original cynk

Earthquakes will happen, and there will be another big one soon, where buildings will collapse and people will be hurt and killed. At a nearly perverse level, I’ve been preparing for awhile. Perhaps this is because I grew up in a suburb (surrounded by paranoid parents frantically worrying about all the disasters that can befall their kids), or perhaps it’s because I have a weird affinity towards brainstorming edge cases (and sadly, this isn’t constrained to my shrinking world of coding), or perhaps it’s because the most brilliant quote I’ve heard from a minister is “Preparation is an assault on Murphy’s Law” (and I swear, Murphy has a personal vendetta against me), or perhaps it’s because I’ve been coached by my family, who’ve been here in San Francisco for generations, on various preparation must-do’s.

Whatever it may be, it scares me how unprepared my friends are. Oui, I mean you. When the next big earthquake occurs, the following will happen to someone:

• the building you’re in- home, office, friend’s place, random shop- will collapse.
• even if it doesn’t collapse, everything inside will topple over, trapping people and blocking exits.
• there will be fires.
• there will not be enough rescue crews so no one will come immediately.
• you’ll have to survive on your own without electricity, water, food, shelter, or any clothing or shoes beyond what you’re wearing. It will get very dark.
• you’ll have no way of contacting others or hearing news.

Not pretty, eh? Fortunately, there are a ton of resources out there on preparing for this sort of thing, including the must-see 72hours.org site, put together by the city of San Francisco (which includes a convenient pdf version too). You really must do everything listed here. And you have to start somewhere. So here are what I consider the top 10 must-do-right-now tips for my wonderful albeit precariously unprotected friends:

1. Put together a “Go Bag”, aka a disaster pack, and leave it somewhere easily accessible. A Go Bag is a pack of critical items that you can grab and take with you as you run outside after the earthquake stops. 72hours has a checklist of what should be in it, including food/water/first-aid/backup-glasses, cash, warm clothes, boots, flashlight, and extra keys. I’d also add a charged backup phone (especially for iPhone users- you can reuse the SIM, although the data plan won’t work. And a paperclip to extract the SIM), as well as an umbrella.
2. Store disaster supplies in your car. If your house is badly damaged or you’re driving somewhere and get trapped, your car will become your home. Store another Go Bag (or at least the supplies in it) there. This is part of the reason I have an SUV- I can live in it and drive on anything if need be. These items should already be in the car of anyone driving in snow country. Also, try to park in places where your car will be accessible if buildings start falling (yep, that usually means the street). Bonus tip: I store my camping supplies- such as sleeping bags, tents, and stoves- in easily accessible tubs near my garage entrance, just in case I can grab those quickly too.
3. Keep your car gassed. During the NYC blackouts, most driving stalled since the gas stations- now mostly run on electricity- couldn’t pump gas. If you need to flee fast, including in the case of a terrorist attack, have enough gas in your car to get somewhere far, hopefully including a working gas station that isn’t emptied out.
4. Send family and close friends key information. The worst thing you can do to people who love you in the case of an emergency is to not give them the means to communicate or help. Say you get badly hurt and your friend took you to the hospital. They start asking your friend about your insurance information, medical history, reaching the parents (since friends aren’t allowed in the OR or told confidential medical info, such as the diagnosis). What can your friend do? Recently, I had to go through this (fortunately (!) my friend is okay), and it was scary as sh*t. If we didn’t happen across her phone (fortunately (!) unlocked), and figure out how to call her dad (to then call the doctor), we wouldn’t have been told what was wrong with her, why she was in the ICU, and she could have died without her family even knowing something was wrong.
5. Have a non-California SMS contact where you can say “I’m okay and am at…”. In an emergency, the cell-towers will become overloaded. SMS messages have more luck getting through than phone calls. Presume you can only get one through the craziness- make sure it goes to the most critical person who can then tell everyone else what’s going on, and arrange to get you help.
6. Sign-up for emergency alerts. San Francisco put together an amazing free service called AlertSF which will send you txt messages of emergencies and what to do. If you don’t have a TV, radio, internet connection, or a working phone line, this could become your only source of information of “what’s happening”, nearby shelters, and areas to avoid.
7. Store key documents in a deposit box and in a fireproof safe. If your house collapses, catches fire, and burns to the ground, that is not the time to think, “D’oh! I forgot my wallet!”. Especially during disasters, you’re going to need cash and credit cards, id, and medical information. Afterwards, you’re going to want to prove you had insurance and what you lost. Put all those documents somewhere safe from fires and water (putting documents inside ziploc bags in that fireproof safe will guard them from the water used to put out the fire).
8. Secure all heavy and precarious items at home and work. That bookcase is going to fall over, that mirror is going to crash and break everywhere, that poster will fall off the wall and shatter, and that TV will fall over and explode. Look around you, especially your bed and desk, and make sure there’s nothing that can fall on you. Also, minimize unsecured glass items to reduce tiny shards everywhere (yeah, that vacuum won’t work right then. Accept it and move on). This includes using putty on the base of figurines or vases, reducing how much glass you hang on the walls, and putting latches on kitchen cabinets.
9. Know how to act during an earthquake, especially how you should crouch under a desk away from windows or mirrors, and do not run outside until the shaking has stopped. Since so many people in California grew up in other states, many are unfamiliar with basic earthquake drills and could instinctively do the worst thing, such as run through spots where things from the roof will drop on your head. Once again, 72hours has a list of what you should do.
10. Know your area: fire stations, hospitals, police stations, routes that don’t use bridges, the seismically unsafe areas. In the silence after a disaster, you’re going to want to go to where you can get help and information. Know where your local emergency services are. Also, know where not to go, such as routes that rely on bridges (I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not go on one after it’s been shaken like a polaroid picture) or seismic liquifaction zones (look ma! quicksand!). Here’s a USGS map that shows what areas of San Francisco are the most prone to liquifaction and will also probably be the most prone to collapsed buildings, fires, and exhausted emergency crews.

Apologies for the Chicken Little tone here, but I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous things will get when the next Big One hits. Doing just a bit of preparation now will not only make things much easier when you most need it, but it will also increase your chances of survival. Please please please prepare! (And don’t make me drive over hell and high water in my SUV to rescue you. ;-D )