Hi Jim,
Living in an area that’s earthquake prone and overdue for a large one, I’ve spent a fair amount of time researching ways to limit any damage that we might experience in our home.  In 1994 the Northridge earthquake and the resulting fires were the cause for the creation of a device that, I feel, is instrumental to possibly saving any home with a gas-line.  It’s commonly referred to as a Northridge valve. 
 
Simply, it’s a seismic device that stops the flow of gas at the house meter should there be any seismic event over 5.2 on the Richter scale.  I got one and installed it myself for less than $150.  To anyone concerned about preparing for an earthquake, this would be cheap insurance.
Thanks for all you do, - John T.

2011 was a year of deadly and devastating tornados, and an earthquake that shook the east coast.  One of the largest tornados hit a suburb in my county in the Birmingham Alabama area. We are also only one state over from the New Madrid earthquake zone that starts in the Memphis area.  After taking several closer looks at the foundation and basement of our 50 year old house, I realized we were living with a false sense of security.

After researching online, I learned that in certain large events, mainly earthquake, but also from high winds, if the house gets shaken, the metal [pier] poles holding up the center of the house in the basement may or may not move in unison with the rest of the house above them that they are supporting.   Our house [has a conventional perimeter foundation and aside from the perimeter it] is simply sitting on those poles, and that is it. In large earthquakes, houses with basements can simply fall into the basement below them, if the support poles [or posts and piers] do not stay intact. I set out looking for an easy fix, and discovered nothing readily available on the market for this situation.   Maybe in frequent earthquake territory like California, there might be something on the market, but I did not find anything at the big box hardware stores or online. 

It appeared it was time to get creative. I am not in the construction business, but I’m guessing I do have a few more tools than the average household. My small shop has a miter-saw, table saw, drill press, chop-saw, and a small, bottom of line wire-welder. There are lots of people with way more tools than this, but this is a modest amount and I’m comfortable using them.   I spent a much of my time staring at the rafters and those metal poles, knowing there had to be way to tie them together.
  
The goal is not to keep the house from swaying, but rather, if the house is swaying, the poles sway in unison with the house. This way, when the house stops swaying, the metal poles are still in position as there were intended, holding up the center of the house.   The metal poles of our old house are 4-1/2 inches in diameter.  A double row of 2”x10” rafters run lengthways of the house, with 2”x10” rafters attached perpendicular to them.   These perpendicular rafters run from the center of the house out to the foundation. I would like to have been able to tell you that all of the rafters are evenly spaced, but they are not. Wiring and plumbing run along the bottom of the rafters, and it appears that plumbing had a major say-so in what rafters went where.   Sure, there are a few rafters that are evenly spaced, but quite a few that were placed very close to another rafter to accommodate the plumbing.

So, in staring at the poles and rafters, I obviously needed something to attach to the pole, and something that could be attached to the rafters, and each of these had to be able to be attached to each other.   Oh, and in my case, cost was an issue. To explain: most of those tools were bought before we had kids. Now my paycheck is spent before it gets home. And in this economy, it’s not getting any better either. I wanted to make the house a little bit safer than it was before I started, and yet still not break the bank. Besides being on a tight budget, time is precious these days too, and I can only work on this project on the occasional, rare, weekend free from other events begging for priority on the calendar.   

I knew I could drill holes in the wood, even if I have to use a right-angle attachment to do so, to mount some type of brace. As is ‘just my luck’, some of the closest together rafters were the ones near the poles I was going to be working on. But, what kind of bracing to use?   Flat aluminum or steel [stock] is readily available at the hardware stores, but in an earthquake, you never know for sure what direction the house is going to be shaking in. Nature has a tendency to keep that thing called the ‘epicenter’ to herself and let the scientist figure that one out later. Angle iron has support both vertically and horizontally. Luckily, and beloved neighbor, ‘Joe’ had given me some scrap angle iron before he passed away a couple of years ago. I still had the rusty angle iron in the shop, and I would need to clean it up with a portable electric grinder and a wire wheel attachment on a drill, but it was free, and I had plenty of it to do the job. I love to recycle, and re-using this free angle iron for my project is better than it getting sold for scrap.  I wanted to clean up the surface rust and paint it to roughly match the gray color of the poles. The drill press would eventually come in handy for the angle iron too. 
 
I did some research on eBay, and found that the do make U-Bolts in the needed size, but due to the size and weight, the shipping and handling were going to cost more than the U-Bolt. I discovered that one of the auto parts chain stores carried the 4-1/2” U-Bolt on their web site. The highway nearby has just about a half dozen auto parts stores within a 15 minute drive.  The auto part store that had the U-Bolts had them at a very attractive price, and they would ship them to your local store for free.  Bingo. This way I could get the U-Bolts at basically the same price as I’d seen on ebay, but without the shipping and handling costs.   The auto parts store only needed a couple of days to get them to the store.  This worked out great for me, because I ordered them early in the week, and wouldn’t be using them until the weekend anyway.  

The large 4-1/2” U-Bolts are made out of steel that is 3/8” diameter. I could drill 3/8” inch holes in the angle iron, to attach it to the U-Bolt, and additional holes to attach it to the rafters.  I wanted angle iron on each side of the pole, where-ever possible, for the push-pull effect that an earthquake might cause.   I also wanted to put two holes in each piece of angle iron where it attached to rafters, so that it would be rigid enough to move the poles with the house.   If I were to only put one hole in each piece of angle iron where it attaches to the rafter, it would like just be a pivot point and the angle iron could easily let the pole shift away from the center of the house.  

I wanted to paint the U-Bolt, and angle iron pieces, because they would be in contact not only with each other, but also with the metal pole. Although in this particular instance they are all steel, I’m not sure what kinds of steel they are.   I’ve learned that dissimilar metals that are in contact with each other can vastly increase the oxidation (rust) rate of the metal. As a side note, always be aware if you are using aluminum, steel, and any alloys, that are touching or are bolted to each other, as this can oxidation can become a real issue.   Don’t think that aluminum oxidizes?  Next time you are in a salvage yard, look at the chalky white powder on some of the aluminum parts you see is oxidation. It just doesn’t turn dark like steel does when it rusts (oxidizes).  

I made a dry fit of the U-bolt to near the top of the pole, about 3-4 inches from the top. I wanted to keep it near the top for leveraged strength, but not so near the top that if it did attempt to sway in an earthquake that it would try to jump over the top of the pole. Measured the lengths I needed for the angle iron to have a piece on each side, and cut them with the chop saw.  Drilled them on the drill press, then painted all of the pieces and let them dry completely. In keeping with the recycling theme, I was able to use up some old cans of [rust preventive] ‘primer gray’ color that matched the existing gray color of the metal poles well.   

The U-Bolts come with a bracket that fills in the gap of the opening at the open end of the ‘U’, and with the two nuts needed to hold it all together.   When measuring for bolts to use on the rafter, take into account not only the thickness of the rafter, but the thickness of your angle iron, the nut, and washers.   I recommend using washers on sides of the rafter, where the bolt head is and on the other side where the nut meets the angle iron. I even painted the washers, in case they are a different metal from the angle iron.   Who knows, a few seconds of extra painting could add years to the project and protect the old house for the next generation.  

Are there better ways to do this project?  Sure.  Are there more expensive ways to do this project?  Sure.   This just happened to be the best fit for my situation, of wanting to build a little more safety into a 50 year-old house, without having to take out a loan to do it. Maybe you can adapt some of these ideas into your next project.

Hi Mr. Rawles:
I want to share with you today’s events in Washington DC. I came home early from school and decided to go to the gym to burn off some of those summer pounds. As I was walking to the gym (two blocks away), listening to my iPod. All of the sudden I heard some crashing and screaming. Since this is DC, everything happens so I kept on walking. I finally realized that something was definitely wrong when I saw people pouring out from every building including a rather overweight man wearing only a bath towel  that was way too small for his waist. After finding an English speaker (I live in a mostly Hispanic area) I found out that it was an earthquake which apparently I did not feel. Immediately I tried calling my fiancée who was in our apartment but of course all the lines were busy. I sprinted back the one and a half blocks to our apartment and to my delight I saw her, on the sidewalk. She was barefoot, dressed in a bathrobe, with a pair of shoes in one hand and her Bug-Out-Bag in the other. I had never been so proud of her.  

All of it is thanks to the information on your blog that gave us food for thought and a foundation on which to build.   Sincerely, - B.K.

After the first few days, it was possible to get some idea of what had happened. The initial numbers of fatalities had been fairly low, and it was hard to know how many had survived in the coastal towns. As the phone systems and many roads there were devastated, a big effort was going to be required just to scope out the damage. Sadly, it became clear that well over 10,000 lives were lost. In terms of life in Tokyo, though, it was electricity and basic supplies useful during disasters that became somewhat hard to come by. The other major factor that seriously damaged daily activity was that many train lines were not running.

I went to work on the Monday after the quake, in many ways just to see how co-workers were doing and what my company was planning to do to deal with the disaster. Many had suffered property damage, but the real damage was to those who had relatives along the coast or near the Fukushima facilities. My wife had relatives in both of these areas, so she spent time on trying to figure out if everyone was okay. They were, but news that a cousin had been forced out of his house due to radiation was a sign that things were looking bad. At first, I wasn't so worried about Fukushima, and was far more concerned with getting more cash out of the bank and trying to get more supplies for possible disruptions. As it turned out, disruptions were going to become normal, and Fukushima was looking less and less like it was under control, or even within its expected disaster scenarios.

The week after the earthquake was one of verifying that property was undamaged and businesses working to figure out their workarounds for problems like employees who couldn't ride the trains or the big issue of just-in-time systems having almost no room for failure. And we just had dozens of failures, whether it be destroyed factories and roads, or a new reality of inadequate refinery capacity or electricity. In my case, the initial observation of property damage looked fine, but the shock meant that I missed something. This may be one of the lessons of the disaster. It's hard to judge things accurately when you've just had your life changed dramatically.

During this week, we tried to obtain many things, such as mineral water, and large orders were no longer possible. Small amounts, such as water in supermarkets, were still possible, but that was fading, and vanished once the story about radiation in tap water came out. And a troubling story with a major bank being unable to handle ATM transactions came out. On a personal note, my bank had old banknotes, which was a first. I'd always received new banknotes before. Tokyo Electric announced a rolling blackout system to cover for the loss of power due to the tsunami. This system exempted the central part of Tokyo, and the suburbs had to suffer. The real shock was hearing that the blackouts would likely last for years. A high-tech, just-in-time society cannot function efficiently with blackouts, and the harm to business will be off the charts if this actually goes through the Summer. The loss of electricity and nuclear contamination could end up costing dramatically more than the loss of infrastructure due to the earthquake and tsunami.

As the situation at Fukushima seemed to deteriorate, a rush to get out of the nearby areas occurred. Foreigners generally had a more pessimistic view of the situation than most Japanese, probably due to the different way news described things, so flights out of Japan became ridiculously expensive. Still, I know several Japanese who sent their families outside of Tokyo because they do not trust Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government. Like many others, I decided to spend a week in Osaka to see how things played out, but had too many things to take care of for at least a few more days. A particularly troubling thing has been that it was never clear what was going on, and there are many reactors in question, and even speculations about problems at other facilities. This leads to the question of when one should take emergency nuclear precautions, such as consuming Potassium Iodide. In my case, I had lots of iodine products, such as sea vegetables, as well as products that many recommend for protecting against radiation, such as miso soup. It was clearly time to consume these. It was also time to break out masks and to create a clean area at the entrance of the house. I had N95 masks, but nothing that could be expected to do much for radioactive particles. So part of dealing with this series of disasters was going to be research. (To be continued.)

Where We Were
In Kogoshima, in the southern part of Japan, residents know that when the active Sakurajima volcano finally erupts with its full force, they will most likely be killed. Some of them even know that it will be the quaking and the toxic pyroclastic flows that kill them rather than flowing lava.

Similarly, living just 15 miles from the heart of Tokyo, we have always been aware that Tokyo is past due for a major earthquake. When it hits, it will cause suffering on a scale that will make Kobe and Mexico City seem as if they got off easy. Yet, when the ground shakes, as it does fairly often, we've become complacent. Guessing how strong a quake was before the official report appears on television is one of our family games.

In Japan, you see, it's very easy to become nonchalant about disaster.

We lost our nonchalant attitude on March 11, 2011 at 2:46 p.m. Despite some intense shaking that drove my family outside for several minutes, we were, and remain, relatively untouched. Our problems are mere annoyances compared to the survivors in the northeast, but those annoyances exposed huge gaps in our disaster preparation and planning.

A few years ago, a major earthquake hit the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture near where my wife is from. It caused substantial damage and shook radioactive water out of the spent-fuel storage pools at the nuclear plant in Kashiwazaki. As a result, we bought a survival kit consisting of a silver backpack, some food, some water, some non-stormproof matches, a first aid kit, a water carry bag and a small cutlery set. We added a bit more food, a bit more water, and some towels. Yet, when we ran outside during the quake, none of us thought about grabbing the emergency kit until the shaking was almost done. This was probably for the best as, although not even a single book was knocked off our apartment's shelves, the emergency kit was pre-buried under the detritus of life and school. In fact, I wasn't even sure at the time if it was in the closet or on the floor in front of the closet. If our complex had collapsed, I probably would have been caught in our first floor apartment looking for our emergency kit.

As a result, as we stood in the parking lot, we had no spare clothes, no money, no food, no way to make fire and no water. We didn't even have the keys to our car, which were hanging on the door. All we had in hand were our cellphones, which proved to be useless. During the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, and just a few weeks ago in Christchurch, cellphones had been a literal lifesaver for some people. Yet, in Tokyo they became, as described in Rawles Precept #3, like cars stuck in traffic as everyone tried to contact their loved ones. This meant we also didn't have any means of communication.

After we went back inside, we heard news about the tsunami and the reactors at Fukushima Number 1. I tried to assess our situation. We had a couple Maglite flashlights but few spare batteries. I had two Swiss Army knives and a Gerber multi-tool, but they were scattered around and would have been inaccessible after a collapse. We had no form of portable shelter. We had food but it was all old. We had bottles of water, but no way to purify water. We had no spare clothes ready for a quick escape. We had only one way to make fire and no small pans to cook with.

Nonchalance returned, however, and we tried to settle back into a normal life. Two days later, however, with rolling blackouts scheduled, I went online to try to get supplies. Batteries and flashlights were already sold out and I felt the first chill of concern creep up my spine. Also sold out, or delayed, were the Japanese versions of MREs. I tried to order several things, including AMK Spark-Lite firestarters, stormproof matches and a proper utility knife. Oddly, despite Japan's strange laws about knives (more on that later), the knife (a SOG Trident Tanto) arrived along with a waterproof match case and a roll of faux paracord. The entire rest of the order was cancelled and I was forced to order goods from the United States.

By the time the crisis in Japan was over, I figured, I'd be ready for it.

Where We Are
Two weeks after the quake we are much better prepared for it.

There have been compounding problems: rolling blackouts have forced people to take cars when normally they'd take trains. This and damage to a major refinery have led to fuel shortages. The government continues to issue garbled information about the radiation from the reactors without providing any context, which has led to a run on bottled water. We are fortunate that my wife's family own a farm and have been able to send us vegetables, rice and other goods. Which means we are also fortunate that the post office and private delivery services are still running. That said, it is still easier to buy steak and vegetables in our area than a flashlight and batteries.

Despite the fact that our neighborhood has not, to this point, suffered a blackout, we haven't gotten complacent. We have assembled a much more robust survival kit. We have one way to purify water (Sodium chlorite) tablets with one more, Aquamira Frontier Filters, on the way. We have three ways to make fire. We've updated our food and water supplies. We have emergency blankets, more flashlights and money and spare car keys hidden away.

Also, after being forced to walk six miles when the trains were abruptly stopped after I got to work, I now have an Everyday Carry (EDC) kit. I carry medicine and bandaids; some of the faux paracord and a couple carabiners; three ways to start a fire; a couple snack bars; water; a flashlight; and a phone card as, after the cellphones crashed, the old-fashioned phone booths were suddenly back in fashion. Just in case, though, I also carry a cellphone charger.

Knife and "Sword" Legalities
I would like to carry a knife; however, this poses some interesting problems. Japan, after a series of knife attacks, expanded its ban on swords to include carrying any non-folding knife with a blade longer than 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) “without a reason”. Going fishing is considered a valid reason to carry a knife but self-defense is not. (In fact, in Japan, people defending themselves against an attack have to be careful of using excessive force or they will get in trouble as well.)  A folding knife can have a blade up to 3.15 inches (8 centimeters) but the entire knife, with the blade extended, cannot be longer than six inches (15 cm). This means my new SOG and my Swiss Army knives are classified as swords and are not street legal. For this reason, I've also acquired a Leatherman Squirt PS4 which, nonetheless, has to be carried in a backpack or bag and not in my pocket.

Where We Hope To Be
In the future, our goal is to have a proper G.O.O.D. Kit. To accomplish that, we plan to buy a new and proper backpack for our B.O.B. The current one is not designed for a family of four and is not designed to be carried long distances. Also, it is bright silver with the Japanese words for “Emergency Carry Out Bag” in bright red letters. Although the Japanese have, with a few exceptions, been very calm in this crisis, this is only because in most areas food is still plentiful. I've seen the Japanese unleashed a few times, mostly during after New Year's sales, and it's best not to have something that attracts attention.

We are looking to acquire another good folding knife, some solar charged flashlights, a portable water filter with a pump, some cooking gear and some American style MREs. Despite the lack of space in our apartment, we also plan to stock a lot more emergency food and water. We still need something to serve as a portable shelter.

More importantly, though, we are slowly developing a bug out plan. We have enough supplies in our emergency kit to get by on, but we don't yet have a plan for what we will do in the case of another large quake or an evacuation order. What will we do if we have time to gather things before we leave and what will we do if we have less than a minute? We have yet to decide several small details and this puts all our other preparations in jeopardy.

For example, one detail we've yet to resolve involves shoes. The Japanese don't wear shoes inside the house and, because we sleep on the floor on a futon, we can't put shoes under our bed. The silver bag would be good for carrying shoes in case we can't get out the front door and have to switch to Plan B. Of course, since we don't have a Plan A, we need to do some thinking. We also need to make sure our two young daughters know what to do when and if the ground starts shaking again.

Also, as a foreigner, I found myself standing outside without a passport or any other form of identification and with no way to prove my wife was my wife and my children were my children. We now plan to scan all our important documents and keep copies on a thumb drive in the emergency kit.

All in all, we are finally prepared to face a disaster. It's sad that it took a disaster to get us into a survival mindset. We were fortunate, though, that the disaster didn't effect us before we were ready.

Days Two and Three I slept well the night of 11-3-11, which was good, because I hadn't the two previous nights. A premonition, perhaps? Like the day after September 11th, there was an eerie feeling everywhere. The weather was nice, at least in Tokyo, but a cold front was coming in from the North, so the folks near the Tohoku coast were going to be suffering even more. It was obvious that the damage was off the charts, but the television downplayed the likely deaths, and a big question was whether the government had learned from its poor performance during the large earthquake in Kobe in 1995. We didn't know at this time, but the unfortunate answer was "no". In fairness, this disaster was much more difficult to handle, but the whole world will be asking about the inability to get resources to the Fukushima plants ASAP.

In the morning, many stores were closed. When they did open, they were packed with folks buying everything that might come in handy for hunkering down. This was the last chance to get a lot of things. By the end of Day Three, many things were gone, and announcements were made on television that supplies would have to be rerouted towards the most damaged areas. At this point, most convenience stores and supermarkets resembled photos from the worst days in the Soviet Union, at least for most necessities. The power was reliable, and trains and subways started to return to some semblance of normality by the evening. There was no panic but it was easy to see that gasoline and types of food were not going to be available within days.

The news was focused on the immediate damage. Besides the tsunami, there was cleaning up the fires and making major roads passable and fixing train tracks. All kinds of equipment had to be verified, so disaster preparedness teams in businesses and governments went to work. This seems to have gone well, and the volunteer groups did a good job, but it seems that most groups are a lot more effective in local areas, and the hard-to-get-to areas were too devastated to do much more than try to go through what was left of their own houses. My wife wondered about volunteering, but there was no way to get to the hard-hit areas, and one would just be an extra burden by getting there.

Up to this point, things still looked manageable. Soon, though, the topic of electricity came up. A lot of Tokyo's power comes from nuclear plants, and those were near the ocean. The assumption was still that everything was under control. Wishful thinking. On the street though, the feeling was mainly that the economic future had taken a huge hit, not that a nuclear crisis was at hand. That was to come soon enough. And refugees from the impacted areas were coming in to stay with relatives or hotels, and some passed through on their way to western Japan, where no damage had occurred. For me, though, it was time to get more cash out of the bank and think about whether our plans to leave Tokyo needed to be expedited. (To be continued.)

Day One
Just another day for an American ex-pat in an office in a skyscraper in Tokyo, or so it seemed. There was a nice view in several directions, offering a chance to see a real panorama of the city. In just a few minutes, that view would include large fires and streets packed with cars and people walking. The reason, of course, is it was 11-3-11.  

The first inkling of trouble was a minor feeling of movement, and this lasted for perhaps a minute, and then things got worse. The shaking got to where it was time to not move, and then it was time to get under my desk. Finally, it was time to hold on to something to avoid being jerked around. This lasted for many minutes, far longer than any earthquake I had experienced in California or Japan.  

After things settled down a bit, we all got up and tried to figure out what had happened. Had we been at the epicenter of this? A co-worker said an initial reading was that it was 7.9 on the Richter scale. Bad, but not enough to expect the problems that were to come. Unfortunately, the numbers went up over the next hour or so, and the big shock was that television showed a tsunami wiping out a town after 30 minutes or so. About the same time, I noticed many big fires in the distance, and pointed them out to my co-workers.  

Right after the earthquake ended, the speakers in the building announced the earthquake and that the elevators were not in service. Phones were not working, but the power was. It was a tough choice, walk home for hours in Winter, along with millions, or wait and hope that the trains and subways might gradually return on a limited basis. As the epicenter was not that near Tokyo, I figured it was worth waiting a while to see what happened. But things got worse. This seems to have been a repeating theme throughout this. One problem seems to impact the next, overburdened system.  

For better or worse, I decided to wait for a few hours, and put up with the aftershocks. I also wanted the phones to come back so I could see how my wife was. The phones came back in a limited way after ten minutes or so, but not cell phones, which had troubles for many hours. But I could not dial out. Many co-workers or their neighbors had suffered some damage, but the real concern was closer to the epicenter, and along the coast. My wife had relatives impacted by both the tsunami and, later, the nuclear issue. The good news was her relative was evacuated from his factory before the water swept in. The bad news is that the economics of this tragedy are going to be practically at the level of fighting a war on your own soil, and this fellow is unlikely to have a job for quite some time.  

So the news got worse and worse, and many systems already went into a very limited mode. If you wanted something, it was probably a good idea to think about getting it then. Of course, it you got closer to the dramatic damage, it was too late, as most stores were damaged, and everyone was now working on dealing with issues of life and limb to care about keeping a store open that sells blankets for example. And it is a safe bet that a lot of folks were kicking themselves later about not having the supplies they needed. Not just for themselves, but for family and friends that had had their houses destroyed, and for those trapped en route on some trip.

My family did an inventory that night, and we discovered that our biggest flashlight was too old and no longer worked properly. It was probably time to re-read SurvivalBlog's guidance on preparedness at that point. The good news is that my workplace gave out a survival kit with water, a high-tech blanket, flashlight, and a few other things. We also had candles and a mini-flashlight. Not that the power went out yet. That was later, but, if the quake had been closer, it is reasonably likely that even downtown Tokyo would have been dark and cold. All things considered, the supplies of food and medicine were sufficient, but it was obviously time to buy more. I had been more concerned with an economic or currency disaster than what happened, but still slept better over the next few days knowing that we had months of supplies.  

That night, I felt a bit seasick, but not so bad that it was a real problem. But the bigger problem for most of us was shock. Those who had family or friends in the worst-hit areas had a tough time keeping their minds on further preparations, which might be another lesson in why it is good to prepare ahead of time. I do not think I was thinking clearly on 9/11, and not on 3/11, either. The good news is that disaster drills and preparation are common in Japan. This made many things go smoothly. I suspect an inadequate number of disaster drills are done by local governments or businesses in the US. As an example, a very strong hurricane hitting Miami is just a matter of time. Are they better prepared than the one a couple of decades ago?

In any case, the systems in Tokyo went smoothly. I do not know about closer to the disaster area. It seems that they went reasonably well, but the strength and speed of the tsunami, along with the lack of much time, really made the fatalities a lot worse than was expected. People go through towns saying that everyone should evacuate to higher ground after earthquakes, but those in poor physical condition may choose to ignore the warning, and perhaps some wanted to clean up some of the broken jars and such before evacuating. Unfortunately, they did not have a minute to spare.  

Turning on the television that night, it was mentioned that the nuclear plants at Fukushima had been hit hard. This was to become a topic for later. At the moment, fires had to be put out, and the injured taken to hospitals. Nuclear plants have many backups, and they would not be built near oceans if they could not handle tsunamis, right?   (To be continued.)

Hello James,
It is with a heavy heart that I watch the nuclear incident unfold in Japan. I am watching my nightmare come true, and I pray for the safety of the people in Japan. As you know, my article that was published in your blog last September was primarily written to alert the public about the possible EMP effects on nuclear power plants. While the initiating event may have been different, the results of the loss of all AC power at the site results in virtually identical consequences. Events are playing out very similarly to those that I had described. There are certain differences, however, since I had described the events for a pressurized water reactor (PWR). The reactors involved in the accident in Japan are boiling water reactors (BWRs).

I would like to take the opportunity to both alert your readers about the truth of what is happening and also dispel some rumors and incorrect assumptions regarding the events at the nuclear plant in Japan. I have seen many “talking heads” on the news this past week that have virtually no nuclear background and frankly are not qualified to be making assumptions or assertions.

The Fukushima Units #1 through #5 at Daiichi are older GE designed BWR-3 and BWR-4 Mk.I, boiling water reactors that were all built in the 1970's.  I used to design fuel for these types of reactors when I worked at GE some years ago.  In general, I would say that BWRs are actually inherently safer than PWRs.  When I was at GE they used to say that BWR stood for "BEST Water Reactor."  This older design, however, is not the best design for accident scenarios.  It has a torus or "doughnut" for the suppression pool and it is limited in its capacity.  Also, these containment structures are smaller than later designs, and generally considered not as robust.

I found these excellent papers on the internet about Japan's BWR reactor designs:

http://www.ansn-jp.org/jneslibrary/npp2.pdf

http://www.ansn-jp.org/jneslibrary/BWR_Safety_Design.pdf

Also, this from Wikipedia regarding the older BWR-3, Mk.I containment: 

"Though the present fleet of BWRs are less likely to suffer core damage from the 1 in 100,000 reactor-year limiting fault than the present fleet of PWRs are (due to increased ECCS robustness and redundancy) there have been concerns raised about the pressure containment ability of the as-built, unmodified Mark I containment - that such may be insufficient to contain pressures generated by a limiting fault combined with complete ECCS failure that results in extremely severe core damage. In this double worst-case, 1 in 100,000,000 reactor-year scenario, an unmodified Mark I containment is speculated to allow some degree of radioactive release to occur. However, this is mitigated by the modification of the Mark I containment; namely, the addition of an outgas stack system that, if containment pressure exceeds critical setpoints, will allow the orderly discharge of pressurizing gasses after the gasses pass through activated carbon filters designed to trap radionuclides."

I found this document in the NRC reading room.  Basically, a Station Blackout Event (loss of off-site an on-site AC power), is perhaps the worst event that these types of BWRs can face. 

Here is an excerpt.  I added the bold type:

"For station blackout accidents, containment systems will not be functional and the drywell floor will often be dry, leaving the plant susceptible to drywell shell melt-through. In addition, the reactor vessel will normally be at elevated pressure, which increases the containment loads at vessel breach. This means that station blackout accidents pose a severe challenge to Mark I and Mark II containments, and therefore, these accidents are often important contributors to the frequency of containment failure."

I will say that even though the 9.0 magnitude earthquake was beyond the design basis of the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant, the plant actually weathered the earthquake itself quite well and shut down as designed. It is the tsunami that caused the bulk of the problems that the plant operators now face.

The backup emergency diesel generators actually started as designed and began to power the auxiliary pumps designed to circulate cooling water in the reactors. However, the tsunami arrived at the site and overflowed the seawall that was created to protect it from a tsunami. The height of the tsunami was also beyond the design basis of the plant. It is my understanding that the seawall was about 6.5m tall, and the height of the tsunami was above 7.0m. The tsunami destroyed the diesel fuel tanks for the emergency diesel generators and then flooded the below ground switchgear rooms that contain the diesel generators themselves. Therefore, the diesels stopped running about an hour after they started.

The loss of both AC and DC power and the flooded switchgear room also meant the loss of most of the instrumentation that tells the operators what is going on inside the reactors. (Imagine trying to drive your car blindfolded.)

To their credit, the operators at Fukushima understood their predicament. They quickly made the decision that they had an emergency on their hands. They also made the decision to pump sea water into the reactors to stem the overheating cores. This decision was a fateful one, and one I am sure was not taken lightly, since it meant that they understood that the reactors would be permanently ruined. Their once multi-billion dollar asset was turned into a multi-billion dollar liability. It is my understanding that the sea water was pumped via fire suppression system diesel pumps and fire trucks. However, these pumps cannot generate the kind of pressure that was needed to overcome the rising pressure inside the reactor.

Without the added cooling water, the reactor units experienced what is known as a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). Water level fell, exposing the fuel rods. This lead to fuel damage and release of radionuclides into the containment.

Water levels continued to drop, uncovering the reactor cores by varying amounts. The exposed fuel rods caused the temperature and pressure to rise rapidly, generating steam.

Operators were forced to vent pressure from the reactors. This lead to very high pressures in the containment structures. It is my understanding that pressures inside the containment structures reached about 120 psi, about twice the design basis. This could cause the containment structures to fail.

This steam reacted with the zirconium fuel cladding to form hydrogen. It is this hydrogen that is believed to have caused the explosions seen in reactor #1 and reactor #3 buildings. It may also be responsible for what may be an explosion that potentially has caused a crack or leak in the containment vessel in Unit #2, perhaps in the region of the suppression pool.

In Unit #4, there were no assemblies currently in the reactor vessel. All assemblies had been off-loaded into the spent fuel pool. It should be noted that all spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have not been properly cooled since all power was lost. Just like fuel in the reactors, spent fuel also retains heat for a long period of time and must be cooled. There was also an explosion in reactor building #4, and a fire was seen. It is not yet clear what the cause of the fire was or if the fire has actually been put out. There have been conflicting reports on this issue. However, it is my opinion that the fire may have been caused by the interaction of the zirconium fuel rods with the steam in the then boiling spent fuel pool.

Measurable amounts of Iodine and Cesium have been detected even more than 30km from the plant, which indicates that fission products have been released and that fuel cladding has been compromised for at least some of the fuel rods. Radiation levels inside the control room reached over 1000 times normal.

Radiation levels around the reactor buildings are currently too high for personnel to respond properly to ongoing issues such as possible spent fuel pool fires. On Tuesday, radiation levels just outside of the reactor buildings had reached a high of 400 milliseverts (equal to 40 REM). Twelve to fifteen hours at this level is a fatal dose of radiation. All but essential operations personnel were evacuated from the plant site as result of this level of radiation.

Currently, the concerns revolve around two issues, 1) the status and integrity of the containment vessels surrounding the three reactors that were operating, and 2) the status of the spent fuel pools. In fact, since the reactor buildings are no longer intact, and there is no containment structure surrounding the spent fuel pools, it is actually the spent fuel pools that are the greater danger.

It is clear that there has likely been fuel damage in all of the operating reactors and possibly also in the spent fuel pool in reactor building #4. Spent fuel pools in reactor buildings #5 and #6 are also still heating up.

We have seen continuing variation in measured radiation levels at the plant. This may be because of fluctuating winds blowing the airborne particles around to various directions, sometimes toward detectors and sometimes away from them.

It should be noted that this event is far from over. As of Wednesday morning, Japan time, white smoke or steam was coming out of the #3 reactor building, and higher levels of radiation were being observed. It is unclear if the increased levels of radiation are coming from reactor #2, where the containment vessel may be compromised, reactor #3, from which steam or smoke is being observed or reactor #4, where fire was observed yesterday. There are large holes in the side of the #4 reactor building which may have been caused by the fire or from the explosion of hydrogen. The spent fuel pool in reactor #4 may also be boiling or may be on fire. This fuel in the spent fuel pool will melt if the water boils away and it may even catch fire. Preparations are being made to inject water into this spent fuel pool as soon as possible. Helicopters from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have already attempted to drop water from the air into the spent fuel pool in the Unit #3 reactor building.  Attempts to use water cannon from police riot trucks apparently failed due to the inability of the personnel to get close enough to accurately place enough water into the desired location.  However, special fire trucks used to put out hazardous aviation fires were successful in getting at least some water into the Unit #3 reactor building.  How much of this water actually made it into the spent fuel pool is not clear.  Certain Japanese experts have declared this as “somewhat effective,” since steam was seen rising from the building and the levels of radiation around the unit supposedly dropped very slightly, but the volume of water required to completely re-cover the fuel rods is higher than what has so far been sprayed or dropped onto the site.

It should be noted that this is an unprecedented situation. Japanese officials are struggling to contain and resolve this situation. Lack of functioning instrumentation is hampering both interpretation and mitigation of this event. This is event will go on for many weeks, if not months.

TEPCO has now started efforts to restore high voltage power lines to the stricken plant. This would be the best chance to regain control over the situation, by restoring AC power to the cooling systems.

What everyone wants to know is, what are the best case and worst case scenarios and other possible outcomes?

The best case is that TEPCO operators regain control of the plants by adding adequate cooling water to the reactors and the spent fuel pools and the containment vessels remain intact. There will still be a huge cleanup effort required, and the plant will never operate again. This event will still last for many months as removal of the fuel at least from the spent fuel pools must occur (since the spent fuel pools are now exposed to the environment) and most operations will initially need to be done remotely due to the radiation levels. The cost of even this best case will be in at least the tens of billions of dollars, and may be in the hundreds of billions.

The worst case is what everyone fears, but those in the know don't want to talk about. Officials are all trying to put on a good face and spin things in a positive way. However, the worst cases are these:

1. One or more of the operating cores meltdown, the containment vessels fail, and at least part of the contents of the contained fuel is released into the environment. This would be a disaster exceeded only by Chernobyl. Chernobyl is still a worse disaster than this, since that reactor had no containment at all. I believe that it is still likely that the containment vessels will contain most of the radioactive fission products.

2. All of the fuel assemblies in the spent fuel pools, which have no containment structure, either melt or catch fire, and release much of their contained fission products into the environment. This is an absolute worse case scenario, and locally could even be worse than Chernobyl, since the volume of fuel contained in the spent fuel pools exceeds the volume contained in any one reactor core. However, since there has not been a large explosion at the site that has lofted large amounts of radionuclides into the air, the area which will be affected is likely to be much smaller than the area affected by Chernobyl.

People are asking if a similar accident could happen in the USA. The honest answer is yes, but it is not nearly as likely.  Many lessons were learned as a result of the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and modifications were made to all US reactors as a result of these lessons learned.  The east coast of the USA is not generally prone to tsunami. There are only two reactor sites on the west coast of the USA, the plant at San Onofre in southern California and the Diablo Canyon plant, located near San Luis Obispo.  Of these two, the San Onofre site is perhaps the more at risk.  The Diablo Canyon plant has its critical systems far above the level of the ocean. Per haps the most vulnerable sites in the USA are the St. Lucie plant on the east coast of central Florida, the Turkey Point plant, south of Miami, and the Crystal River plant, on Florida's west coast. The most likely risk to these sites is hurricane storm surge. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 greatly affected the Turkey Point power plant and that event became the NRC standard for hurricane storm events and Station Blackout events.

There has been a run on potassium iodide and potassium iodate pills in the USA as a result of the event in Japan. Let me dispel some misconceptions and alleviate some of the fears of your readers. How radiation (or rather, radioactive particles that give off radiation) travels is highly dependent upon the direction, speed and altitude of the prevailing winds, and the weight and size of the particles. The closer to the area of the incident that you are, the more likely that there will be particles which fall to the ground in that area.

Californians have nothing to worry about from this incident in Japan, and anyone there who purchases KI tablets for this event is wasting their money. Any possible radiation that might reach there would be so diluted and dispersed by the time that it arrived that while it may be measurable, it will have virtually no health effects.

Also, the event at Chernobyl involved an explosion that lofted particles much higher into the atmosphere than anything that has so far happened in Japan. While there were apparently several hydrogen explosions in Japan, these apparently did not contain significant radionuclides, as the reactor containment structures were at that time still intact.

Even the fire in reactor building #4, which had assemblies only in the spent fuel pool, did not have a large explosion. Therefore any radioactive particles that were released from this fire will likely be deposited much closer to the site itself and are not likely to travel very far before falling to the ground. The latest radiation readings at the site boundary are currently only between 2 to 3 millirem per hour. This is not a significant dose rate, and workers could work in this environment for many days or even weeks without experiencing any radiation symptoms. (See the NEI web site for the latest updates.)

At this time, prevailing winds seem to be taking any particles directly out to the open ocean due east of Japan. I see no cause for alarm for any US mainland state (or even Hawaii).

Calculations have been performed which show that the area of maximum danger area is 50 miles or less, and safer areas would be in the 100 to 200 mile range. Beyond 300 miles from the site, I wouldn't be concerned. If I were the Japanese officials, however, I would recommend extending the evacuation zone to at least 50 miles.

We have seen how significantly that not just Japan but the world has been affected by these events. While panic has generally been averted in Japan, and people there are behaving in an orderly manner, there have still been shortages of food, water, fuel and other commodities. Many people have been displaced from their homes. Financial markets have been roiled. There is even a shortage of salt now in stores in China, as people there are [mistakenly] afraid that the sea will be affected and the sea salt which they obtain from the sea will be contaminated!

All of this from an incident at just one nuclear power plant.  What would happen if this incident happened in the USA?  What if it happened at dozens of nuclear plants at the same time?  What if communications, banking, power, water distribution, sewage treatment, internet access and transportation were all crippled at the same time?

I would like to again emphasize the point that an EMP event resulting in an extended grid down situation could cause a very similar event. There is only adequate diesel fuel on site to power emergency diesels for 7 days for most commercial nuclear plants in the USA. After that, you are in essentially the same situation as the Japanese find themselves - lack of power to provide any cooling to either the reactors or the spent fuel pools. Imagine if this event were to happen at multiple sites in the USA simultaneously!  How to mitigate this? One way is to ensure that additional diesel fuel and spare parts are available at all commercial reactors.  Diesel generators and their fuel tanks should be shielded and protected (many reactors in the USA have already done this). Another is to pre-stage diesel electric locomotives and a train load of diesel tank cars that could be brought to each reactor site in time of emergency (most reactors sites in the USA have a railroad spur). Diesel locomotives are very robust against EMP, and could act as an emergency generator.  There is also a petition that is now before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which recommends certain modifications to nuclear power plants to ensure their continued safety in the event of an EMP event.  Write to them and urge them to take this petition seriously!

What is the best way to protect against EMP or a catastrophic infrastructure collapse? Write your Congressman and urge them to join in the passage of the SHIELD Act! The EMP Commission has already outlined what can and must be done to protect our national infrastructure from catastrophic collapse. I urge that these recommendations be carried out with all of the swiftness that the nation can muster. Protection of the grid is the best defense. Sincerely, - B.Z.

Dear James,  
I just wanted to alert you to the possible impact of what is actually happening at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant.  The grid has gone down, and it appears that the emergency diesel generators have failed.  There is apparently no off-site or on-site AC power.  This is very similar to the scenario that I outlined in my article posted last September in SurvivalBlog (except for the precipitating event for my article described an EMP event).  We have a potential disaster worse than Chernobyl in the making.   In fact, even the mainstream media is now taking note.  Here is a blog article from today on Forbes that describes the possible catastrophe in the making.   I hope that this will inspire some of the people who said "that could never happen" to sit up and take notice.  I hope that more people will "wake up" and start to prepare for what really COULD happen here.    Thanks again for all that you do.   Sincerely - B.Z.

James,
I just finished watching an NHK World video of the tsunami wave rolling across farmland in Sendai, Japan.

A few things jumped out at me as I looked at the smaller details:

Several cars can be seen stopping on the roadways, turning around and trying to flee in the opposite direction when the drivers see that the wave has engulfed the road in front of them.  In one case, a driver can be seen evacuating his car and attempting to outrun the wave on foot.  I lost count of the number of people who were running or driving 100 yards or less from the approaching wave.  It was a somber moment to realize that some of those people I saw were likely overtaken by the flood and perished.

As the wave tore down houses and farms, the announcer mentioned that the earthquake had hit just an hour and ten minutes prior.  I was reminded how quickly disaster can strike and shocked at how many souls were still standing there when the first waves hit.  This is in a country with some of the most sophisticated and expensive earthquake and tsunami preparations in the world, and still the mass of people disregarded the warnings.

I watched one scene where cars were lined up trying to navigate down a road, again with the wave rapidly approaching from the rear.  Many drivers simply waited in line for the cars ahead of them to move.  A few drivers wisely decided to ignore the local traffic laws at that moment and cut over into the oncoming lane which was devoid of traffic (who wants to drive toward a tsunami?)  Amazingly, many drivers just continued to wait in line while those behind moved to safety.

Lesson: Make your G.O.O.D. plans and execute them at the first hint of danger.  We all theoretically know how quickly situations can disintegrate, but these videos are proof.  I'd rather have to come home and unpack than to be helpless because I waited a whole hour to see how bad it would get.

It's sad to see such loss of life and to know that so much could have been avoided. - JCW

Dear Mr. Rawles,
My phone rang sometime after 4 A.M. After rousing myself from bed I heard a message from the local sheriff recommending a voluntary evacuation due to incoming tsunami. I woke my wife. When I looked at the clock I discovered I had two minutes before the tsunami hit. Not enough time to get to higher ground. Thankfully,  in southern Alaska the tsunami was tiny. However, it was a literal and figurative wake-up call. If it had been more serious my family and I could have been swept out to sea. I calculated that I had 7 minutes from the time I heard the message to the tsunami’s impact.

My family was lucky. I do not plan to rely on luck again. Every family member will soon have a b.o.b. near the door. We will practice evacuation.  I plan to run several drills in the middle of the night. I was surprised how slowly I moved and how sluggish my thinking was at that time of day. I read survivalblog everyday, but I did not take concrete steps that are necessary to protect my family.  I write this to hopefully remind others that it is not enough to know what to do in a disaster you must practice and have your gear readily accessible. You never know when the time will come for you to grab what is available and flee. Thanks, - T.A. in Southern Alaska

Let’s be honest. Thinking about the end of the world is kind of fun. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many post-apocalyptic novels, movies and television shows. Preparing for a relatively slow-moving Armageddon like a civil war or pandemic demands a lot of shopping which is an enjoyable pastime.

However, as the grieving citizens of Christchurch, New Zealand attest, the most likely threats are also the most sudden, the least glamorous, and not fun at all. TEOTWAWKI may or may not happen in our lifetimes, but almost everyone has to deal with a natural disaster at one time or another.

While all natural disasters can be intensely destructive, none gives less warning than the mighty earthquake. Even such terrifying Acts of God as tornadoes and volcanoes give some signs of their impending arrival; earthquakes do not. According to a friend at a local university’s Geology department, the most sensitive seismic instruments currently in use give no more than five minutes of warning of a major earthquake: enough time for the Geology department to seek cover, but not enough for them to warn anybody else.

Like most people who live on “the coasts” of North America, I live in an earthquake zone. In my city, it’s not a matter of “if” an earthquake hits, but “when.” Troublingly, we’re actually several decades overdue for a major quake. Under normal circumstances, it’s easy to marginalize this threat, but the devastation in Christchurch underscores just how vulnerable those of us in metropolitan areas are to a severe seismic event.

Based on what happened in New Zealand (which, unlike Haiti, had fully developed, modern infrastructure), I have attempted to glean as many useful lessons as possible about the realities of urban earthquakes, and to factor those lessons into my overall disaster preparedness planning. Since an earthquake represents somewhat of a worst-case scenario, I believe that my conclusions would be useful for anyone interested in preparing for a situation that might leave him or her cold, wet, hungry, thirsty, injured or in the dark.

First, a disclaimer: I am not a veteran survivalist. I’ve lived through a major hurricane and its aftermath, and I’m highly motivated to do everything I can to ensure that my loved ones and I are at least in a better-than-average position when the next unpleasant event happen. But, when it comes right down to it, I am a moderately well-informed, largely untrained, middle-class, city-boy, living with a wife, two (soon to be three) kids, a dog and two cats in a 900 square foot home. I don’t have the cash, space or know-how to implement much of what is suggested by preparedness experts. I’m learning fast, but I’m not there yet. Therefore, since I have no reason to believe that the Schumer will wait until I’m ready before flinging itself at me, I have developed a somewhat unorthodox approach to preparedness. I don’t claim that it’s better than anyone else’s system, only that it works for me, and that it might work well for some others. More about that in a moment.

First, let’s look at the bad things that happen during a severe (Richter scale 6 or higher) earthquake:

- Collapse of numerous buildings, roads and bridges, as a result of shaking and liquefaction (soil with poor drainage can basically turn into soft mud during an earthquake);

- Multi-car accidents, bus crashes, etc.;

- Immediate spread of uncontrolled fires, as a result of damage to electrical and natural gas lines;

- Severe flooding caused by tidal waves and cracked water/sewer pipes;

- Large dust clouds from destroyed buildings.

During the actual quake, there’s not much you can do, aside from try to get under a table or doorframe if you’re inside. [JWR Adds: Tables get squashed. As my friend Paul pointed out, the current advice is that the best survival location is to lay next to a non-compressible object. Stacks of paper or books are good--anything that is truly solid.] Or pull your car over, if you’re on the road. The host of “Man vs. Wild,” when asked for advice on earthquake survival was quoted as saying “The truth is, a lot of it is luck.”

The worst-case scenario would be that this would happen in a coastal city, during a weekday, in winter, at high tide. It is especially important to teach your school-age children to ignore a fire alarm, and get under their desks until the initial quake ends. Getting detention is better than being crushed in a collapsing stairwell because some idiot pulled a fire alarm.

The immediate after-effects of a major quake would be as follows:

- Loss of utilities: water, sanitation, electricity, possibly telephone;

- Stranded and separated family members stuck at work, school, etc.;

- People buried or pinned in rubble;

- People with concussions, fractures and crush injuries;

- People beginning to experience hypothermia;

- People in respiratory distress from smoke and dust.

In this scenario, you and your loved ones would likely not be together, and you might not be able to reach them, either physically or by phone. Furthermore, unless you happened to be near wherever your emergency supplies are stored (and they weren’t buried under a collapsed building), you would only have access to whatever you had on or near your person.

Now, if you survive the initial quake, and you’re not trapped, you need to get outside before the aftershocks hit, preferably to some open area with solid ground where nothing is going to collapse on you, and you’re not going to fall into a fissure. To me, that sounds like the middle of the nearest parking lot.

Of course, it goes without saying that any type of medical/emergency response knowledge is wonderful, if you have it. One doctor in Christchurch saved a pinned man by performing a double leg amputation, using only a Leatherman and a hacksaw.

The training question has been well covered by other writers, so I’m not going to get into all the many things we should all learn how to do, except to mention that, in Christchurch, 14 people escaped from a high rise building with a collapsed stairwell because one of their number happened to be a mountaineer, and happened to have enough rope on hand to belay his compatriots the 60 feet to safety. Belaying isn’t usually high on the list of survival skills, but you can learn it in a day, and if you have the opportunity to take a class at your local park or climbing gym, it’s definitely worth it.

Once the earth stops moving, the aftermath begins. Almost immediately, burglary and looting will begin, including by criminals posing as government employees. As if this weren’t bad enough, the following 24-48 hours will add the following risks:

- Dehydration from lack of potable water;

- Onset of shock from injuries;

- Disease from spilled sewage, garbage, and flood water;

- Infection of wounds;

- Premature births and heart attacks;

- Hypothermia/frostbite;

- Overloaded or triaged police, fire and medical services.

During the initial 24-48 hour window, your first priority must be to secure your own safety. If you’re bleeding heavily or otherwise walking wounded, you’re not going to be much help to anyone else. Crush injuries are particularly dangerous, because they can easily become infected, shattered bones need surgery to repair, and bone fragments can migrate to other parts of the body and cause additional problems. If you’re seriously hurt, you need to realize that this is the kind of situation in which you might actually die. Don’t be a hero; you need to drag yourself to the nearest hospital. Even though you might be standing outside for several hours, it’s your best chance at surviving.

If you’ve patched yourself up, and you have a family, your next priority must be to locate and rendezvous with your loved ones. Based on the geography, distance, road condition, and people involved, this may mean walking (running) or using a bicycle to get where you’re going. Having an established meeting place already decided on is a good idea. If you have young children, you may want to plan on meeting your spouse at the kids’ school, since that’s where you’ll both probably head anyway!

Speaking of spouses, I think it’s important to make preparedness accessible for family members who may not be particularly interested in it. Packing a small emergency kit for a spouse and putting it in the trunk of his or her car “just in case” is neither invasive nor pushy, and if you are separated from each other by a disaster, it will give you piece of mind to know that they won’t be completely unprepared.

At this point, I’d like to introduce my general approach to kit preparation, which is threefold: first, I apply the Pareto Principle; second, I categorize supplies by priority level rather than by type; and  third, I minimize redundancy.

1) The Pareto Principle. Also known as the “80-20 Rule,” this pops up in all sorts of unlikely places. In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population, and that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. Since that time, the ratio of 80:20 has been applied to every imaginable relationship, with varying degrees of success.

In my case, I estimate that approximately 80% of the time, I only use 20% of my gear. To put it another way, the classical approach to “being prepared” is to prepare for every possible situation; my approach is to prepare for only the most probable situations, with the understanding that what I lose in potential preparedness, I gain in mobility and compliance. I simply cannot carry around everything I would need to survive every conceivable disaster. I can, however, keep a small Ziploc bag of high-priority supplies in my satchel, along with my papers, laptop, etc. The farther afield I’m going, the more supplies I carry, but in every circumstance, I’m taking only what I am most likely to need.

2) Grouping Supplies By Priority Invariably, emergency supply lists are broken down into categories like “medical” and “tools.” That’s fine for shopping, but it doesn’t work so well when it comes time to actually pack things into kits to carry around.

So, I’ve made lists that I call: Level 1 (everyday carry); Level 2 (day trips); Level 3 (overnight trips); Level 4 (camping/established emergencies); and Level 5 (home storage - the only level at which I separate the list into “medical supplies” and “non-medical supplies” for the sake of clarity).

As an example, the Level 1 kit lives in the bag that I usually carry with me wherever I go. Level 2 stays in the trunk of my car. If I’m taking the kids to the park, I’ll throw the Level 1 bag and the Level 2 bag into a backpack and carry it around with me. If I have to stay overnight somewhere for work, I’ll put the Level 1, 2 and 3 bags into a duffel bag, and I’m almost entirely packed. If we’re going camping, I pack the 1, 2, 3 bags into a large backpack, along with the Level 4 supplies. If we were to G.O.O.D., then the Level 4 would be my bugout bag, and I would load as much of Level 5 into my car as I could.

3) Redundancy is great in theory, and a real hassle in practice. Not only is it expensive to have duplicate sets of gear in various places, it’s difficult to keep track of what’s where, what’s missing, etc. Therefore, my kits are modular: Level 2 does not include anything that is in Level 1, Level 3 does not include anything that is in Level 2, and so on. Is it a little scary to have all my eggs in one basket? Yes, but it’s a calculated risk. I’d rather know exactly what I have and where it is than have a disorganized mess with too much of what I don’t need, and not enough of what I do. (I speak from experience here: when I went to organize my existing kits into my new system, I discovered that I had 30 reusable Ace bandages and 1 bottle of water. Less than optimal.) Of course, I do have duplicate items, I just put them in separate kits. So, for example, my wife drives around with a small bag in the trunk of her car that contains a Level 1 and Level 2 kit, and my sister-in-law has a Level 1 kit in her backpack along with her college textbooks. That way, if my family is separated when something bad happens (say, my sister-in-law is watching the kids while I’m out of town for work and my wife is out with a friend), we all have the items we’re most likely to need, right then and there.

Without further ado, here are my lists, as they stand now.  Please note that these lists are in a continual state of flux. I add, subtract and move items around as I gain experience and knowledge, so by no means should these be taken as anything other than a point of departure for your own efforts. I hope that they will be useful to you, whether you live in an earthquake zone or not, and I welcome any feedback or constructive criticism.

Modular Packing Lists

Based on the premise that 80% of the time, you only use 20% of the gear you’re carrying, I’ve come up with these lists for modular groups of supplies. This list bears little resemblance to typical “emergency” lists, because those lists try to take into account every possible situation, and are generally sorted by type (e.g. clothes, toiletries). These only take into account the most probable situations, and are sorted by levels of portability/importance. Furthermore, I think it’s important to use the same kind of stuff during emergencies as you do normally, so that everything is familiar to you.

Level 1 – Daily carry. These items (aside from the water bottle) can easily fit into a ziploc bag, which can be transferred from briefcase to backpack to coat pocket, as the situation warrants. This will suffice for most issues that arise in day-to-day situations. If traveling by commercial aircraft, omit “contraband” items, such as the pocket knife. Otherwise, this small packet will give you everything you’re likely to need to get through a situation that leaves you moderately (but not severely) cold, wet, dark, hungry, thirsty or hurt. Bottle of water Snack bar/granola/beef jerky Flashlight (LED bulb) Pocket knife/multi-tool Cash (approx. $100) Band-aids, assorted sizes Antibacterial ointment (Polysporin, Bacitracin, etc.) (small tube) Athletic (“Ace”) bandage with velcro closure Hand sanitizer (small bottle) Wet wipes (individually wrapped in plastic, not paper) Napkins/paper towels Matches (small box in a ziploc bag) Folding poncho Emergency “Space” blanket Dust mask Deodorant (Why is this on my Level 1 list? Because realizing you forgot to put deodorant on definitely could constitute an emergency.) Individual needs: e.g. sanitary products, prescription medicine

Level 2 – Day pack These items can easily fit into a light backpack. This will suffice for trips to the beach, day hikes and hunting trips, etc., as well as for urban/suburban stranded-overnight scenarios. If you are responsible for others (e.g. children), adjust accordingly. Additional Water Sunscreen (small tube of SPF 30 or higher.) Bug spray (small, non-aerosol container.) Calendula ointment (for stings or burns) Light sticks More snacks Dry pair of socks and underwear in ziploc bag Hat Camp Towel Rolled gauze Cohesive bandage Athletic tape Israeli Battle Dressing (“IBD”) Vinyl “exam” gloves Small bag for trash

Level 2B – Car Kit If traveling by car, you may wish to pack the following items: Jumper cables Can of “Fix-A-Flat” Extra pair of work boots/hiking shoes Cooler containing: ? 5-10 lbs of ice ? Bottled water ? Bottled/boxed juice ? Fruit (berries, sliced apples, etc.) ? Hard-boiled eggs ? Sandwiches

Level 3 – Overnight Travel Aside from the clothes, these items can easily fit into a ziploc bag or standard “toiletry” kit bag. Toothbrush Toothpaste (travel-size tube) Mouthwash (travel-size bottle) Dental Floss (small canister) Soap (Ivory, 1 bar) Shampoo (travel-sized bottle) Razor with extra blade Talcum powder (small bottle) Complete change of clothes (1 set) ? Underpants ? Socks ? T-shirt ? Long-sleeved pullover ? Hooded sweatshirt ? Jeans Sleep clothes (1 set)

Level 4 – Camping/Short-Term Emergency These items can be packed into a plastic tub or large backpack. Again, items are not duplicated, so you would also pack the Levels 1, 2 and 3 kits. Tent (ultralight, or “pup” style) Sleeping bag or blanket Toilet paper (biodegradable) Mess kit Canned/dried food Water Folding “Sterno”-style camp stove with fuel Disposable plates, cups, cutlery Roll of paper towels Handgun with ammunition Duct tape Hatchet Large trash bags

In addition to portable kits, it is advisable to prepare two larger kits for storage at home.

Level 5A. Medical Supplies Lots of band-aids Steri-strips Hydrogen Peroxide Antibacterial ointment (Neosporin, etc.) Alcohol swabs Disposable vinyl “exam” gloves (several boxes) Extra-strength Advil/Tylenol Children’s Advil/Tylenol Antibiotics Gauze (lots) Alcohol Wipes Cohesive bandages Israeli Battle Dressings (IBD compression bandages) Medical Manual (Merck Manual or equivalent)

Level 5B. Non-Medical Supplies Cash money Canned food/emergency rations Candles & Matches in waterproof bag Heavy duty flashlights with extra batteries Gasoline (approx. 5 gallons) Laundry soap More Water More bar soap More wet wipes More light sticks More trash bags Portable toilet (toilet-seat-bucket lid, etc.) More biodegradable toilet paper Basic hand tools Folding shovel Chainsaw Shotgun with ammunition Handgun with ammunition Rifle with ammunition Passport Gold/silver bullion coins