Month: February 2020

72 hour kit – Important papers

72 hour kit important papers

Many of us want to get started down the road to preparedness but don’t know where to start.  The basic 72 Hour kit is probably your best first step. A few things you should know. First, you probably should not go out, and spend money on an expensive kit at a store.  First, it costs money and second, it probably does not contain the things that you really need to take care of your family in a real emergency.

 

Where to start?

We should start with the purpose of the 72 hour kit.  In a disaster there are three scenarios we think about.  Shelter in place (you stay home and live off food storage).  Extended evacuation (You slowly pack the car with all your camping gear and go car camping for a while).  And the third option the Fast Evacuation (You grab you 72 hour kit and run).

We are talking about option 3.  You have a matter of minutes (or seconds) to grab your kits, get in the car and drive to safety or even flee on foot.  You may end up in a hotel room or in the 40 square feet of high school gym space assigned to you in a Red Cross evacuation shelter.

The first items we are going to collect for this important kit are actually the items that make for the quickest recovery and they are some the the items most often left out.  I am talking about the paperwork.

When our family had a house fire a number of years ago one of the first things we needed was the phone number and information about our home owners insurance.  As we watched from across the street we wondered if all of our most important papers were going to be OK. Would they survive the fire? Would they survive the 500 gallons per minute of water that the fire trucks pump in from each hose?

Electronic vs. paper

Old school we would recommend that you go down to the copy shop and make a photocopy of all of your most important documents.   With technology today you may want to consider electronic copies of everything. Just remember that in a large scale disaster, you may have limited access to the Internet, cell phone data may or may not work, and the ability to charge your phone may become very limited.  I have been in more than one Red Cross shelter where in order to avoid blowing circuits, charging cell phones was not allowed.

Another important document would be some form of ID.  I recommend a copy of your passport, drivers license, or other photo ID.  It may not work as a form of identification but it sure will help when you are working with the authorities to try to get back into your home or to try to get replacement identification.

Contact info

And like it or not another one that you should probably have in the kit is contact information for your life insurance company and agent.  Note that you do not need copies of the entire policy. Contact information for the agents and the company names are usually enough.

While I and doing the paperwork we always add an Emergency Contact List.  This of course will list our all important out of state emergency family contact with email and phone number but also list the family doctor, dentist and other medical professionals.  We also list family friends and work numbers we will need to contact in an emergency.

One more addition we feel will be very helpful is a photo of all your medications or prescriptions.  In a crunch you may need to provide that information to a professional so they can assist you in obtaining refills.

Meeting your needs

This is not a comprehensive list of all the documents that need to be in your kit.  Think about your family and the individual situation. What are the important papers or documents that if lost would really make your life difficult.  Those are the ones that you need copies of in your kit. I used to keep all of mine in a plastic bag in the top of my backpack. Today they are in an encrypted file on my phone with a backup on an old thumb drive.  My recommendation, do what you are most comfortable with, just make sure you can get to those important files when you need them.

 

Lessons after Hurricane Katrina

In the aftermath of Katrina

As I drove through the streets of Waveland after Hurricane Katrina, I noticed a stark difference between different neighborhoods and sometimes even house to house.  The circumstances were often the same. Two families. Both of them living in what was left of a partially destroyed home. No electricity, no running water, no food, often no utilities of any type.   The roof was ripped off half of the house and a rain storm expected tomorrow.

What was different was that at one house there would be hopelessness.  A lack of direction and no plan for what might come next. We would arrive at their door and they would gladly accept any help we could give but would often have no idea even what to ask for.  We would have to remind them that they needed such basics as water, food, or medicine. It was not that these people did not know. They were in shock and were not thinking clearly and we disaster responders spent a lot of time helping them sort out and formulate a plan for survival.

While the family next door would be full of hope and anticipation.  We would arrive and they would often answer the door and say, “We are just fine.  Go find people who really need help. We will survive.”

We would point out that they were almost out of food, water, or some other essential and they would often say “But we still have some and we will send for help when we need more.”  We would explain that we were the help and restock their supplies, often forcing on them more than they wanted to accept. They were more worried about their neighbors. Many of these homes had already moved the neighbors in and were sharing the meager supplies they had.

There was a night and day difference between the two homes.  Sometimes neighbors. And a distinct pattern quickly became very clear.  Those families or neighborhoods who had invested a little bit of time into preparation for a disaster were consistently in far better shape both physically and mentally than those who made no plans.  

What made the difference?

As I visited many other disasters over the years, I started looking into this in more detail to see if there was one key factor that seemed to make the difference to those that were all but falling apart and those that were acting like this was an unplanned family campout.  What I discovered was simple. In nearly every case the difference was a few minutes of planning. That forethought to put together a few items in a safe place, set a family meeting spot, and discuss openly the what if scenarios with the family. 

It did not seem to matter what kind of 72 hour kit they had.  Some called it a bug-out bag. To others it was the bucket of stuff that they hoped never to us.  To most it represented a few hours of discussion and a small investment into a few items they decided they could not live without.

Why 72 hours? 

In the event of almost any real emergency or large scale disaster, 72 hours is roughly the amount of time that you can expect it to take before you see any help from anyone outside your immediate neighbors.  In a typical disaster, the phone system will be overwhelmed and go offline in minutes. What few services do work will be rerouted and devoted to emergency response.

If a large earthquake hits Salt Lake and Utah Counties, there are a few things you should expect.  Local 911 services will be offline or busy for days. Response time from fire and police will likely be non-existent in residential neighborhoods for at least 3 to 5 days.

The local Red Cross office will immediately activate, but the majority of their local volunteers may be busy taking care of their own families.  The National Red Cross and many other organizations will respond, but it will take about 72 hours before any real presence will be noticed.  The more rural you are, the longer it may be before you see anyone.

Local hospitals and medical services will recall all their staff, but an estimated 30% may be unable to respond.  The same goes for police and fire although the numbers were much worse after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

What can you do?

The bottom line is, in a large disaster you must assume that you are on your own for the first 72 hours.  Longer if you are not in a large city. Roads in Utah are likely to be impassable. Estimates are that it could take as long as a day for each 15 minutes of drive time for your commute to get home.  That means that a drive to the Salt Lake airport from Orem in the initial days after a major earthquake could take three days.

Put some thought into this.  Talk with your family. Formulate a plan.  What would you do if the earthquake happens during the day while everyone is at work or school?  What about evenings or weekends? Do you need to keep your 72 hour kit in your car instead of at home?

I have seen a lot of disasters.  I have seen a lot of people survive and live to tell the tale.  With just a few moments of thought and preparation and a few items stored in a bag in the garage, the stress level of a disaster can be moved from barely scraping by to that of an extended family camp out.

72 hours is roughly the amount of time that you can expect it to take before you see any help from anyone