It's official. We did the tally yesterday and as of December 31st 2011, LifeSecure has helped secure 492,437 lives with emergency kits and supplies.
This puts us so very close to our goal of securing half a million lives. It won't take us long and we'll reach that significant mark. Then we'll set a new goal and keep working toward helping to make Every Life Secure in any emergency or disaster.
Every Life Secure - 490,000 lives secured and counting.
LifeSecure has now secured over 490,000 lives in case of an emergency or disaster. Our short term goal is to reach half a million lives secured. Our long term goal is to help make Every Life Secure.
Every Life Secure - Over 490,000 lives secured and counting.
Here is a good video on how to survive an earthquake. It's very simple, Drop, Cover and Hold. You can increase your chances of survival by following these three steps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8mUZFeMwhE&feature=player_detailpage
Make sure that you have the only earthquake emergency kit that actually helps protect your supplies from falling debris. Your kit can't drop, cover, and hold on, so it is important that it be crush resistant so that you have the best chance of actually having usable supplies once the shaking stops.
Every Life Secure - 450,000 lives secured and counting.
This is a good Youtube video on earthquake preparedness at home. This video is of a family in Southern California, but earthquakes can happen anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AjyF1qsi7e0
Every Life Secure - 450,000 lives secured and counting.
If you are new to the hurricane game, here is a bit of advice from sad experience... "Shop before, not after." People are probably a lot smarter today than my family was 40 years ago (a lot more media today), but it's worth passing along some wisdom for those who may not have experienced a hurricane (or other natural disaster) before.
While living in the Philippines in 1970, we experienced Typhoon Yoling. A typhoon is the Asian version of a hurricane. With winds at 130 MPH plus it was a harrowing experience. This was our very first experience with such a storm. We really did not know what we were doing.
We survived the storm and immediately hopped in the car to go to the grocery store. Somehow we dodged downed trees and roof tops ripped from houses and strewn on the ground and actually arrived at the local grocery store. The store was lit only by candles placed strategically on certain shelves and at the checkouts. They may as well not have bothered with the candles because there was nothing left to buy. The shelves were totally empty except for, as I remember it, a bottle of pickled pigs feet (literally).
I will never forget the site of a full size grocery store empty but for a few orphan items that no one considered particulary helpful after a monster storm. As I recall we bought nothing because there was nothing to buy - we missed the boat. We lived for the next two weeks mostly on the rice we had stored, whatever canned goods were in our pantry, and what we could rapidly eat up from our refrigerator and freezer. This was a true survival experience. It was around Thanksgiving time and so we cooked our turkey on a barbecue grill. It was that or have it go bad as there was no electricity or running water for two weeks.
I'm sure that today everyone would understand that job one, well before landfall of a hurricane, is to stock up with needed groceries and supplies. This is a lesson I will not need reinforced. I will forever have the image of a single candle burning next to a single bottle of pickled pigs feet etched in my mind.
The time for preparation is "before the storm". As applied to any potential disaster, shop before, not after. Since many disasters do not give the lead-time that is often a luxury with a slowly approaching hurricane, there won't be time to get ahead of the disaster. An earthquake, for example, will usually hit without warning. The time to prepare and "shop" is right now perhaps days, weeks, months, or years before the need arises. Now is the time to get your emergency kit and emergency supplies and then keep them up to date so you don't find yourself trying to shop empty shelves after he fact.
Every Life Secure - Over 440,000 lives secured and counting.
It's true -- you don't have to be a "survivalist" to be a "survivor."
I'm a "survivor" of many disasters, but I'm not a "survivalist." Though I have learned much from those who are self-identified survivalists and have great respect for their knowledge and skills, I believe all of us as "regular people" can take basic steps that allow us to be a survivor in case of a severe emergency or disaster.
To increase your chances of being a disaster survivor you can:
1) Learn about what to do in various emergency or disaster scenarios. All of us can identify various kinds of disasters or emergencies that are common to where we live and learn about how to appropriately respond to them. For example, I live in Illinois and as such should know the basics of what to do in case of earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, chemical spills or explosions (freight trains come within a mile of my home), nuclear accidents (we have 11 nuclear reactors in Illinois), and floods.
Such knowledge is readily available on the web (from this emergency preparedness blog among other sources), in books, in pamphlets, from local emergency responders, etc. You don't need to become an expert in emergency response to learn and remember such basics "Drop, Cover, Hold On" in an earthquake, "get out of your car and into a ditch" in a tornado, or "have a 72 hour emergency kit in case you have to evacuate or shelter-in-place" in any number of disaster scenarios.
I used to worry about trying to memorize and keep in mind the "10 bullet points for how to respond to each type of disaster". I have come to believe that one can get and retain most of the "survivor knowledge" they will really need by just occasionally learning about these events and thinking about the key things to do and not do. A lot of it comes down to common sense once you learn some of the basic principles of response.
When it comes to knowledge of how to respond, you don't have to be a trained survivalist to survive a disaster.
2) Have an emergency kit and emergency supplies. As I share constantly in this blog and as the U.S. Government has told us for years now, everyone should have an emergency kit and adequate supplies to last for at least 72 hours (3 days) on their own after a disaster. Hurricane Katrina taught us that even in America, you can go hungry and be thirsty if you are not prepared to meet your own needs after a catastrophic disaster.
I personally am prepared to support my family's basic needs for much longer than 72 hours, but this minimum is a good place to start. For relatively little money you can either build your own emergency kit or buy an emergency kit that will meet your basic needs. Remember, its about "sustaining life" not "sustaining lifestyle" for those few days after a disaster. Your absolute survival essentials can be fit into one backpack. That same backpack of supplies can be used to help you evacuate or shelter-in-place.
You don't have to own the ultimate survival knife in order to survive most disasters and emergencies. I love cool survival gadgets as much as the next guy, but basic supplies will do for most scenarios. Any regular person can obtain an emergency kit that may not contain all the high-end specialized gear a trained survivalist may desire, but that will work just fine to help you be a survivor in a disaster.
3) Have a basic plan of how to evacuate or shelter-in-place. If you have the basic knowledge of how to survive a given catastrophic event, and you have the supplies to meet your basic needs for a period of time, you can top that off by thinking through your emergency plan.
The appropriate response to most catastrophic disasters will require you to do one of two things to avoid harm or to deal with the event's aftermath: evacuate of shelter-in-place. If you have to evacuate, you'll need to know how you will gather family members, and where you will go before you actually have to leave. Evacuation can happen in a real hurry in some scenarios and the time for preparation is over when the time for action has arrived. Plan in advance.
Shelter-in-place plans also require some forethought. Thinking through your plans will help you better ensure that you have the right emergency supplies in place to respond to an emergency at a moments notice.
As in other aspects of emergency preparation, your plans don't have to be elaborate. SEAL Team Six level planning and practice is not necessary. Just think through the basics and make sure that all family members or colleagues in the workplace know what the plan is.
Following these basic approaches to emergency preparedness will allow you to survive most of what might come at you in this life in the way of emergencies or disasters. Don't be intimidated by the emergency preparedness process. You don't need to be a survivalist to be a survivor.
Every Life Secure
Prepare for the worst case scenario -- a catastrophic disaster. This is sound advice. We spend much of our lives preparing. Most of us spend from 13 to 17+ years in school as a preparation for our life's vocation as well as just for living a productive adult life. Each job we have prepares us for the next. We prepare for countless specific events in our lives: graduation, marriage, births, moving, etc. Preparation is part of our daily routine, but how well prepared are we for the ultimate challenge - the worst case scenario?
The worst case scenario may come in various ways. It may come as a personal tragedy or as a critical accident. In the unsure world in which we live, it will come to many in the form of a catastrophic disaster. This may be an earthquake, a tsunami, a flood, a hurricane, a wildfire, a tornado, a chemical explosion, a volcanic eruption, a mudslide, a blizzard, a terrorist attack or any one of many other potential natural or man-made disasters. My first catastrophic disaster was the disasterous Super-Typhoon "Yoling" in the Philippines that left my family with readily available food, water, or electricity for two weeks.
Whatever the worst case scenario may be that invades your life, you can prepare for it now. One of the keys to being prepared is to have adequate emergency supplies to meet your own basic needs for at least 72 hours (three days). It can take at least this long for authorities to begin to deliver aid to most people after a major disaster. Personally my family is prepared to go it alone for much longer if necessary (remember, I went the two weeks with little help so I have learned by experience that three days is a minimum).
Because not everyone can afford (either in storage space or cash) to have more than a three day supply, I suggest that you follow the U.S. Government Guidelines and have an emergency kit that can either be used to support you as you evacuate or as you stay put and shelter-in-place. I like to say that with such an emergency kit "you can evacuate or stay, and you are covered either way."
Whether you build your own emergency kit or buy an emergency kit don't delay this important step in being prepared for the worst case scenario - a catastrophic disaster. Get an emergency kit now and make sure that you are well prepared. We do live in an unsure world, but we can be more secure if we are prepared.
Every Life Secure
It is gratifying to see that the Central United States is beginning to wake up to the fact that those of us who live here, do indeed live in "earthquake country." I just joined 2.4 million others already signed up for the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut.
Because of the earthquake risks associated with the New Madrid fault, if you live in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, or Tennessee you need to be prepared for a severe earthquake. The ShakOut is an earthqauke response exercise to be held on April 28, 2011 at 10:15 a.m.. Very simply, at that appointed hour, those involved in the drill will DROP, COVER, and HOLD ON. The point is to teach us each how to protect ourselves in the event of an earthquake.
If you live in live in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, or Tennessee, I invite you to register now for the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut and prepare yourself for a future earthquake. I also encourage you to build or buy an earthquake emergency kit that will help to sustain you and your family for at least 72 hours after a severe earthquake.
Every Life Secure
EveryLifeSecure.com is now on Twitter. We hope to reach a wider audience as you and others follow our emergency preparedness tweets on Twitter @EveryLifeSecure. Please feel free to ReTweet.
Thanks for following us...
@EveryLifeSecure
In the effort to encourage people to prepare in advance for a major disaster, the most challenging obstacle to overcome is people's lack of personal experience. Most Americans have never experienced a catastrophic disaster. Therefore, most Americans do not fully comprehend the realities of the aftermath of such a devastating event. Lacking this first hand experience, many of us are challenged to learn from the experience of others.
When the devastating earthquake hit Haiti last year, we saw very little increase in people determining to be prepared. Was this because people just assumed that the impact of a disaster in the United States would be very different than the aftermath of a catastrophe in a third world country such as Haiti?
How quickly we seem to forget the suffering in the United States after Katrina. Yes, you can go hungry and thirsty in America and be left without adequate shelter and access to medications after a major disaster. Some of us learned that lesson without having to live it ourselves. Some of us got better prepared because we understood that what happened in New Orleans could happen elsewhere in the country in a major disaster. Others, sadly, did not see the application of the lesson.
Well, here is one more chance... Like the United States, Japan is one of the most developed countries in the world and has one of its largest economies. It is not a third world country. So read this article to see a first hand account of what it can be like after a major disaster like that experienced in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. This account made me ask myself once again, "How well prepared am I for a major disaster?"
Every Life Secure
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