Submitted by Mike Rafferty of Ready for Anything Wire (www.readyforanything.com). Preparedness is something we should all evaluate on an ongoing basis.
Sometimes the weather plays a role in planning — as this incoming early storm may — and some times there are other obstacles to your preparedness. Are you ready to improvise?
To be ready to survive a disaster, man made or natural, you must be able to improvise and make do with what you have.
Your plans for surviving a disaster may have to change due to weather, government interference, loss of equipment or people.
All of your group or family should have at least basic first aid training. Hopefully at least one of your group has advanced medical training — like nurse, physician, paramedic or emergency medical technician. You must consider what happens if this person is injured, killed or just cannot get to your location. Your group may now be at risk due to injuries or illness. Others will need to be able to take over the medical needs of the group.
Prior to a disaster your specialist needs to conduct advanced skill instruction for other members of the group. To supplement this instruction, the group should have purchased books on the subject of emergency medical care. Books are superior because computers, pads, smart phones, etc. are easily damaged. Even a wet book can be dried out and used. Books also don’t lose power to become poor paper weights.
Sometimes, old technology serves best — or it could be all you have.
Your group has a large tent to provide shelter after the loss of your home during a disaster. You arrive at a refuge site and find all the support poles and tent stakes missing. Has your group practiced setting up your shelter without all its parts? Practice locating improvised support parts and lashing them together with the bulk rope you should have. No rope? Look around for scrap pieces of rope, wire or even large pieces of cloth to tie things together. When looking for lashing, make sure that if you need to scavenge wire that it is not attached to a power pole. It may still be connected to the grid and injure or kill you.
If you are lucky enough to have a vehicle to transport yourself and others away from a disaster site it may be damaged or in poor running condition. Tires can be a particular problem. Puncture and tread/sidewall damage will be common driving in and around a disaster site. Tires that you would never think of driving on in good times will serve you well if speeds are kept low and obstacles are avoided. You are in need of a transport vehicle, not a racecar. If the vehicle you have obtained has damage to the glass, the damaged glass will need to be removed. Better to be cold and wet than to have sharp glass come loose and strike you or your passengers while driving.
Do you know how to siphon fuel from other vehicles? The old way of sucking on a hose until the fuel flows will do but small squeeze type hand pumps that will fit into a small bag are safer and deliver fuel much more easily. Many other tricks can be used to keep a vehicle running long enough to get you where you are going. Do the research and learn. Just because a vehicle is not perfect does not mean it will not accomplish the mission of transportation.
The idea that I am trying to convey is that a person needs to be able to look at a problem with the idea of solving it. Standing in the middle of the road and wringing your hands doesn’t help fix the problem. Learn skills such as mechanical repair, knot tying, construction and many others. Make sure the others in your group have needed skills and have them teach these skills to others in the group.
In being ready for anything, never bet your life on a single person or skill. Have a backup and a plan to make things work when necessary.
