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| December 30, 2005
Beyond disaster BY BRUCE WILLEY AND SVEN DAVIS
As evidenced by the recent catastrophes that struck Indonesia, New Orleans and Pakistan, 72 hours is a long time—and it’s just the beginning. Those who know how to improvise and prepare are the ones who will not only survive, but survive in style. It’s in this spirit that we—two Loma Prieta Earthquake survivors—offer a guide to living after the “Big One.” So Drop, Cover and Hold On, or at the very least, go buy a few gallons of water, a shovel and a camping stove. We’ll all be better off for it. After all, it’s impossible to know when a major disaster of apocalyptic proportions will hit again—so much so that the old standby, “It’s not a question of if, but a question of when” has become less a call to arms than a cliché. But it will come despite the human capacity for denial. You can count on it. A Post-disaster Party! Build a Community You’re also going to have to deal with a lot of food that’s about to spoil, so get the coals going. It’s potluck time, and save room for ice cream. Before you know it, you’ll have built a little survival community that can share efforts and resources. This is going to bring you all closer. Build a shared outhouse of some sort. Create a meat dehydrator to make jerky out of whatever you didn’t eat at the potluck. (Try using the barbecue. Cut meats into thin strips and dry on the rack at around 140 degrees overnight.) Combine the liquor supply into a proper bar. Create a game center where all your board games and decks of cards are concentrated. Coordinate childcare, piling all the toys in a specific area to make a playground. Water Worries We remember those long lines of people waiting to buy water after the ’89 Loma Prieta Earthquake and we just can’t help think that it would be more clever, more human really, to stock up on a little more just in case. Storing water is really easy and doesn’t take up that much space. Plastic milk jugs work well. If your creativity gets sapped in pre-disaster mode you can always just buy gallons of the stuff at the supermarket and store it throughout the house or outside. After all, it’s a lot cheaper than gasoline. Speaking of which, it’s a good idea to keep a few gallons in your car as well. Better Living Through Bartering Wave your credit card around all you want; two days after a disaster, the man with cold beer to trade has the world in his hands. With no fridge or ice at hand, it may seem impossible, but here’s the trick: Put a few beers in a wet cloth bag and hang it in the shade, in a breeze. Evaporating water takes heat with it, and the beers will cool down. Stock up on things like propane bottles for outdoor grills, briquettes, white gas for Coleman stoves (they’ll run on unleaded gas, but that’s our secret), sunscreen, packs of cards and batteries. Also consider a battery-operated DVD viewer and an assortment of kids’ movies—harried parents will pay top dollar for two hours off. We were all talking about this stuff when we were panicking about Y2K, remember? Such heady days. Roger That, I Read You Loud and Clear Walkie-talkies If the good, altruistic folks called first responders find them useful, then there must be applications for the common disaster victim. Unfortunately, the consumer-grade versions aren’t on the same channel as police and fire so you can’t get the inside scoop on the gory details. Nevertheless, walkie-talkies instantly add disaster cachet and are great communication tools when the cell phone towers are knocked out. Just remember not to wander more than two miles, their range. Radio A battery-operated radio for news reports and evacuation warnings is crucial. A few different radio manufacturers have cashed in on this. The Eton FR300 short-wave radio, for example, has a flashlight, cell phone charger, a crank in case the batteries die, and a siren. The company has grown so large that it, along with the Department of Homeland Security, declared last September to be National Preparedness Month. Keep in mind, the first news reports will either be exaggerated doom or horribly understated. Base Camp Some of the most haunting images to come out of Hurricane Katrina had to be the relatives of the victims attempting to contact them on national television. It’s best to avoid having to do this, so set up a location and method of communication before the disaster happens. A bulletin board at a one-story coffee shop or campus quad; Grandma’s house; and a contact of a relative or friend outside the state—preferably far inland without earthquake faults. Television Because it’s weird and sort of flattering to see your town on CNN. And yes there are battery-operated TVs. A Bullhorn Handy for rallying the neighbors into storming FEMA headquarters for some answers, calling the kids back from their baseball game in the deserted street or yelling, “Please remain calm. Everything is under control.” Use it with discretion. Urban Camping But urban, post-disaster camping has its own particular challenges not found in Yosemite or Yellowstone. For starters, you may find yourself camping with people who have never been a day’s walk away from their hair dryers. I’m referring to men here, but if you know women who are like this too, they also won’t appreciate the finer points of a well-pitched tent or like the smell of campfire on their clothes. So the trick is to try to make the experience as civilized as humanly possible while they slowly adjust to a life their great-great-grandmother experienced on the homestead. (Telling them this probably won’t help.) Set the camp away from anything that might tumble down or fly through the air and land on you while you’re trying to go about your new-found outdoor life. This includes trees and telephone poles that may have been damaged in the disaster. Basically you want to avoid situations that will put your life in peril—again. In a Mediterranean, non-buggy climate, a tent may be overkill unless it happens to be raining. But it still provides some much-needed psychological comfort and some privacy from the neighbors who have suddenly become your best friends. Those royal blue tarps that you can get at any hardware store work great too, and block out the stars just as well. Spread as many blankets around as you can muster and it will almost feel like a bed. Cardboard is another fantastic insulator as the homeless (bless their hearts) have long known. If it’s cold, remember that two bodies tightly squeezed together can almost double the body heat on one side. Experiment. Domesticated warm-blooded animals will work in a pinch. In Alaska, where the men are plentiful and the women are few, an awfully cold night is called a “three dog night” for a reason. How many cats equal a “three dog night”? Again, experiment. Most disaster checklists don’t call for earplugs, yet they are fantastic for muffling your snoring bedmates, of which there could be many now. Plus they cut the noise of howling (or snoring) dogs, sirens and other obnoxiously rampant post-disaster sounds. Sleep is necessary for your survival, and a good night’s rest will keep you alert and ready for most anything in the morning. Things like cooking the rest of the tepid food from the darkened fridge for breakfast before it goes bad comes immediately to mind. Keep a small collection of earplugs with the tent stakes and you’ll always have them when you need them. With the gas and electricity off, you’ll need to make a kitchen outside. I’m going to be frank here: No one living in a disaster-prone state should be without a Coleman two-burner stove. The forest-green wonder has been around forever, and has done more to civilize the campsite than the Winnebago. Well that’s a stretch, but you get the point. Make it a comfortable area to cook: grab the table out of the fallen-down house; stack the disaster detritus into a workable outdoor kitchen counter. Other backpacking stoves work too, though the canister models may become useless after you’ve run out of canisters. Models like MSR’s Whisperlight or, even better, the mountaineering stove of choice, the XGK, which burns everything from diesel to unleaded to the old standby white gas. Speaking of white gas, keep a gallon of the stuff (pre-disaster) in a safe place outside away from anything that might remotely resemble a flame. And never, make that never, use these stoves inside a house or in a tent unless you’ve had enough of the disaster and just want to end it all. But after surviving the initial blast, shock, wind, wave, pyroclastic flow, you are ready to live life to the fullest outdoors. Camping can bring these optimistic feelings forth from even the most urbane, dandiest of us all. Then, as night falls again, a campfire can bring us to our not-so-distant past when we stared at the flames with the same glazed look we gave our televisions when they worked. Just remember, all of this is moot if you store your camping gear next to an unreinforced brick wall or in a closet under some creaky stairs. You’ll need these supplies for what will surely be your most memorable camping experience since the last big one. Looting Admit Your Failure. If you resort to looting, you’ve already demonstrated your failure to provide yourself with the essentials you need to survive. If you’re breaking down the door of a 7-Eleven for water and snacks within hours of the disaster striking, that’s just lame. You should have covered that. And maybe you should have spent a little time making friends with your neighbors, so you could all help each other out without plundering stores for gummy worms. Start with Giveaways. Remember that there will be people giving stuff away. After the Loma Prieta Earthquake, many grocery stores, even big chains, handed out most of the food that was doomed to spoil, engendering goodwill in the neighborhood. It also saved them a huge cleanup problem, so it’s a real win-win situation. Emergency agencies will attempt to get food and water to your area, so try to find them. It may take a little walking around; don’t expect them to set up on your corner to hydrate your lazy ass. Stay Off the News. Don’t get filmed hauling nonessentials away. Outsiders are anxiously watching the situation on TV, with one hand on their checkbook. If you’re seen looting, it mars the purity of your victimhood and people become less willing to help you out. One look at you and it’s, “Donate to the relief effort? Hell, Martha, are you crazy? Did you see those bastards hauling off those plasma TVs? They’re living better than we are!” Post-disaster Poop It can be for you too, with some digging. The working maxim regarding pit toilets is the deeper the better. Dig the hole in the yard away from where you’ve pitched the tent and where you eat. Cover the hole with boards, leaving a 6-inch hole. Either squat or use a 25-gallon bucket with the bottom cut out over the hole. After each movement throw a shovel of dirt on top of the business to keep the flies under control. In Africa they use what’s called an “Arborloo,” wherein a tree is planted over the spot after the pit is full. It puts Miracle-Gro to shame. So after the disaster is over this might be a nice gesture to the Earth, a peace offering of sorts, and something positive to remember the disaster by. ILLUSTRATION BY MARK POUTENIS |
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Emotional response to disaster A disaster brings out the best and worst from us all. The media, in search of compelling stories (and ratings) will mostly concentrate on the extremes. Damage and death, heroes and villains, lead the way followed by the human response to the catastrophe. The range of emotions can be astonishing. Everything from pure terror to evangelical joy will be on display. But most people handle the disaster somewhere in the middle with intense feelings of connectedness and a hyper-sense of living in the moment. However, the Department of Health and Human Services has put out some possible behavioral responses to disaster for both victims and emergency responders. If you display any of these signs it may be best to seek some professional help (chances are there’s a shrink in your neighborhood) or talk with a friend. Note the following natural symptoms for a natural disaster. - Anxiety, fear Signs of the times If the disaster is disastrous enough, the president of the United States may cruise over the scene in a big green helicopter. This is exciting, and a rare opportunity for you to flex your freedom of speech and let the president know what you’re thinking. Suggested phrases to write on your roof: 1. ABOUT TIME |
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For those who survive the earth shaking, the shattering winds or the muddy water, the post-disaster mantra from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is simple: We must be able to be self-sufficient for 72 hours or more. But what does that entail, exactly? Is it just being able to live by our wits and whatever food, water and supplies we had the foresight to have in store beforehand? Below are some “been there-done that” suggestions that go beyond basic disaster prep (which you can find at the county’s |
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