This is a drill..what do you do now ???

[CoastRange57]

Pretty severe weather happening right now, snow making movement problematic right ???

So right now a 8.5 or better earthquake strikes.

1. Electrical supply failure in most areas not expected to be restored for at least 14 days...water disruptions probably 30 days and 30% of the populace loses their present homes / shelter.

2. Transportation is limited no more than 5 to 10 miles due to bridge and surface street failure.

Option 1 is you are at home when all this goes to sh*t.

Option 2 is you are at work or 20 miles from your home / base.

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[peetar]

Walk home. Bundle up and get propane stuff ready.

 

[deadeye]

Generator for well so water is covered.
for now fridge/freezer is on the deck (plenty cold outside) could use generator if warms up.
Studded snow tires for all rigs and 4x4.
plenty of food.
wood for fireplace for heat as well as propane heat and cooking, if gas lines are out.

 

[mrblond]

I'll be home, all depends of the gas lines are cut. if yes, its a wood fire if not, im a-ok as almost everything here runs off gas.

 

[Dunerunner]

House is destroyed, but motorhome survives. I move there for a month.

Propane tank is full, gas tank is full, plenty of food, water tank is full and will last if we take spit baths and use wet wipes in between. Covered!

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Option 1 home destroyed.
Make sure everyone OK! Get pioneer tools from truck and force my way into garage. Retrieve and set up 8 man tent, sleeping bags and pads. Get radios working and set up heating and cooking station. Probably using an 8,500btu Kero heater to start, also have wood and propane. Lock&load garage rifle. As soon as as I start the heater begin to melt snow to save stored water and move stored water into the tent to keep thawed. Begin CAREFULLY probing the house ruins to access more food, water, ammo and other items. I try to keep certain items in places that are near structal strong points in the hope thet we will be able to reach them after a quake. No guarantees though!
Oh yeah, chain up the 4X4 in case. It's full!

Option 2
This is the scary one for me! Have to use my emergency pack and try to walk it. Have to stop every so often make a fire and get into my emergency sleeping bag. I'm guessing it would take 12hrs to cross 5-6miles. Hey! I'm old and messed up! Able to handle pain and fatigue and much experience in much colder climate for pluses! Would not be a joy!!!

PS: AMProducts reminds me to set up the toilet and also I need to get a warm dog bed into the garage. Doesnt do her any good to have beds in a collapsed house.

 

[Certaindeaf]

8.5 your home is gone/destroyed.

 

[The Heretic]

Option 1)

I would call my kids (about 15 miles away) and make sure they are okay.

I would probably put the studded tires on my big truck and load the genset on it to take to their house.

My house is well insulated, has a wood stove and most everything I need.

They have nat. gas so they would probably have heat if they had electricity to run the furnace. It depends on whether I could get to them. I have several alternative routes.

Option 2)

I would get to my car, put on my boots and cold weather gear, drive as far as possible to get to my kids house which is halfway between my workplace and home. Then walk the rest of the way after I park my car somewhere safe and out of the way.

I would probably call them and see if they could make it towards me.

Of course this depends on a lot of details.

If I can get home I am pretty well setup.

Right now I am sitting here with about 4 inches of snow, still snowing, fire going in the woodstove. If power goes out I would be fine for a while - I have about 15 acres of forest, and there has been some logging going on so I have some scrap wood to burn, although the wood is green and frozen.

 

[3MTA3]

Since I'm at the beginning stages of being prepared, my plan pretty much sucked.

I tried the plan that most would use first in this situation: I panicked and ran around in circles for a while, but got tired after a couple of minutes. After that I decided to loot my neighbors house for food and supplies (he was at work), but when I got back someone had looted mine while I was gone. Dejected, I fired up the BBQ and threw on a couple of Costco hockey pucks and updated my Face thingy status with my smartphone until it died. It sure is freaking cold tonight and the BBQ just went out.

I promise to be better prepared next time.

 

[rick benjamin]

Shut off main breaker in electrical panel.
Electricity backfed from Barn by portable genset, extra gasoline in cans.

Food in the pantry, referigerator, freezer, and in buckets in the barn.
If natural gas still flowing, heat. If not, propane fired wood stove.

Retired, so I don't want to EVER! be downtown PDX.

House unlivable, Set-up like at deer-elk camp (in the barn), 2nd season (cold!)
Propane fired tent heater.

 

[aslinged]

Immediately drop acid, strip naked and start wandering the streets aimlessly.

Play it by ear from there.

 

[U201491]

Most of that was kind of normal on the farm. Power out up to two weeks, at times in winter,
Pretty much prepared for anything except maybe a nuke or astroid hit <LOL>
We pretty much have contingency plans for about any scenario. All are different.
If at work, Get home by whatever mans necessary, then do what needs doing.
Radio the kids and get connected.
Heated wit wood only for last 30 yrs. Now Have 2 fireplaces here.
But with an 8.5, probably will dig out supplies that were not in the truck already and tent it for a bit. What ever it takes. A much easier scenario than one that involves combat at the same time.

 

[44mag2ndamend]

Flash Back to REALITY.

1 You are most likely injured, most tasks will be a tad more time consuming.

2 Every one around you is worse off than you, because you thought out a little in advance and they know it. ( Wolves Circling Now )

3 There is now law enforcement and Martial Law exists.

Now think about the rest, gets interesting from here.

 

[44mag2ndamend]

Flash Back to REALITY.

1 You are most likely injured, most tasks will be a tad more time consuming.

2 Every one around you is worse off than you, because you thought out a little in advance and they know it. ( Wolves Circling Now )

3 There is no law enforcement and Martial Law exists.

Now think about the rest, gets interesting from here.

 

[U201491]

Flash Back to REALITY.

1 You are most likely injured, most tasks will be a tad more time consuming.

2 Every one around you is worse off than you, because you thought out a little in advance and they know it. ( Wolves Circling Now )

3 There is no law enforcement and Martial Law exists.

Now think about the rest, gets interesting from here.

Why telegraph intent.

 

[Grunwald]

Option 1)

I would call my kids (about 15 miles away) and make sure they are okay.

I would probably put the studded tires on my big truck and load the genset on it to take to their house.

My house is well insulated, has a wood stove and most everything I need.

They have nat. gas so they would probably have heat if they had electricity to run the furnace. It depends on whether I could get to them. I have several alternative routes.

Option 2)

I would get to my car, put on my boots and cold weather gear, drive as far as possible to get to my kids house which is halfway between my workplace and home. Then walk the rest of the way after I park my car somewhere safe and out of the way.

I would probably call them and see if they could make it towards me.

Of course this depends on a lot of details.

If I can get home I am pretty well setup.

Right now I am sitting here with about 4 inches of snow, still snowing, fire going in the woodstove. If power goes out I would be fine for a while - I have about 15 acres of forest, and there has been some logging going on so I have some scrap wood to burn, although the wood is green and frozen.

8.5 quake would likely sever the nat gas lines. Anyone with nat gas heating would likely be withou heat. Same goes for hot water and stove.

 

[AMProducts]

Flash Back to REALITY.

1 You are most likely injured, most tasks will be a tad more time consuming.

2 Every one around you is worse off than you, because you thought out a little in advance and they know it. ( Wolves Circling Now )

3 There is no law enforcement and Martial Law exists.

Now think about the rest, gets interesting from here.

Chances are you will not be injured by the quake unless you're old/frail your chances of being injured even in a very large earthquake are fairly low. I was out at my grandparents house in 1992 for the landers quake (about 20 miles away), sure it sloshed 6 feet of water out of the pool and into their restaurant, but other than some lamps falling over that was about it. That was a 7.3 quake. Your chances of being injured are very low beyond superficial injuries.

Everyone around you is probably in the same state of shock you are. Since it's snowing outside, they're going to sit inside, even if their house is compromised, unless their house has completely fallen down and is on fire they're going to stay put. Alternatively, if they don't they will probably freeze to death going outside unprepared, as their house probably fell on all of their warm clothes.

It doesn't matter if martial law is in place, without enforcement it means nothing.

In a situation like this, check out the house, make sure nothings busted (gas lines, water lines etc), shoot off a text to the out of state family, and then suit up and go check on the neighbors and make sure they're ok. Turn off main breaker, turn off water or gas if they're compromised, if not, take a hot shower it might be my last for a while.

If house is compromised, it means it's time to grab the supplies out of the trailer... ask neighbors to help setup the GP medium, get fire going in franklin stove, set up beds for the family, setup the kitchen, set up the crap bucket. Open up the solar panels on the trailer, if need be, turn on inverter and run extension cords over to the tent. If the neighbors are in dire straights, invite them to stay in the tent with me, or offer them one of the many yardsale tents I have picked up over the years.

Make assessments of damage to the roads, fallen trees or power lines.

Essentially, every year or two I do a big 2 week camping/hunting trip, where I take up to 10 people, we have to set up/bring everything. It doubles as a big "shtf" practice event. If you want a hot shower, you have to make a hot shower. You want something to eat, you need to bring it with you, find it, hunt it. You want a warm fire, here's a bow-saw and an axe.

I usually bring a trailer and we'll set up one or two GP-small tents (depends how many people we have, I don't like more than 5 per tent). each tent has it's own stove, and we use easy-ups to setup our kitchen, and use another walled version as a bathroom tent. I built a floor kit for this that's made of wood slats so water drains through. The toilet is a 5-gal bucket with a metal pail full of wood ashes and a large supply of small paper bags. The idea is you do your bidness, and throw your wipes in the paper bag, which will be put in with the burnable trash. You throw ash on your business to dry it out, keep the bugs away. The bucket is lined with a heavy plastic liner, when it approaches a level that's uncomfortable for people to use (about 3/4 full) the liner is pulled off the edge, rolled up, and taken to the "dump" usually, we will dump our non-burnable carry-out trash to an area away from camp and will take it to be properly disposed of when we leave.

Water is provided by a combination of things, first we can go "get" water, drive a truck over to the stream and using a 12V transfer pump, fill 2 55gal drums and take them back to camp for wash/shower water, we can treat this water in the barrels with bleach and make it potable, or we usually just fill a gravity filter. For shower use, we suspend an empty 55gal drum up in a tree, and then using the same transfer pump, will fill that with water, this gives decent water pressure.

For hot showers, the same 12V transfer pump (I actually have about half a dozen different pumps, most are 12V) pumps water through a zodi hot water heater and into a 5-gal bucket, the water is cycled through the zodi until it reaches a temp that actually approaches warm. The shower arrangement I have the transfer pump pumps water in a big loop that goes bucket -> pump -> water heater -> regulator -> shower head. For the shower head I use one of those sink sprayers, so you have to push the valve in order to get water out, if you are not drawing any water the regulator sends the water back to the bucket. This means you can actually take a very comfortable shower in about 1 gallon of water, and still have another 2-3 gallons to simply enjoy.

Expedition camping is actually perfect practice for a SHTF scenario. In general, we eat like kings, bathe like priests, and drink like fish on these trips. The thing I'm planning to add for the next trip is a portable hot-tub.

The other thing we usually bring with us is a portable repeater setup, and an HF radio. Occasionally, one of the guys brings out a portable satellite internet connection which gives us an IP telephone, but usually we just use a psk31 connection to toss e-mail with family back home.

 

[U201491]

That little mt angel quake hit so hard it felt like a semi hit the house.
We were getting ready to leave for work and it took us off our feet. A real sharp crack and jolt. A 8.5 of the same type quake would have moved the house clean off of the foundation even with earthquake straps installed. Probably would have collapsed the house. That was a very odd quake.

 

[erudne]

.
Roaring like a freight train from hell, the Northridge earthquake threw sleeping Angelenos from their beds at 4:31 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1994.

The earthquake's shaking was stronger than the force of gravity, lifting furniture off the floor and buildings off their foundations. Los Angeles firefighters watched their massive fire trucks hop across a station garage in time with the seismic waves.

At least 57 people died and nearly 9,000 people were injured. Some 82,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Seven freeway bridges collapsed. With more than $40 billion in property and economic losses, Northridge was one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history.

California geologists say their big cities are overdue for another devastating earthquake. No major earthquake has hit one of the major urban areas since Northridge &#8212; and at a magnitude-6.7, it wasn't even the feared "Big One." Twenty years ago, no one knew the Northridge fault existed. Thanks to Northridge, the next one won't be such a surprise. The big question is: Are Californians ready?

An 8.5 quake is about 15 times stronger then the 6.5 above.
if an 8.5 hits there will be no phone, water, elect. roads, bridges, buildings. Fires, explosions, Haz Mat spillage of all types will be common

 

[Dunerunner]

An 8.5 quake is about 15 times stronger then the 6.5 above. If an 8.5 hits there will be no phone, water, elect. roads, bridges, buildings

And, No Police... Woe be unto those without the means to defend their property, themselves and their family!