Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart Happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, how
Speaker 1: does someone get ready for a disaster like the one
Speaker 1: we saw in Japan? Or, to put it another way,
Speaker 1: how does emergency preparedness work? If there's one thing we
Speaker 1: saw with the earthquake in Japan, it's how quickly the
Speaker 1: world can go from normal to complete disaster. After the
Speaker 1: earthquakes and tsunami struck, many people in Japan were thrown
Speaker 1: into quite primitive conditions. No electricity, no telephone service, no medicine,
Speaker 1: no clean drinking water, and no shipments of food arriving
Speaker 1: because the roads were gone. Hurricanes can bring the same
Speaker 1: kind of destructive force across a wide area, and so
Speaker 1: can volcanoes. If your city were to be struck with
Speaker 1: a large scale disaster like this, would you and your
Speaker 1: family be read need to handle it? That's where emergency
Speaker 1: preparedness comes in. The basic idea is to have enough
Speaker 1: supplies on hand so that your family can survive the
Speaker 1: week or two of pandemonium that follows any major disaster.
Speaker 1: One reason to be prepared is because it ensures the
Speaker 1: survival and relative comfort of your family. The other reason
Speaker 1: is because it makes things less chaotic for rescuers and
Speaker 1: relief crews. If you are able to manage your life
Speaker 1: without any help, it frees up rescue teams to handle
Speaker 1: those who are truly in need of their help. So
Speaker 1: what do you have on hand in an emergency? Perhaps
Speaker 1: the most important thing is water. Human beings use a
Speaker 1: lot of water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and even for
Speaker 1: flushing the toilet. At a bare minimum, a person needs
Speaker 1: about a gallon per day. You would like to have
Speaker 1: at least enough water to handle three days, and a
Speaker 1: week or two would be even better. If you have
Speaker 1: four people in your family and you're planning for a
Speaker 1: week of coverage, you need a minimum of twenty eight
Speaker 1: gallons stored somewhere in your house, and it needs to
Speaker 1: be in the right kind of package. Milk jugs of
Speaker 1: water start leaking after a year or so, clear plastic
Speaker 1: bottles won't. If there is a natural source of water nearby,
Speaker 1: like a river or a lake, you can use it.
Speaker 1: If you have a way to carry and sterilize the water.
Speaker 1: You need any prescription medicines that are essential to your life,
Speaker 1: as well as an adequate first aid kit. Because there
Speaker 1: will be no electricity, you'll want to have a good
Speaker 1: flashlight and fresh batteries, as well as a battery operated
Speaker 1: radio to get information. Glow sticks are also nice to
Speaker 1: have available. You need some food. Many people have enough
Speaker 1: food in the pantry to handle a couple of days.
Speaker 1: In a big disaster, you may want a week or
Speaker 1: two of food on hand. Canned foods like soups and
Speaker 1: other prepared foods, and dry foods like rice and pasta
Speaker 1: are probably best for long term storage. Keep in mind
Speaker 1: that you need a way to open the cans and
Speaker 1: to the food, an old fashioned can opener and a
Speaker 1: camp stover handy. It's nice to have some cash. With
Speaker 1: the power out in the telephone system down, a t
Speaker 1: m S and credit card machines are not going to
Speaker 1: work for the same reason. Gas stations are not going
Speaker 1: to be pumping gas either. If you have some advanced
Speaker 1: warning of something like an approaching hurricane, filling up your
Speaker 1: car's gas tank is a good move, and taking out
Speaker 1: several hundred dollars in cash is also a smart thing
Speaker 1: to do. And don't forget the little things. If you
Speaker 1: run out of toilet paper, that is its own special disaster,
Speaker 1: keep several packages of toilet paper in the back of
Speaker 1: the bathroom cabinet just in case. Speaking of hurricanes, a
Speaker 1: big tarp and some rope might be nice things to
Speaker 1: have in the garage. If your roof gets damaged, you
Speaker 1: may be able to cover the whole. If you want
Speaker 1: to write out a disaster and style, an emergency generator
Speaker 1: and enough gasoline to keep it running can be very
Speaker 1: nice things to have with it. You can keep your
Speaker 1: refrigerator running, provide lights at night, and so on. Having
Speaker 1: a generator requires an extra level of discipline because gasoline
Speaker 1: goes bad. If you're keeping gasoline in the garage for
Speaker 1: the generator, you need to replace it on a regular schedule.
Speaker 1: Full on disasters like the one that happened in Japan
Speaker 1: don't occur very often, but when they do, it's nice
Speaker 1: to be prepared so you can survive without undue hardship.
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