Because the community of Joyce expects to be isolated after a catastrophic earthquake, everyone needs to prepare to shelter in place. The community will be cut off from outside assistance for several weeks by landslides to the south and west and bridge failures over the Elwha River. Since mutual assistance from the rest of the United States may take a month to get here, every household need to have supplies for at least 30 days. Click here to open the document "Top Seven Things You Need for Sheltering in Place," by Jim Cobb's survivalweekly.com/ website. The following information was presented to the Joyce community by Jim Buck on behalf of JEPP.
Access Your Shelter
You need to assess your house to see if it is safe to stay in. There will be aftershocks that could cause further damage and unsafe conditions. If the house is severely damaged and unsafe, you will need to secure another shelter. At best, you might be able to salvage materials from your damaged house to construct an emergency shelter, and you may be able to recover essential survival supplies. You might still be able to shelter on the property in a camper or out building. If your house is lightly damaged and safe, you might consider cleaning up the rooms, putting plastic on the windows, fixing the chimney and shoring up the structure so you can stay in it until help arrives. Click here for a news story about how to assess your house for damage following an earthquake.
Repair Your Shelter
You will need to make sure your house is safe from aftershocks and other hazards before you can move back in. Unsafe conditions include partially collapsed masonry chimneys, façades and walls. Also look for items that can fall on you such as cabinets, pictures, ceiling panels, lighting fixtures and game heads. Repairs can be done in stages. Pick one room that will provide safe shelter from wind, rain and inclement weather. Remove the hazards. Perform any needed shoring and carpentry activities. If necessary, place tarps over the roof to stop leaks and cover the windows with transparent plastic. Once you have a secure place you can branch to other parts of the home to improve your position. There will be little else to do during the first few days after the quake. The home will need to be examined after each aftershock to make sure weakened and damaged walls, ceilings and roofs are still safe. Make sure you have all supplies on hand as you won't be able to purchase any after the quake.
Items Handy for Repair
Handy items to have in your emergency stash include plumbers tape. This stuff is very effective for making temporary repairs to walls and ceilings. Tarps and plastic are great for fixing roofs, patching windows and building emergency structures. Timberlock screws are magic for joining broken structural members or building strong frames. You will need a charged electric screw driver to use these or a good socket wrench. Plastic snap ties with duct tape are legendary in emergencies for everything from fixing airplane wings to bandages.
Clean Up Your Shelter
As soon as you are finished repairing your “house,” you need to thoroughly clean and disinfect it. We all have plenty of forgotten brooms, soap, gloves and bags stashed in a closet or the garage. Disinfection is particularly important. Routine medical care for cuts, colds, flu and intestinal problems may not be available after the quake. Medical services might have to be reserved for more serious conditions. You can eliminate these problems by keeping the house clean. Shelter procedures call for washing down walls, floors, furniture and equipment daily. You should do this too. Be sure to clean up all the sawdust, glass, insulation and any other trash in your “house.” You must eliminate all items that could injure you or make you sick. Dispose of your trash/rubble in heavy duty plastic trash bags and keep them in a location where they will be in tact when trash collection resumes.
Camping in Your Home
Tents can be pitched inside houses. Pick a room under a good roof with a dry floor and a southern exposure that will keep the room and tent warm during the day. The tent is protected from the wind, rain, snow and frost by the structure. An enterprising person might place a mattress or some other cover between the floor and tent for insulation (only works if it is dry and will stay dry). This place would be the heart of your shelter. It minimizes the space you need keep warm to survive. It is much more efficient than trying to heat a room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The central location would allow you to rest comfortably while you work to move back into the rest of your house.
Click here to access two useful slide presentations: "Camping in Your House" and "30 Days on Your Own."
Warming Your Bed
Night caps and night gowns would be helpful (a linen sleeping bag liner can substitute for a night gown). The liner and the hat allow a sleeper to be comfortable in temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the lowest temperature rating for the sleeping bag. Most human heat loss comes from the head, hands and feet. A cap, gloves and socks limit the heat loss and a scarf around the middle is also helpful. If extremely cold, hot water bottles and purpose-built and safe bed warmers containing hot coals from the fire might help. Snuggling up to dogs can provide a bed warming effect.
Water Purification
The American Red Cross says each of us needs about 1 gallon of water a day to survive. FEMA predicts that most water systems in western Washington will be put out of action by a Cascadia earthquake. About 1/3 of the region’s water treatment capacity may be restored when the power comes back on, and that may take up to a year. The rest will have to be rebuilt. History is filled with stories of epidemics which occur after natural disasters because the water supply is tainted. Experience from the Christ Church New Zealand quakes shows damage to sewer lines contaminated the streets and streams throughout the town. There will be few sources of uncontaminated water so you need to plan to purify your own drinking water. Click here to view ...
Food Supplies
Government contingency plans for the earthquake tell us we must be prepared to be on our own for 30 days. The Red Cross recommends each person consume a minimum of 2,200 calories per day. You will want about 1 pound of food per meal or 90 pounds of food per person for the month. Information is readily available about pricing for emergency foods. When times are tough, good food has always been used as a morale booster. A catastrophic earthquake event will likely be the toughest time most of us will ever deal with, so make sure your stash has comfort foods. Popcorn, candy, chocolate are treats that lighten the mood and lift the spirit. Spirits are good to have on hand for the adults too. Click here for information about ...
Cooking
If you are camping in your house you will probably want to cook and eat inside. But under no circumstances burn charcoal or use camp stoves inside of a structure of any kind, including tents. Charcoal releases large amounts of carbon monoxide gas. It’s odorless and colorless and may kill you. It’s safer to cook outside unless you have a wood stove or fireplace that can be adapted for cooking. You already have all the utensils you need in the kitchen.
Get a camp stove with enough fuel to fit your needs. Pick a fuel with a long shelf life. Set it up on a secure table or counter. Cooking outdoors on a camp stove is not much different than using a kitchen stove. If you find a need to cook outdoors for a long period, plan on building an improved cooking area. Oven/refrigerator metal grills can be used over a fire. Dutch ovens will come in handy and are worth the time and effort to learn about. Cooking outdoors over a fire takes a little getting used to but goes on all over the world every day. Make sure you’ve secured your propane tank(s) if you plan to use the fuel remaining.
Bathroom and Waste Disposal
You need to think about what you are going to do with your waste after the earthquake. Christ Church, New Zealand and Haiti experienced extreme sanitation problems after their earthquakes that led to life threatening disease outbreaks. There is no getting around the fact that each of us passes about 1/2 gallon of urine and 1 pound of feces a day. No flush water; no working sewer system. Broken sewer pipes will complicate your problem.
JEPP recommends using a commode seat similar to use in hospitals over a 5 gallon bucket. You need one for poo and one for pee. Keeping them separate keeps the smell down. The waste collected in the 5 gallon buckets and can be disposed of in your septic tanks by removing the tank lid. Open the top of the septic tank and poor the waste into the tank. This works well for gravity systems. The seepage will filter out to the drain fields as it normally would. Be sure to add water to the septic tank to make up for the lack of toilet flushing. But you will have to pump the tank into the drain field if you have an up-pump system. Septic systems with lift pumps may have to be pumped several times a day using generator power. It is essential that nothing go in the septic but waste and toilet paper to avoid plugging the drain field.
If you don’t have a septic system, there is a different way to deal with the waste. This involves dry composting. Urine and feces are collected in separate buckets. This limits unpleasant odors. The feces is placed in a heavy duty trash bag and mixed with an equal part of sawdust, peat moss, or wood chips. Store the bag in a sheltered place until it can be collected. Urine can be disposed of in a designated place in your garden or neighborhood.
Personal Hygiene
Personal hygiene will be especially important because there will be little medical care available. Baby wipes and paper towels may come in handy. These items along with sanitary napkins/tampons and diapers must not be disposed of in the septic tanks. A good supply of toilet paper will go a long way toward improving your post-earthquake camping experience. Have plans in place for what you will do when you run out.
Light, Heat and Fuel
A group of Joyce (JEPP) volunteers spent hours discussing ways to provide light, heat and fuel for the Joyce emergency shelter. FEMA advised that we can expect to be without electricity from the grid for up to a year. They also advised that we could expect no fuel resupply for 1 month. We concluded that the least cost and most efficient solution was to rely on proven low tech equipment like candles, kerosene lanterns and heaters. Gasoline, diesel and kerosene will be available when the military arrives. Low tech avoids costly investments in lighting systems that rely on batteries, solar or fuels that cannot be stored for long periods. A kerosene lantern uses ½ ounce of kerosene per hour and does not have a mantle that will break during an aftershock. It also provides a small amount of heat. Be sure to protect it from aftershocks.
Be sure to set your fire in a safe place. Fire can be your friend or deadly enemy after the earthquake. Fire fighting resources will be very limited because of damaged fire houses, water lines and access problems from broken roads. It may be impossible for apparatus to reach you. You must be prepared to protect your house from fire. Be sure to have several fire extinguishers and know how to use them.
Optional Equipment
You can buy plenty of other pieces of survival equipment to improve your earthquake camping experience. Can openers and small, pocket-sized "church keys" are necessities. Tarps, batteries, wind up radios and flashlights are handy. Batteries do have a shelf life and will not keep forever. AM/FM radios are good things to have. The county will make special efforts to get local radio stations running. They will provide you with news and information about to improve your earthquake camping experience. The wind-up ones work well. Family short wave radios are handy but depend on batteries. You need to practice using them often so remember how they work when you need them.
Caring for Pets
Our pets are like our kids. They provide a lot of comfort, entertainment and company. They will be frightened after the earthquake, just like us. They can provide a great morale boost in our time of need but you must plan to care of them by giving thought in advance to how you can ensure you help one another survive the emergency.