Crowbar, duct tape and toilet paper: Emergency Survival of the Fittest

I was rather psyched - finally, after 8 years living in CA I finally felt my first earthquake. There were others since I came here but I never felt them. This time I did.
And I am not worried any more about whether I am prepared in case I have to camp out one night - because I AM.
And I found that preparation isn't really difficult at all. I actually wrote an article about it two weeks ago. And since it is so topical now, perhaps you'll find it helpful, too:

The recent anniversary of hurricane Katrina brought the expected media deluge of images of human suffering and despair. I felt all the appropriate emotions: pity for those caught by the floods in New Orleans, horror at the images of suffering. I also felt some utterly inappropriate ones, a lot less noble and quite unacknowledged in the murky corners of my mind: a certain disdain for the victims. A real embarrassing and never to be admitted to feeling of sneaky superiority to those people stuck on their rooftops in despair. How could those guys not have known what might happen? Hadn’t the papers written about the possibility of a dramatic dike failure? Why didn’t anybody have any supplies to let them fend for themselves for a few days until help would arrive? Unfortunately right then an even more unpleasant thought assaulted me. Don’t the papers here in California tell us to have an emergency plan and supplies in place for when the big one hits, the monster earthquake that will flatten everything along the San Andreas fault? Don’t we get lectured on a regular base about the need to prepare for that? Now I don’t know about your earthquake preparedness kit, but mine died in the planning stage several years ago.

However, all this has now changed, after my epiphany over my sad state of unreadiness and a few hours work on actually changing it to readiness. I am now set on spreading the good news on how easy and cheap it is to have a basic survival kit that will see you though a couple of days without help, so no one will ever look at your suffering with ignorant disdain.

I won’t give you any good advice on preparing your home - I can’t even cover half of what you should do, and admit it, you would tune out anyway. You have heard it all before. But read on just a little longer. A lot of your waking hours are actually spent away from home anyway, aren’t they? You drive the kids to school, you go shopping, you drive to work – and outside your home you have very little control once the major earthquake we’re all waiting for or any other catastrophe strikes. But – what is always with you when you are away from home? No, not your cell phone. I am talking about your car. When the big one hits, your cell will be useless anyway, the transmitters down and the network overloaded; your car on the other hand is an asset – people have been known to live in these! A great plus of a car is its accessibility. However house-shattering an earthquake may get, if your neighborhood looks anything like mine, no car is ever parked inside the garage anyway. Garages are filled with stuff. The cars are parked outside on the curb. Or in a parking lot at the mall or at work. Wherever they are parked, however, they are easy to get to even if the city around you has collapsed. So what better spot to be storing your emergency kit than in the trunk of your car? Your car will always be in walking distance wherever you are in case of any emergency.

Now that we agree that your car trunk is the optimal location for your emergency kit, let me reassure you that this kit will not cost you an arm and a leg; you can get started for probably something like fifty dollar and go up to as much as one hundred dollars, but that should be about it. Of course, if you get into the spirit of the whole thing, the sky’s the limit. Nor will you have to spend hours and hours at specialty stores to get what you need. You already own a lot of the supplies you’ll need, and most of the rest you can buy on your normal shopping trips. Your survival kit will only cost you a couple of hours and less than a hundred bucks! That doesn’t sound too daunting, now does it? So let’s get started.

Your car kit needs to supply you with the necessities of the four basic areas of survival. You might very well not need all of it since emergencies come in different levels of seriousness, but you should be prepared for the worst, just in case. If a horrible traffic snag strands you on the road (as happened to many people after the Loam Prieta earthquake) you have the choice of spending a night in your car or walk home ten miles and you can just decide what you’ll need from the kit and leave the rest behind. Stay in the car and have a nice blanket and some food and water, or walk home and have a pair of walking shoes, a flash light and water. It’s your decision, but you will be prepared.

The most immediate concern is first aid and basic medical care, for both yourself and others since bleeding to death just doesn’t seem a smart move. Once any injuries are taken care of, helping others in need of some excavation or other assistance might be the neighborly thing to do. Next, just to be able to extend your good deeds into the future, you need to keep your strength up, so drink and food need to be addressed. Finally, as the disaster in New Orleans has shown us, you cannot rely on help to show up the very next day, it might well be days before the help you deserve actually arrives – so we need to discuss what you should have to get you through this week.

Your emergency kit will be housed in a backpack. Don’t get one for professional backpackers. You will have no problems putting more and more survival stuff in it; but trust me, you don’t stand the slightest chance of even lugging it to your car after you finished filling it. In this case less is more. I dug through my garage and found a nice old college backpack, ugly as sin but fully functional and completely free. And I found that even when I overstuff it, I am still just about able to put it on my back and fool myself into thinking I could carry it for a few miles. I am sure many of you have some of those backpacks stacked away somewhere as well. If you are actually organized and get rid of unused stuff, a new backpack will set you back about $10 at Ross or Walmart. This is your starting point

First of all, you will need a roll of duct tape (and a cheap pair of scissors to cut it) for survival. It can be useful in all areas of survival (well, probably not for sustenance or toilet paper). Duct-tape a paper towel over a wound dressing if you’re out of bandages. Attach a splint to a broken limb. Make a rope. Make a substitute shoelace. Fix a broken strap on your backpack. Go get some duct tape.

Now for the preparations for your health: Once the big one hits, you can easily be hurt, by things falling on top of you to you falling on top of things. Seemingly innocent everyday items can prove very damaging to your health, from windows turning shards to anything on a desk turning projectile. How are you going to take care of those cuts, scratches, bruises, perhaps even broken bones? The first aid kit in your car? If the damage is much worse than a paper cut on your finger or a splinter, not likely. Have you ever even looked into that thing? Nothing in there is big enough to deal with a wound that is bigger than an inch. The extra supplies for first aid are the most expensive items on your list, but since they are among the most important I would not suggest cutting corners here.

- Latex gloves for your own protection.

- Moist wipes, hand sanitizer to clean yourself up before you touch wounds!

- Scissors, tweezers, needle and thread, a selection of safety pins - kind of self-explanatory.

- Disinfectant to clean and disinfect any wound or scratch: Rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide. Another great choice is a bottle Listerine (which contains about 27% alcohol – it IS an antiseptic), you can even rinse your mouth with it!

- Triple antibiotic ointment to put on wounds to avoid infection.

- Gauze pads (3”x3” and 4”x4”), at least 10 each to clean wounds and to dress them before bandaging.

- Self-adhesive bandages (2” / 4”), First Aid Tape – somehow you’ll have to fix the wound dressing to the patient.

- Saline solution to wash out dirt and dust from eyes and nose.

- Painkillers – a bottle of the strongest money can buy over the counter, perhaps even two different ones. Even if you are not hurt in the quake, the stress afterwards should be enough to give you headaches.

- Sunscreen is a must, especially here – getting sunburn on top of everything else just couldn’t be borne.

- A First Aid booklet may be a good idea for all those of us whose exposure to a first aid course lies so far in the past that we cannot even remember ever having taken one. You can download free ones from the internet, and I suspect the Red Cross and your insurance agent have some copies lying around somewhere as well, likely yours for the asking.

- Finally, everyone who needs real medication for a serious condition should have at least one week supply packed. You will likely not need your high cholesterol pills that you take as a preventive drug, but if you take pills for high blood pressure after a heart attack, put some in your emergency kit.

I had some of this stuff at home – extra tweezers, some old scissors, needles and thread as well as safety pins as well as some gloves and hand sanitizer as well as a choice of painkillers (what can I say, I am a packrat), but for the rest I had to actually go out to my local Rite-Aid to buy it. I paid about $35 for the lot. As everyone knows, health doesn’t come cheap.

Now for the preparations to be a good citizens and neighbor: You have taken care of all damage to your precious self (and of everyone else who happened to be with you), it is now time to extend some help to less fortunate people around you. Perhaps somebody is trapped under a bit of fallen furniture or inside a building and calling for help? You are prepared:

- Crowbar – yes, you read right. A burglars’ preferred tool is most helpful in this situation. Not too long (remember, you’ll have to carry it), about 20” it will be invaluable to jack up obstacles, use it as a lever when you would never be strong enough! Just keep it close to the other emergency stuff, in case the police ever check your car.

- Work gloves of the professional persuasion, heavy duty with reinforced pads and fingers so helping others won’t injure your hands. Don’t do anything without them!

- Dust masks are useful when helping others happens in a cloud of dust. Doubling over coughing will reduce your usefulness.

- Emergency flash lights are most helpful to find one’s way through dark places searching for the person who is calling for help. Personally, I’d advise one of those hand-cranked lights that don’t need batteries, but they usually cost at least twenty dollars. I gave them a miss just now and settled for a cheap one with batteries. For those in search of perfection in emergency preparedness it might be a good idea to carry a multipurpose crank light that also serves as a radio and a solar charger for your cell and more!. I can personally attest to the existence of such a thing but I felt I can wait a bit longer before I spend fifty dollars on this.

- A pocket knife, especially when kept in your pocket, can be most helpful if you need to cut something in a pinch – a stuck shirt on someone you are dragging to safety, a cord that might be handy for a tourniquet. The knife doesn’t have to be fancy, but don’t go for the absolutely cheapest model money can be wasted on. You usually get what you pay for.

Helping other proved to be surprisingly cheap, at least as far as supplies are concerned. I paid less than ten dollars for all the supplies I had to buy, although I did own a pocket knife. I did go on the cheap as well – a battery-powered flash light that I will probably exchange for a hand-crank style next time I worry about earthquakes.

Now we come to the heaviest part of survival – food and drink. Actually, drink. We can go for a long time without food (and most of us should probably do it sometime soon), so food isn’t critical in our kit preparation. Water is critical, and since a human being needs 40 to 48 oz a day to survive, packing enough for only two days adds about six pounds. Your emergency kit will see you through the first two to three days and give you time to find other sources of water and protect you against waterborne diseases.

- Bottled water is heavy, but still, take at least six 16 oz bottles, enough for two days.

- Drinking Water Germicidal Tablets are necessary to sterilize water once you have finished your own supply and need to ensure that water from other sources won’t make you sick.

- Food is a rather boring affair – cheap, long-lasting, edible without preparation and not too heavy is the requirement. My selection of treats contains 4 cans of sardines in oil (with a build-in opener – you really want to pay attention to this detail), four very light packs of cookies that I am sure will taste even worse in 6 month than they do now (like hardtack but less appealing), a vacuum-sealed can of nuts and a bag of hard candy – about enough for three days if you are a woman used to diets. Everyone else will be very hungry on this.

This rather important part of survival preparation was also the cheapest. Bottled water doesn’t cost much, although I would strongly advise you to use solid bottles made of durable plastic so you don’t get precious water ruining the other supplies in your backpack.. High-caloric canned food and canned nuts are cheap. I spent about ten bucks on the lot.

The rest of your emergency supplies are probably also of the least immediate importance, they will, however, keep you feeling like a human being and increase your chances at survival beyond the first 24 hours until such time as help is coming. Do not cut this part out:

- A blanket is always a good thing to have in your car, so throw in on the backseat and leave it there. Any old thing will do, so root around your garage and cabinets and I am sure you’ll find something that would work. When needed the blanket can be fixed to the backpack, with duct tape if necessary.

- A “space bag”, a human-size, silver-coated plastic bag that retains body heat. I got mine from my insurance agent with her best wishes, but they are generally cheap, just a few bucks. So even if the big one happens in midwinter, you should keep warm enough.

- Tealights and a lighter/matches give you a little light and heat in the evening or may help start a fire, so carry them if just for the comfort value they may provide.

- A change of clothes is advisable – spending days upon days in the same filthy, smelly and perhaps ripped clothes would not help your state of mind. I selected mine from clothes I dug out of my goodwill bag – pants, a warm shirt, a t-shirt, 2 pair of underpants and socks each and a pair of old and ugly but comfortable sneakers. The pants and sneakers are especially advisable for women – personally, I’d hate to get caught by the big one, stuck some 30 miles away from home in a skirt and heels. A cap of some sort might also be a good idea, protection against a sunstroke is necessary in California

- A “hygiene-kit” is of utmost importance – have you ever given any thought to what you would do if you felt the call of nature somewhere in a collapsed business park? There really aren’t enough big leaves around when you need them. So a roll of toilet paper is a must, even if it takes up a lot of space packing. A travel toothbrush/toothpaste pack is nice to at least feel like you haven’t gone to seed yet as you await rescue, and some cream to put on your hands and face might also help with this. Vaseline is a good suggestion – cheap and it lasts forever. And for all women preparing their kit, don’t forget to pack some feminine hygiene products. We all know that our period always starts when it’s least convenient.

- A pack of cards or a small and hard-to-read book would be another valuable addition to the pack if you have any space left. They aren’t necessary for survival, but they can sure help pass the time as you are waiting for the cavalry to arrive. Just imagine yourself sitting in the back garden of your home, staring at the ruins of your house and surrounded by your family, all scared, hungry and bored. Doesn’t a game of solitaire sound good all of a sudden? Or a round of poker with the family?

As you can see, there is a lot of leeway in the different areas – if you are good at first aid, more bandages and first aid material might be a good idea whatever the cost, and you’d probably already know what to get. If you are more hands-on you might decide to also pack a collapsible shovel (yes, those things exist. It surprised me, too) to help your neighbors. Somebody else (with more money) might rather pack less water but add a Katadyn travel filter and sterilize his drinking water on the go, and some others might decide to buy high-caloric emergency food instead of sardines. Whatever you do, keep in mind that you will have to carry all this stuff. Don’t overdo it and remember that what you want is enough to keep you going until you get home or for a few days until help arrives. You area not preparing for a camping holiday – that’s too heavy an endeavor for most of us.

The one final thing to remember is this: This is the emergency pack for one person. So if you carry your two kids around in your car all the time, you need three packs. Cutting corners here will not pay – when you need this stuff, you really need it. And come on, considering the price of the car, or even worse, the money those kids have cost you so far, are those extra emergency packs really going to make a difference? Do it, and you’ll feel better. I certainly did. Actually, I now feel sure I am a superior being, thanks to my state of preparedness. I had not realized when I started this project that this feeling could be bought so cheaply. I’d strongly recommend it to you.