Hi, With the recent raising of the threat level to high and suggestions of creating a safe room and disaster kit , what preperations have you made for your family.
Please share tips and good ideas. Also how would you create a safe room and what would be in your kit?
Thanx [color:"green"] [/color]

This is the exact information passed on by my local CERT organizer.

Evacuation vs. Shelter-in-Place
Airborne hazardous materials spread quickly
Evacuation is not always the best way to stay safe
Staying inside can be a viable alternative
If not in immediate danger, listen to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) for directions

Shelter-In-Place
- Remain inside your home or office and protect yourself there
- Close and lock all windows and exterior doors; pull blinds/curtains to protect in the event of
shattering glass
- Turn off all fans, heating & air-conditioning systems
- Close the fireplace damper
- Get your disaster supplies kit; make sure the radio is working
- Using duct tape, seal all cracks around doors & any vents into room
- Keep listening to your radio or television until:
you are told all is safe
you are told to evacuate

Location
Choose an interior room with no windows, or as few as possible
Pick a room with a toilet, water, and phone (wireless and cell phone would work)
Large enough for family or co-workers

Sealing Your Environment
-Have a Shelter-in-place kit that has pre-cut, labeled plastic sheeting for windows, doors, and vents
-Have multiple rolls of duct tape in kit so that more than one person can work on sealing the room
-Use duct tape to seal bottom of the door before applying plastic
-Use duct tape and pre-cut plastic to seal ways for air to enter the sheltering room. Make sure that your duct tape overlaps the edge of the plastic that covers windows, doors, vent coverings, electrical outlets, fixtures, and pipes where air can enter the room

Other:
Have disaster supply kit ready - water, battery-powered radio, extra batteries, flashlight
Tune into the EAS station for further instructions
Have snacks and books to make the situation more comfortable

Shelter-in-Place Don'ts
Do not call school or try to pick up your children
Do not leave shelter until directed over Emergency Alert System
Do not risk your safety for pets

Evacuation
Lock Doors When Leaving
Take pets w/you
Use specified travel routes
Avoid downed power lines

I think it is good that the govt is finally suggesting that people begin to prepare for eventual problems. FEMA, the Red Cross, and other public informational channels are providing suggested supply lists and activities.

FEMA has a publicaition pub 320 for building a tornado safe room, but it will not provide protection from bio-chemical stuff. Good start towards WMD though.

I recommend you do more research about bio/chemical delivery systems. I would also spend some time thinking about how often your are in your home listing to news information. How long would it take you to secure a room in your house with plastic and duct tape? How long can you live, eat, cook, sleep, use the restroom in that space? Do you have supplies stocked in that room already? How long will it take for news agencies to determine a bio/chem attack and notifiy the public?

I am suggesting you determine what is involved in making a postive pressure room in your house. Things like how are you going to filter the air you are using to create the positive pressure. How long is the filter good for? How will you power your postive pressure delivery system? Will you take your pets in to the room with you? How will you decide when it is safe to exit the room?

My family is only awake and at my house about 5 hours a day. We are not awake another 8 hours so we are not montioring news. We live on the outskirts of a non-esssential city that is low probability target. There is a nuke plant about 40 miles away.

Based on my evaluations, I am going to ensure that my food storage program is current and will upgrade to a longer period of stored food. I have alternate cooking, heating, and lighting methods. My big concern is how am I going to continue to afford putting fuel in my gas guzzler when prices are going up a dime a week.

Here are some more links just sent by my CERT organizer.

Lots of stuff at the last two links.

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/fdpall.pdf
http://www.redcross.org/disaster/safety/fdsk.pdf
http://www.weprevent.org/usa/cover.pdf
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute here, because frankly the current media panic frenzy is doing exactly what any terrorist could want. They cause mass hysteria in the US without having to do anything.

The whole idea that duct tape and plastic wrap are going to keep people safe is laughable. Let's try to look at this logically for a moment.

1. Regardless of what the media tells us, it is far more probable that any attacks against the US will be conventional, not a bio, chemical or rad weapon. Look at history. Heck, look at Israel. They have been subject to constant terror attacks in the past 3 decades, and most if not all have been conventional explosives or gunfire attacks. WMD require alot of specialized skills and setup and are expensive. With the exception of bio attacks you get relatively little bang for your buck. Although 9/11 was very impressive, it was not a WMD attack, nor was the previous attack on the WTC. The likelihood is that a terrorist attack will involve an explosive device of some kind, like a carbomb, etc.

2. In the event of a bio attack it is very likely that by the time it is discovered you will already be exposed if you were going to be. Once it has been discovered, duct tape and plastic wrap aren't going to help you much if at all. Then it is up to the public health system to contain the problem.

3. If it is a chemical attack it is most likely to be relatively small in scale and in an enclosed, well populated area for maximum effectiveness. Like the sarin attack in the Japanese subway. And even then the terrorists didn't manage to use it to it's maximum effectiveness. Chemical clouds tend to disperse rapidly when exposed to atmospheric conditions. If you are not in the initially affected area then you will likely not be affected. Duct tape and plastic wrap isn't going to help much in that instance either.

4. In the event of a radiological dispersion device, there is hardly any health hazard to begin with unless you are affected by the initial explosion. Such an attack is mainly used to scare people and cause large cleanup costs. Previous incidents with radioactive contamination have shown that the main problem is a terrified populous overwhelming health care facilities for absolutely no reason. If you are talking about an actual nuclear device and you are in the blast radius, then you can bet that that duct tape isn't going to do you much good. An actual nuclear device is probably the least likely of all WMD attacks (in case your placing bets).

So you see, attempting to make preparations for a WMD attack is not very practical except in very specific circumstance that most if not all of us will never have to deal with.

Now that is not to say that you shouldn't prepare for a regular emergency with regards to having food and water supplies, flashlights, blankets, and all the other stuff we normally talk about here. Those are useful tools for many different kinds of emergencies, including the theoretical WMD attack. But buying lots of duct tape and creating positive presure rooms in your home with air filtration and radiation meters is pretty rediculous.

If by some poor chance you happen to be the victim of a WMD attack, as in near ground zero, then your preparations aren't going to help you much anyway.

Although I wasn't around yet during the nuclear war histeria of the 50's and 60's, I would guess that our country's current reaction is fairly similar. Fear is a powerful motivator. All of us on this forum desire to be prepared for any circumstance we may encounter, but there are things for which preparation may be counterproductive.

Sorry if this got long, but the hysteria in this country is getting out of hand, no thanks to our leadership.

Greg

I agree with your sentiments, being a former member of the media. They LIVE for days like this. But I have to ask, what does WMD stand for?

WMD = Weapons of Mass Destruction

~Wesley

Well stated!!! Pete

Now wait a minute Greg. Please stand down for a second and understand that with above post you just brougth tears to my eyes. After all I was raised on watching McGuyver and I personally saw him stopiing nuclear leak with SAK and ductape... SO you telling me that his show wasn't for real? I knew something was fishy after I tried to replicate some of his inventions and they didn't work. <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But thank you for ruining my childhood memories and sending me on the quest to look for another role model. Thanks a lot...

Matt

ps.
You made excelent points.

After I stopped laughing at the responses I wanted to say thank you and well said to Greg.

Let us all take a deep breath and let some the fear and tension out before we do something silly.

Craig J.