a family emergency plan either for evacuation or to stash enough supplies to last at least a week. The three-day rule won’t cut it anymore. Not when it takes a week for those in charge of government resources to come and take charge. Some of us would like to think our Governator would come to the rescue, but even that’s not a given.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services at www.oes.ca.gov lists 10 steps for creating a family disaster plan, but it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. We’re told to put emergency phone numbers on cards. I’ve done this, but nobody took it seriously. One, who shall be here nameless, still calls me to ask for family cellphone numbers.
I’m the stockpiler of food, water and medicine, way beyond what fits in an emergency supply kit, but the pantry gets raided so often we sometimes can’t even find a bandage.
The OES tells us to keep flashlights and radios with plenty of fresh batteries. A kitchen drawer was stocked with all sizes of batteries a few months ago, but when all the smoke alarms started screeching last week, there wasn’t a single 9-volt battery left, and three out of four flashlights had no batteries at all or had been dropped and broken, though they still sat on the shelf looking like they were ready for action.
My car, I thought, was fully equipped: lantern light with extra battery, small shovel, gloves, dust and smoke mask, tiny tool kit, first-aid kit, space blanket, and a box full of trail mix and cereal bars. My daughter keeps a case of bottled water in her Volvo, but she uses it at her weekly soccer game and could easily be out during an emergency.
I also carry my favorite toy, a Grundig AM/FM short-wave radio with hand crank dynamo, rechargeable three-battery pack plus room for three AA batteries. I checked it out yesterday and discovered I can power it with the crank but the manual says not to leave batteries in it when not in use. And I’m still not sure how to get a station for local emergencies, though I’ve managed to get the BBC and several overseas stations speaking in tongues I can’t even identify much less understand. I plan to work on that, at least before I take off for Montana.
Evacuation, though, isn’t always a good option even if you have the means. After seeing Texas highways clogged with stalled traffic, littered with cars that ran out of gas trying to flee Hurricane Rita, staying put seems safer, even without power or running water. Although I try to keep a full tank of gas, at 33 mpg, my Saturn would likely run dry by a Stockton feed lot. No thanks.
Anyway, I’m making new cards for cellphone numbers even though they’ll get lost. Besides, my cellphone is broken, and an earthquake surely would wipe out most cell towers. And who would I call anyway? FEMA? Guess not.