Home Safety & Survival Tips:
- Get an Emergency Weather Radio and make sure you know how to use it. Listen to your radio during an emergency for any further instructions, officials may call for evacuation in specific areas.
- Be ready to take care of yourself with your ownWater Storage, Emergency Food, & Survival Supplies that you have prepared and stored. Don’t expect the government or anyone else to be available for a rescue, you are responsible for your own personal well-being.
- You may not want to think of adding this option to your survival lists... but it is important to consider Self Defense Products to protect yourself from the looting, unruliness and panic that often follows a major emergency or disaster.
- Chemical or airborne hazards require a special response, this is calledShelter-In-Place. Here is a guide provided by the American Red Cross to help you fully prepare for that type of event.
Another very smart preparedness tip is becoming educated and prepared to take care of yourself and others around you by learning basic First Aid and CPR.
Thanks to the availability of computers, it is no longer necessary to leave your home to obtain a certificate for either of these life-saving techniques.
Here are two recommended courses that are available at a very reasonable cost and can be completed at your convenience:
- First Aid Skills Certification - Expert Rating Online First Aid Certifications.
- CPR Skills Certification - Expert Rating Online CPR Certifications.
Evacuation Tips For Your Survival Lists:
- If your plan calls for an evacuation, get out early. Don’t wait until gasoline is in short supply and the highways are clogged.
- Always have a backup travel plan, with various routes to and from home, work, school, etc.
- Plan ahead with friends or family to stay in a distant city that is unlikely to be affected by the same disaster.
- Plan a meeting place you have identified in advance with each member of the family, certain buildings around the city are set up as shelters, but if at all possible identify your own "safe house", so you won't be trying to beat thousands of others into a shelter.
- Each member of the family should have their own Grab-bag. The purpose is to be able to grab-it-and-go, thus avoid running around the house packing it during an emergency. 1-3 days of emergency supplies should be in the bag. Suggested survival list items for the bag are included in the printableAll-Things-Emergency-Prepared 72 Hr Emergency Check List, if you would like to build a Grab-bag yourself.
- Have a plan ready for your pet survival lists, your Dog and Cat Emergency Evacuation Kits, a pre-arranged place to stay with your pets (motel or hotel), or a place for your pets to stay if they cannot travel with you.
- Keep Some Cash Available. During blackouts or power outages, cash registers, ATM's and other things that we use to get cash or make purchases, will not be available. You will be unable to swipe credit cards or access ATM's. Having cash readily available will allow you to make critical purchases that you need.
Emergency Water Tips:
Drinking Water Storage:
- Fill all available containers, pots and pans with water.
- Keep safe drinking water methods on hand, such as:
filtering and disinfecting.
Emergency preparedness includes safe drinking water. The AquaPod Safe Emergency Drinking Water Storage Kit fits in your bathtub. The KIT lets you store 65 gallons of water, a 14 day supply for a family of 4 - Use it when a flood or hurricane is predicted that could interrupt a safe water supply.
General Use Water Storage:
(Do not use the following options for drinking, water can be used to flush toilets, wash your hands, etc.)
Increase your water storage quickly with items that most people already have:
- When fore-warned of an event, fill your bath tub, and sinks almost to the top.
- Additional water is available in your water heater, pipes and toilet fill-tank (don't use the bowl).
- Put two or three heavy-duty plastic trash bags inside each other. Then fill the inner bag with water, you can use your trash cans to give support to the bags.
- Preserve water by saving the water from washing your hands, clothes and dishes to flush your toilets.
Emergency Home Made Water Purification System:
*This home made system is only for an emergency situation where you have no other means of purifying the water -
- This is a pour-though filtering system that can be made in an emergency, it will remove many contaminants, but should only be added to your survival lists as a "last resort" for water purification.
- Take a five or seven gallon pail (a 55-gallon drum can also be used for a larger scale system) and drill or punch a series of small holes on the bottom.
- Place several layers of cloth on the bottom of the bucket, this can be anything from denim to an old table cloth.
- Add a thick layer of sand (preferred) or loose dirt. This will be the main filtering element, so you should add at least half of the pail's depth.
- Add another few layers of cloth, weighted down with a few larger rocks.
- Your home-made filter should be several inches below the top of the bucket.
- Place another bucket or other collection device under the holes you punched on the bottom.
- Pour collected or gathered water into the top of your new filter system. As gravity works its magic, the water will filter through the media and drip out the bottom, into your collection device. If the water is cloudy or full of sediment, simply let it drop to the bottom and draw the cleaner water off the top of your collection device with a straw or tube.
