Last night, I was online when the quake hit Japan. I got the notice through Facebook and immediately switched to Twitter for real-time updates. We turned on TV for coverage and watched in horror with the rest of the world. A tweet from my friend in Christchurch expressed concern for the Japanese aid workers who had just left her city and returned home, only to face more devastation.
All night, I was plagued by dreams of disasters, natural and otherwise.
Living in Victoria, I hear about disaster preparedness (and especially earthquake prep.) ALL the time. You may think I exaggerate but, seriously, I hear about it at least twice a week through media, poster campaigns, workplace campaigns or friends and family. Every blip on the Richter scale is likely to cause the local TV stations to pull out their stock footage and drive up the peninsula to talk to an expert.
As I work on a campus where there are several thousand people in a smallish area most of the time, staff here are also hyper-alert. We participated in the Great Shake-Out earlier this year and we all have emergency kits at our desks (heavy duty gloves to more easily pick our way through the debris, emergency blankets, a large plastic garbage bag/rain poncho, a 12-hour chemical light stick (though mine expired in 2007), a dust mask, tissues, plastic bandages and gauze) and most staff have a stash of granola bars or similar somewhere in or near their desk.
So, ask me: am I prepared?
Not really. I used to have a kit that we kept in the hall closet, nearest the front door of our townhouse. I cleared the food from there before we moved and have not yet replenished it (but I totally meant to). We have talked about other preparations — where to store water, food, and emergency supplies; who our out-of-town contact should be in case of a disaster (i.e. somewhere we can report in, even if we can’t contact each other); and Kiddo even knows a secret password in case we have to send someone we trust to pick her up. It seems like so many other things, emergency preparedness is still on the “plan to” list. It clearly needs to move off there and be done.
Some links in case you want (need!) to do the same thing:
- Provincial Emergency Program, Hazard Preparedness
- Family Emergency Plan — Government of Canada
- Columbia Fire and Safety (for first aid and survival kits)
- “Preparing your earthquake survival kit” — LA Times
Remember to think about your pets and their safety, too.
The thing that bugs me about a lot of disaster preparedness posters I’ve seen is that they tell you to prepare, but not *how*. There’s a dramatic photo or image, meant to scare you, but no list of essential items in a disaster kit. Obviously an Internet search can yield these items, but I wonder at the utility of the scare strategy.
The government could do more to help ensure that people are prepared. For example, making kit starter lists available at grocery, hardware and department stores (they do this in Northern Europe and Japan, I remember reading somewhere).
It would also be good to maybe make preparedness part of the ongoing licensing requirements for Victoria and Vancouver businesses (although I can just imagine the squalling about government interference, etc).
Tim, if you go to any Canadian Tire or Home Hardware, they have people there who are trained to help you in buying for an emergency kit. I have replenished both our home and our son’s Aikido dojo with the help of these people and all within certain budgets.
I agree that earthquake/disaster preparedness kits could be more readily available, or shopping lists to make your own. Thanks for the tip about an out of town contact, I haven’t heard that one before… good idea. Hopefully we never have to use it.
For one who thinks about disaster as much as I do, I’m really not prepared very well. We need to stock up on a bunch of stuff, and have plans in place. Big events are always a good reminder, but following through is rather important…
I can’t believe how bad it has gotten in Japan. Anyone who lives near a fault line should pick up some emergency supplies for the future. There are lots of sites like http://www.buyearthquakekit.com where you can pick up some basic supplies that might save your life. Thoughts and prayers to those in Japan.