An earthquake shakes your house down, a house fire makes living inside impossible or unsafe, a big tree comes down dead center...

For those of you who either have a house or live in an apartment or condo where you have some open area nearby, are any of you prepared/willing to live on the property at least for a while?

I'm especially thinking of the stuff that may still be usable that you could remove from the house: clothes, bedding, books, cookware, etc.

I don't think that I could just walk away from my place and let the looters clean it out. I have room to pitch a tent and grow a garden, so I'm thinking that I would try to stay.

Has anyone else thought about this?

Sue

My maternal grandparent's home burned down in one of our many firefires. When we were able to go back somebody had stripped the fencing.
When the Northridge earthquake hit, My paternal grandmother's house sustained a collapsed brick fireplace, some damaged lath and the foundation shifted.
The family slept out back in the tent and had hot meals I provided via a coleman stove. My brother however, thought the argentine mauser carbine was rediculous.
That night I watched two guys climb her substantial fence and approach the dark house with big screwdrivers.I slippped up behind and asked if I could help them.
'Si, we are looking for work, our freeend.' I set them to work stacking the collpased bricks all night at gunpoint. Come the morning, I gave them 15 seconds to clear her huge front yard and the fence.

Answer depends a lot on why the house went down and how severe the damage is. If due to major fire, flood or tornado (the main risks in my area) then the plan is to try to recover a few personal things and let insurance cover the rest. Cleaning up and recovering things after these types of events is very time consuming and not terribly effective. For lesser types of damage it might be worth trying to stay around but the local authorities may decide to keep you and everyone else out to prevent looting (at least that would be the theory).

- Eric

Priceless!!

Greetings Sue, Take a look at my thread about Layered Preparedness. Perhaps that idea could be food for thought per your question.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area in a row house style condo. My expectation is that a major earthquake will render the house unsafe for living; there are always fires after earthquakes from broken gas mains, and we're down wind from downtown.

We have a patio and a few tents and shade structures we could put up there. Our condo also has a reasonably large parking lot we could set up in.

There are a number of reasons we plan to stay: our geography is unique - we're on a peninsula, so bugging out is less of an option if the two roads going the length of the peninsula are either destroyed or littered with broken down cars; we're too old and too frail to try to hike out; although many expect looting and other villainy, we don't - we expect to be able to take care of our needs and help and be helped by our neighbors.

We bought a van and have a month's worth of food, sleeping bags, air mattress, seasonal clothing, and more in the van where we can get it if the house collapses. We hope to be able to drive out of fire danger if downtown burns, but we don't expect to be able to drive out of the area.

There's no good place for a garden around here, and if we're here long enough to harvest, we'll be planted ourselves, I figure (i.e., dead).

After the big Rodeo-Chediski wildfire here some years ago, the biggest time consumer, and most profitable for the homeowner, recovery activity was sifting the ashes of the homes. We sifted ashes where the bedrooms or den had been, or other rooms identified by owners as places where valuables were kept. We recovered lots of jewelery and loose gems, rare coins, etc. that would otherwise have been lost to the front-loader scooping up debris for removal. Other than that, nearly everything was a total loss. Rare exceptions were inspiring, like the people who's family records had been in a chest of drawers in the basement and a broken water pipe had hosed it all through the fire, preserving their priceless old family records, photos, etc. Generaly, not much is left after a major fire.
Tornados and earthquakes make a mess, but tend to leave more salvagable stuff, making staying on site more worthwhile. Tornados, as we had in Colorado, may put lots of your stuff in a neighbor's yard, but people are usually very helpful in such circumstances. It's refreshing to see how people come together and help each other in such trying times.
After major floods, which we had often in Missouri, the property is pretty much totally lost, and staying on site is often difficult due to health issues, and lack of services and solid ground on which to set up camp. Some property may be recovered, usually small items that need to be cleaned.
In any event, there's lots of work to be done, and staying on site helps with planning, reduces travel time, and ensures someone is there to direct recovery efforts of volunteer helpers. If possible, I think it's better to stay on site.

Unless the structural damage is so great that staying anywhere near the building would be too risky then yes, I would stay if at all possible. Even if your property is more or less destroyed you should still be able to scavenge a lot of useful stuff. You can improvise a shelter in a partly destroyed building that will be much better than a tent in the open. Many great European cities were bombed to rubble during WWII yet the people made do somehow with a bit of ingenuity and hard work.

In areas prone to earthqaukes and wildfires, consider building a fire and qauke resistant storage shed/gargage on your land.
If your house is uninhabitable, it might be possible to live short term in this structure, especialy if it could be extended by tents or awnings.
Re-inforced concrete construction should withstand all but the very worst events.
A number of firms offer to build concrete tornado shelters, such would also appear to be fire and qauke resistant and might be worth considering even in areas with little tornado risk.

If flooding is the main risk, consider not only a two storey house, but remember to keep important supplies and equipment upstairs.

I think you have to look at the damage done and the area you live in, for example tonight air temps will be around -20 with windchill factors of -40 not going to sleep in a tent if something happens to my house, that being said all my camping gear is slit up between the house and detached garage so if something happens to one I have items in the other. My garage is larger than my house so that would become primary shelter even at -20 not that we could spend much time here because it's not heated and not insulated

I have a Honda Element -- a vehicle designed for sleeping in (either by reclining all four seats or taking the rear seats out). But it would be creepy and dangerous to sleep in a car in this city -- even parked in front of my house.

The most viable threats to homes in this city are, in this order: fire, terrorism (bio, nuke, dirty bomb), tornado, hurricane.

To protect from looting, I'd pull an all-nighter or two to protect my property and start removing the most valuable (and irreplaceable) items as quickly as possible. Possibly store it at unaffected friends' homes.

Truth is, other than my dog, photos and trip journals, the rest is just stuff.

If I could do life over -- I'd have a lot less stuff. Would gladly exchange a lot of it for a replacement-value insurance check.

We are lucky enough to have our 5th wheel RV stored off site at my shop. Our plan is to move out there short term. The RV will not make it onto our street due to grade changes and cul-de-sac turn around. If this was a single house fire, the city probably would invite you to leave. Massive, area wide tornado damage and who knows? I just hope my shop and home are far enough apart to prevent both from blowing away (several miles). If it gets them both, It will also grab my folk's home as well. That kind of damage would either be a freak damage pattern/path or a MONSTER of a twister.

I would probably get the family settled into the RV, then pull an all-night watch to prevent looting. Sunrise would start what recovery could be done before I called my grading/demolition contractor. Then time to build again.

I build those shelters. I have seen nothing about earthquake in any of the literature about them. I do know that I would be worried about the 16" thick concrete roof falling on my head if its structure was in any way compromised. Also, they are very small for the most part (usually 4'x8' inside). With my limited earthquake experience, I think there must be somewhere better to sleep. Now the shelters would make a good "vault" to keep your stuff until new sleeping/storage arrangements could be made.

I'd grab what I could salvage then head to a relative's or hotel while I wait for the insurance check. It's 5 degrees outside now, so I don't think I'd be hanging around to keep looters away from my smoke-damaged belongings. If they need them that bad, they can have them.

If I had to, yes. When our house burned up back in 94, we lost pretty much everything in it. I could've put up a canvas wall tent and a wood stove and a propane grill and lived in the backyard with my family for an extended period. However, the father-in-laws house was much more convenient and comfortable. There was nothing of value left when the fire extinguished. Had there been, and the structure sound enough to work in, I'd have removed anything of value either to friends' or relatives' homes, or else put it in storage.

Good point. I think a real answer from me is going to be highly condition specific.

-Who is with me at the time?
-How is everyone's health?
-Were supplies for sheltering in placed damaged or lost in the event?
-How far away are alternative living arrangements?
-How does weather complicate the issue? Extreme heat, ice, etc.
-Has martial law been declared due to the event?
-How widespread is the event? House fire (localized) or catastrophic flooding (widespread).

I'd hate to know how far we could drag out this list but you see where I'm going.

One of the things that can help for this type of situation is being organized. Have a place for all your stuff. I see so many people that have just stuff piled on top of stuff, be it magazines or crafts or knick knacks. I've tried for the last few years to think stuff out, no more $$$ paintings and wall hangings, we buy cheapo picture frames from doallr stores and print off pictures of our kids and hang those on the walls. Sonce they are printed copies of our digital pictures if they get lost or stolen its no big deal. I've bought all kinds of storage boxes and bags and such, everything goes in those. If the house comes down chances are some of those will still survive so I can just drag them out and go. Everything then gets inventoried in spreadsheets that can be used for insurance.
All my 'stuff' being inventoried gets a priority as to what goes first if we would have to leave it can be in an organized fashion or I can locate or find it when I need it. Anything that I really need or I'm that attached to is in the bug out gear so it can go out of the house with me.

One of the big problems police face both before and after every disaster is getting people to leave their homes and go to the refuge areas.
People are so afraid of looters grabbing their stuff that they are willing to put their lives in jeopardy.

Would I camp on my own property?
I might, if it was safe.
If it was just to guard salvage likely not.
Most salvage operations can be completed in a day or two.
If you have any really high value items you will have a good idea of where they should be in the rubble, but life comes before stuff.

I own my home and have a big double lot, depending on what happened to the house I would stay in my travel trailer in the yard, If it was something that was going to take a long time to repair as in being hit by a tornado or destroyed by a fire then my homeowners insurance would put a mobile home on the lot or pay for rent till the replacement house was built, or I have the option to go stay at my cabin. I would make sure everything of any value that was able to be salvaged was either secured on the premises or taken to family members or even to the cabin, a storage building is also a good option.

For those of us that don't have much, it greatly simplifies the issue! As long as DW and kiddos make it out with me, I'm happy. Most of the important stuff (photos, documents, etc) are already backed up at relatives' houses miles away.

Personally, my preference is to camp out in the backyard for the very reasons you cited (availability of stuff, security, etc.)

Now convincing my DW and DD to sleep in the backyard in the big family tent is another story altogether.

Nice...did they ever come back looking for more work? !!

Careful Chris, you're basically admitting to a felony here. Not that they'd be pressing charges, lol.

I'm lucky in that my wife and I camp pretty much year round, so the patio is not a problem. (The patio is our only camping space.)

"...I set them to work stacking the collpased bricks all night at gunpoint..."

While not exactly PC (or legal), great roadside justice!!!

This is the approach I have used. I built a small storage shed, just big enough for two adults to sleep comfortably in, and stand up comfortably with a couple feet over head. When I was building it, the neighbors asked if I was building an ark, it looked so strong. They said if it flooded, I could just get in and float away. It's post and beam style construction with 4" X 6" doug fir studs, all joined with galvanized steel plate fastenings and screwed, not nailed, together. It was so much fun to build, I built two of them. The outside is painted half-inch plywood siding completely covered with salvaged license plates screwed on shingle style to shed rain, reflect sunlight to keep the shed cool, and to help protect the exterior from the elements.

an option i would exercise - if at all possible - would be to have a large metal shipping container - like used on container cargo ships - dropped on the property. possessions could be stored inside and secured onsite.

they come in various sizes, depending on your needs.

i'm sure you have someone in the area who can supply you one.

from experience, the 'pods' are $$$$. old, beater containers are less pretty and less $$, but just as secure. supply your own lock.

That's an idea worth considering since the "pods" rent for $125 per month. They are made of wood and fiberglass with a fiberglass door. "PODS" measure 8'x8'x20.

A small temporary "efficency apartment" could established in it with little or no problem. As someone else mentioned earlier, Tarps could be used to expand the working areas around the pods.

The steel shipping containers are sold for:
8'x8'x20' = start around $1200 per unit
8'x8'x40' = start around $2000 per unit

I have no idea what the delivery fee would be but it wouldn't be exactly cheap.

There is a company in Calgary that sells containers for less than scrap price.
They have tried cutting the sides out and selling them as chip stands even.
The problem for scrap yards with containers is they cost too much to cut or crush as scrap, are too big for garden sheds and too heavy for people to drag around.
Ranchers here buy them just to store farm machinery in.

If you shop around a bit you should be able to find them a lot cheaper.

i just remembered that i forgot.

i meant to say to rent - not necessarily purchase - one of these.

have it dropped off, use as above, then call to have picked up.

cheaper than 'pods' to rent.

found it:

in 2006 i rented an 8' x 8' x 12' for two months @ $65/mon that included drop off and pick up fees.

wasn't pretty, but -0- graffiti.

secure, it was!

Just bought an 8x8x40 last month, has an office in the front with a man door, window, and ac. Does need a coat of paint and a little other work, but is in good shape overall. $750 for the container, $200 for delivery, and $500 for the shooting boom forklift to put it amongst the trees behind the house.

Did you need a separate power service to it or did the power company branch a circuit from your house service?

The container was used as office and storage on job sites, so it's breaker panel has a permanently wired in extension cord that i can plug in. It only has a few lights, couple of outlets, and a small window shaker AC unit. I am using the container mostly as storage, but if i start to use it more i will run a dedicated circuit to it from the main breaker panel.

The last "severe" earthquake in Pennsylvania was in 1800, so we may be due: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/pennsylvania/history.php.

You can find your state's history here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/

Several posts on this thread have mentioned insurance checks arriving.

The standard homeowners insurance policy we have did not include earthquake insurance. I suspect that this is the norm in the industry. We bought the optional earthquake coverage rider, just in case, for a few more bucks a month. I wonder if others have done the same, or if their policy automatically included coverage. If you don't know whether your covered, it's worth a call to your agent.

I used to work in insurance, and as far as I know, earthquake coverage is always separate and optional. There is also a 10% minimum damage, the last I heard (they won't cover any damage unless it exceeds 10% of the total insured value). I also believe that the premiums vary with the likelihood of a quake in the area.

Sue