Disaster Preparedness Lessons (so far) from observing the disaster in Western North Carolina the last few days:
1. Stay on top of emergency water supply. Lack of drinking water is the biggest issue (and continues to be an issue) in Western North Carolina, people without anything to drink after a flood. This would be an issue in California after a major earthquake, too.
2. Write down the phone numbers for out of the area contacts and put them with emergency supplies. A number of outbound messages were not delivered due to incorrect phone numbers and inability to remember/pull up phone numbers from phones/etc.
(continued) #DisasterPreparedness #disasters
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
AI6YR Ben
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •3. Don't just prep for yourself, prep extra for the neighbors/relatives/friends who cannot or will not prepare themselves for disasters. (here, I have relatives who live in la la land and refuse to acknowledge anything bad ever happens, and insist there will never be earthquakes or wildfires here, so do not have any emergency supplies.)
4. If you're running a ham radio net, try to remember to repeat the frequency and offset to get into the repeater, it is clear there are a lot of newer hams who do not have all the local frequencies/repeaters programmed. Heard people trying to get in on the output, and some local hams had to run HTs to newer folks. (cont.) #DisasterPreparedness
AI6YR Ben
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •3a. ps. they will be here at my house if a disaster strikes and they are able to drive over her, for sure.
5. CONSERVE GASOLINE. Again, gasoline rapidly runs out. (have seen this in disasters before). Don't let your car go below half a tank. Don't go driving around town as a looky loo. Gasoline runs out rapidly without resupply from the outside world. Long lines, gas stations out, fighting even reported at a gas station.
6. Corollary: CONSERVE GASOLINE, invest in a small scale solar+battery system at minimum (for radio/lights/recharging). With no gasoline available and stations out, they are now 4 days out and generators are either empty or soon to be. Solar, solar, solar!
(cont.)
AI6YR Ben
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •7. As much as people repeat "have food for an emergency", it sounds like there were a lot of people without food to eat and hungry (now day 4, note for the longest time FEMA was recommending only 3 days of food. They now recommend a week). I do note the ham radio folks did NOT seem to have food issues, and one was grilling up hamburgers (stuff from the freezer etc.). I guess if you have to cook everything in your big freezer because you can't keep it cool, might as well feed your neighbors, LOL.
(cont).
AI6YR Ben
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •Hunter Hillegas
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •AI6YR Ben
in reply to Hunter Hillegas • • •AlexanderMars
in reply to AI6YR Ben • • •