I've lived in urban centres for most of my life. If I wasn't interested in backcountry camping or cycle touring, I don't think I would have ever thought about emergency planning and how important it is until I moved to a rural area.
I assume that many of my comrades are in the same boat. Perhaps some of us were shaken by COVID lockdowns/supply chain interruptions, or political instability/violence in our own countries.
Planning for emergencies can be scary, because it means recognizing that things can go wrong. It can also be very expensive if you buy fancy kits made to profit from people's fear.
I thought it might be interesting and helpful to discuss emergency planning and work our way up to discussing short term emergency kits (which are highly individual and dependent on what emergencies you may face and your plans).
I don't intend for this to be about long term emergencies, societal collapse, or they kind of topic you might talk about if you are discussing survivalism or being a "prepper". I'm hoping this thread can help people who want to know how to start and for people who are more established to help out.
Some main features of an emergency plan include:
- What are the different emergencies you are likely to face and what might the result of them be? (e.g. ice storm - no electricity for a few days in cold weather)
- How will you contact your household?
- How will you get news or information about the situation?
- Do you have someone outside of the immediate area you can contact to let them know you are okay or to get information from about outside of the emergency?
- Under what situations would you stay where you are, go home, go to an evacuation site? Do you have a meeting place for emergencies if there is no telecommunications? Where are evacuation sites likely to be in your area?
- How does accessibility of your household factor into the above? Do any members have needs that must be taken into account?
- What routes are there to the above places and how would you choose which one to take?
- Do you know how to evacuate your home?
- Do you know where the utility cut off locations are in your home? When would you use them?
- What would you need to turn off if you were to leave your home for a few days?
- What documents or items would you need to take with you if you were leaving your home for a few days?
- Do you have contacts and documents for people you might need to contact in the direct aftermath, such as the utility providers, plumbers, electricians, arborists, insurance?
- Do you know what medications or equipment you need? Are there instructions about dose and other information available? Is information about allergies or other medical needs recorded and available to be shared with emergency personnel if needed?
- If you you have companion animals, do you have a plan for them?
I used the word household here, but it just means the people you would want to be with in an emergency. It could be the people you live with, or you could have agreed to meet up with others in the case of an emergency to share shelter or resources.
I need to go out for a few hours, but I will post about my own experiences later today 💖
Please exercise caution about sharing too much individual information, especially information that could be used to identify yourself or your comrades.
Here are some links I thought might be helpful. These are all government links. I did a very cursory look for leftist sources but most of what I found was centered around re-building, mutual aid, etc., whereas I was looking for more practical tips on what can be done to plan for short term emergency situations.
If you have links you think I should add to this post, please comment and I will edit! I would love to add more localized resources and non-government resources as well.
Canada/Ontario
- Ontario - Be prepared for an Emergency
- Ontario - Brochure: Emergency Preparedness Starts With You 2023
- Ontario - Emergency preparedness guide for people with disabilities
- Ontario - Ensure everyone’s safety during an emergency
- Canada - Make an Emergency Plan - Guided exercise
- Canada - Hazards and Emergencies - Lists of common emergencies, including which are most common in which provinces.
I'm always prepared to run. Being Mizrahi and not a Zionazi means this can happen at any time, in any country since we are defined only by our otherness, even inside white mainstream Jewish communities. Some of these tips are harder reaches than other. I don't think you need to hit every one of these in order to be successful but evaluating each for yourself and making preparations for them will put you ahead of almost anyone.
- Always have your paperwork in order. This means your local ID, your passport, birth certificate, medical insurance and information, state benefit cards, banking information, emergency contact information and anything else you can think of (car title up to date etc). You should always maintain hard paper, non digital versions of these things. This is the number one thing that can hold you up at a border or in an emergency.
- Make friends and contacts in your local area. You are only as strong as your social network. It is hard and we are all alienated on purpose to be isolated but you must resist and fight this. Sign up for pot lucks, volunteer to help people at food banks, do anything you can to get out of your house and make connections. Even if these people aren't your friends, save their names and numbers in phone book (preferably non-digital).
- Work towards being as physically fit as possible. I am disabled in the sense I have out of control autoimmune disorders and have had arthritis since I was in my 20s, and I have a blood disorder that makes me permanently anemic, but even within my limitations I work hard on being as physically fit as possible. I eat a healthy diet and I do as much exercise as I can manage. I will never be able to go bike touring or run a marathon and that is OK, I just need my health to be good enough to get through a disaster.
- Learn medicine and stockpile any drugs that you are dependent on. You should be maintaining as much of a supply of any drug that you can't live without, within expiration and financial limits of course. Learn about other suppliers of any drug that you are dependent on beyond where you are getting them now. Learn how other people with your condition treats it in other countries for ideas.
- Save some amount of cash, your local currency is a good start, depending on your situation and ability try and keep some in other denominations. If you are in the US keep some Euros and Yuan. You only need a few hundred dollars in each.
- Do not take on more responsibility than you can reasonably plan for. If you believe, as I do, that you may need to run from brown shirts where you live one day then (for example) do not adopt animals and things you are responsible for unless you can plan to take them with you some how. In an emergency you may need to leave them behind.
- Learn another language. It is never too late.
- Have a social network that goes beyond your local area. We all have the internet, use it. Try and make friends in other countries and be honest with them.
That is all I got for now. I'm interested to see what other people think and other disaster prep scenarios that involve not running as AP has mentioned in their main post.
Thanks for participating and giving such a detailed comment :)
To be clear, I think deciding ahead of time if you should stay or run for different situations is a really important part of planning!
I'll start this off by saying I am probably a lot more prepared for emergencies than most people I know, but I have such a long way to go, even to hit all the items on the list above.
Types of Emergencies
I think there are three emergencies I am trying to be prepared for: non-weather related utility outage, extreme weather (wind, rain, snow, ice), and fire. I have a lot of ground water, but I am not on a flood plain. Hurricanes don't really make it this inland and north, but we have had extreme storms from previous hurricanes. I am near a fault, but earthquakes are not common. When I say fire, I mean like, a house fire. I'm farm rural not forest rural and while I know farms burn too, wildfires aren't common here at this time.
Main impacts of these emergencies
- If I don't have power, I don't have water, back up heat, light or a way to cook foods. I will not be able to operate my sump pumps so my basement may flood. I won't have A/C, and the food in my fridge/freezer may spoil.
- If I don't have propane, I don't have my main source of heat.
- If weather or debris after weather makes it unsafe to drive, or if our car has been damaged, we may be stuck at home for a few days and be without utilities at the same time.
- If there is a fire, we will have to leave quickly.
- If I am at work when this happens, it may be hard for me to get home.
- If I am helping with disaster response (it's part of my job) it may be hard for my family to contact me.
News
We did get a wind up/battery radio last year after the tornados. There is a weather broadcast channel that is highlighted on the dial. It helped us know when the tornado warnings and watches were going on.
When we had major storms about 3 years ago I had a really hard time getting information. There didn't seems to be too much on the radio. We had no power for 3 days and roads were impassible, but the outside world seemed to be going on just like normal! Cell phone and internet was disrupted for a long time too, so local groups or news sites were not accessible.
Stay or go
This is something I need to work on with my family. For most of the likely situations we are thinking of, being at home is the best option. Fire is not (lol) but there may be others. We will need to plan where we would meet up if going home was not an option or where we would head to if we had to GTFO.
Accessibility and medications
This is a weak spot for us too! Like Hamid said, it's important to have whatever consumables you need and to understand what would happen if you stopped taking them (i.e. if you are running out, do you have to taper off? Are their certain foods or activities you need to avoid if you stop taking something?)
Utilities
I do know where my utilities shuts off are, yay! I have a general idea about my fuse box, know where my propane is, know how to isolate that from the furnace, know how to drain my water lines.
Documents and contacts
I also need to improve here. I am generally The Holder of Passports and Birth Certificates for the household, but I do not have a good idea of where my insurance policy is lol.
Realistically I should be more prepared. There's one road and one train line that share the same ridge in or out and this house burned down in the 60s. Bushfire happens every year and we usually have to evacuate at least for a few days.
I don't really have anything ready, it's the sort of thing I really should plan for but I do that 'if I don't think about it it's ok' thing.
I'm lucky enough to have family to stay with in this city, but given that frequency and severity of the fires is increasing I should make a better plan.
I think I should make sure my important documents are stored in a drybag ready to throw in the car. And have a checklist of what to grab/how to pack it so in a panic nothing will get lost and we will all fit in the car. Stuff like ID, insurance docs, computer harddrives, meds/water (in case of delays), dog leashes/food/meds, phone charger.
