How to Prepare Your Home Front for the Next Disaster
We all endured the struggle together when Covid-19 reared its ugly head. There were dozens of unforeseen obstacles that made life more challenging and complicated.
What if we could be better prepared for the inevitable next disaster? Life might be a little easier to contend with if we had a few staple items and measures to curb those challenges. It all starts at home.
Equipping your home to be a bastion against hazards is one of the first major steps in disaster planning. Let's go through some key elements that will help you in crafting your own disaster preparedness plan.
A Quick Note before we get started: The following advice is not comprehensive.
There's a wealth of tools and tactics you can employ to shape your house into the ideal apocalypse residence. But climate hazards differ depending on what part of the world you're in, and some tips may be more or less applicable to your situation.
Consider each solution and apply each one that may suit your specific needs based on what your environment might call for.
Natural Disasters
Let's cover a few different types of natural disasters, the threats they bring, and a few specific methods to prepare for them.
Heavy Rain and Floods
There are a lot of ways to prep your house for water damage. However, they can vary in affordability, and you'll want to gauge which is best for your scenario.
A tried and true, although expensive, method of diverting water accumulated in basements is by installing a french drain in the perimeter of your basement. This is more of a preventive measure to help control the amount of moisture that inevitably leaks into the basement when the water table is higher.
A simple supplement and partial alternative to a french drain is applying masonry paint to your basement walls. If you have concrete walls (or walls made from cinder blocks), painting them with masonry paint can be a fast and comparatively affordable solution for locking out some moisture from your basement in the event of flooding and heavy rainfall.
You should also consider investing in a sump pump to discharge gray water to your yard if you don't already have one. Beyond that, it's advisable to have a second backup sump pump at the ready if your current pump ever fails on you.
If you don't already have one installed, consider getting a storm door for your door front. Storm doors are an easy and effective way of keeping your front door clean while also preventing water damage, leakage, and ice damming.
Electrical Outages
There are many reasons that your power could go out, from heavy rains to wind and so on. There are some steps you can take to prepare for it.
Begin by turning your refrigerator and freezers (if you have any) down to their coldest settings so that in the event that you do lose power, they will be able to maintain cold temperatures for a longer duration.
If the power does go out, it's wise to begin unplugging electrical appliances so that in the event that you regain power, you will reduce the risk of power surges that could harm your devices or circuitry.
Heavy Winds, Hurricanes, and Tornadoes
High winds can be one of the reasons that you'd lose power. But there are other hazards to prepare for with wind and hurricanes, as well.
Often, the wind will carry debris through the air, which could damage you, your house, or outdoor features on your property.
It's important to secure items you care about that could blow away. Standing metal sheds can often be flimsy and should be secured with cables mounted from the roof to the ground, anchored with augers to cement footings.
You should take care to secure other outdoor furniture like tables, chairs, umbrellas, and other features by either chaining them to a fixed surface or simply stowing them away in a shed or garage.
It's also encouraged to securely close your windows and doors. From there, board them up with wood to prevent debris from causing damage to the glass and possibly hurting someone or breaking something inside your home.
Hurricanes can bring both winds and water. It's necessary to fasten things that could blow away in the wind. At the same time, you need to elevate anything that could be damaged by water.
In the event of a tornado, it's best to remain underground if you can. If you have a dedicated shelter separated from the rest of your home, do what you can to secure the exterior of the home before moving out to the shelter. It goes without saying that you should only do this if you have time before the tornado arrives. Never sacrifice your own personal safety to secure your home!
Earthquakes
If you're in an area that has frequent earthquakes, you'll want to think ahead by securing any large, heavy furniture to walls to prevent them from falling over.
Remove any breakable objects that could topple to the ground, such as glass dishware in a china cabinet. Any plants or lamps hung on hooks should be removed to prevent them from swinging off during an earthquake.
It's important to have one or more sturdy pieces of furniture that you can hide under or hold onto to protect you from falling debris, too.
Emergency Kit
Your emergency kit or “bug out bag” should have all of the items you want to have on hand while surviving a natural disaster. This can include an array of useful equipment, such as:
At least 72 hours' worth of non-perishable food for each person and animal in your household
Batteries
Flashlights
Waterproof matches or a lighter
Gasoline
Medication, like aspirin, ibuprofen, antiseptic, and Tylenol
Hand sanitizer
Phone chargers
Pre-charged portable power banks
An unopened first-aid kit
A battery-powered or manual crank-powered radio
Clean clothes and bedding for each family member
Toilet paper
A knife
A can opener
Duct tape
Emergency candles
String or rope
Cash
Extra doses of prescribed medication
Ammunition (if you have a firearm)
Disposable tableware (plates, utensils, napkins, etc.)
Water for drinking
Water for hygiene and other uses (not for drinking… at least not until things get really bad)
Water purification tablets
A fire safe (for sensitive documents)
Only you will know what's best to include or not include in your emergency kit, so do not treat this list as an exhaustive resource. If you’re interested in building a more comprehensive Bug Out Bag, check out our article that goes into more detail on the subject.
Remember, though, don’t just stick to other people’s lists. Take the initiative to incorporate anything that will be useful or necessary for your unique household needs.
Knowing how to prepare for an emergency situation will make all the difference when the next major event happens. You'll thank yourself when grocery stores are out of stock, but you've already got those items stocked up and at the ready.
Prolonged Disasters
Sometimes, catastrophic events can last days or even weeks. In those cases, your initial stores of supplies may run out.
It's hard to know exactly how many supplies you'll need for any disaster. Here are some tips on how to address some dilemmas.
We mentioned earlier that you should have at least 72 hours worth of food for each member in your home. It is wise to have additional storage of food that can be rationed even more sparingly if you exhaust your initial 72-hour supply.
Although it will be challenging, you'll need to be able to spread out how often you're consuming your food to make it last as long as possible. After the 72-hour mark, you'll want to have a plan for waiting out the event if it lasts days or weeks longer.
If you can communicate with someone on the outside that could provide relief, then try to have them bring you supplies. If it comes down to it, you may have to compromise hygiene for survival for a time, too. Be willing to rededicate your water stores meant for hygiene to be used as drinking water if it's not already soiled.
Wrapping Up
It's hard ever to be entirely ready for any disaster that strikes. But these methods should give you a starting place to prep your home into a fortress that can make it easier to tackle.
As long as you have a plan in place with actionable steps, you'll be able to preempt many of the potential hazards that could be thrown at you.
Remember that you should always consult your local authorities on the best course of action when facing a disaster like one of the above. Often, your first baseline of defense is your own home. But if the extremity of the disaster is too much to handle, be prepared to evacuate. Your town authority should be able to provide warnings and guidelines as to what's best to do in the event of an evacuation.
Until then, get ready to buckle down in your own home. Happy prepping!