The Preparedness and Survival Site

Another installment of an ongoing series by forum member Cutter.

Natural disasters are a mixture of the common and the area specific.  For instance, thunderstorms and high winds happen all over the continental US and even most of the Earth.  On the other hand, we generally don’t have to worry about blizzards dumping 2 feet of snow in the Arizona desert and Florida or 140 degree heat in Alaska or Maine.

All natural disasters have a few stock requirements.  Food, water, and shelter are universal needs.  Other concerns are more threat specific.

The nature of the disaster will dictate a few things about your shelter, how you store your food and water, and what other considerations you will need to address.  Flooding will mean a need to stay above the water line.  Whether that means getting out of the water’s way or literally staying on top of it (floating) depends upon your needs, abilities, and plans.  How you will stay safe and likewise keep your resources safe and useful to you is what you must decide.  You can bet that in a flooding situation, public utilities will be spotty and sporadic at best and will probably not be functioning where you are.

Extreme cold and snow requires you to have a reliable means to stay warm.  Snow could also bring the additional concern of its weight damaging your shelter as it accumulates.  Both conditions will limit travel and will be hard on equipment.  Engines might not start.  Exhaust systems for both engines and things like furnaces and fireplaces might become blocked and cause a dangerous buildup of deadly gasses.  Traveling in a blizzard is a great way to become hopelessly lost really fast.  If you don’t have the warning or ability to get out of the way, staying put is your best bet.  With that in mind, your priority is to provide enough supplies and means to stay warm to outlast the storm.

Hurricanes and tornados have a great deal in common.  There are also some significant differences.  They both bring a lot of high wind and rain.  They both cause atrocious damage.  The differences are that hurricanes cause a ton of damage and do it a lot longer and over a much larger area than tornados and also tend to bring massive flooding with them.  Having miraculously lived through no fewer than 5 tornados without injury, I can safely say that I would choose to go through 10 more than to face a hurricane head on.  Given the choice, I would rather avoid seeing either up close for the rest of my days.

Shelter in these disasters is your first, highest priority.  Better to get out of the way altogether if you can.  As we have seen in the past, timely help from the authorities is far from assured and may not be the kind of help you want or need.  The greatest concern here is the time involved.  You must have sufficient, usable resources to hold out until real help arrives.  In tornados, that may be a few hours to a couple of days.  In a hurricane, the time scale may be days to weeks.  Also bear in mind that you are not going to be the only one in a bind.  Others will have a need for the same resources that you do but may not have prepared as you have.  The longer the situation goes on, the more desperate the unprepared and insufficiently prepared will become.  As I have said many times, desperation, while not pretty, can motivate a person to do great and terrible things.  Bear it in mind.

I am sorry and glad to say that I have little to no experience with things like mudslides, volcanoes, and earthquakes.   The best advice I can give is to get out of the way of the hazards if you can.  These, like other area specific threats, are best prepared for with the advice of those who live in the areas where they are most likely to occur.

Good luck and happy prepping.

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