Rich ... I hope your optimism turns out to be correct, and that my pessimism is unfounded. Seriously! But in the neighborhoods where I live, I don't see many people keeping their earthquake survival kits up-to-date. What i do see - is a lot of families who are extremely busy coping with daily life. I think a lot of folks will be depending on what's in their kitchen pantry. That's a hit-or-miss approach to survival.

I'm lucky because I live on top of a local hill. There's not much tsunami risk up there. Tidal waves are a potential problem for people in low-lying areas, like the beachfront at Hermosa Beach.

When I talk about "pain relief" ... I'm not talking about trivial pain. Alcohol and marijuana are not going to do anything to cut down the level of serious pain that comes from badly fractured limbs or crushed body parts. Some countries allow people to buy codeine over the shelf - which is at least a start in the right direction (though even codeine is not great against serious pain. But it can relieve bad toothaches and migraines - which helps!). I'm not sure there is any really good answer to the pain issue .... but this is going to be a problem for injured people.

The same concerns also affect the issue of infections. Our first-aid systems in the USA all assume that patients can be seen by a doctor in a few hours. When I went through EMT training (many years ago) the joke was that the entire treatment protocol always boiled down to 2 steps ... "oxygen and transport". But this is unrealistic in a major city affected by a widescale disaster. A large-scale emergency requires a treatment protocol where open wounds need to be properly sterilized and dressed - to seriously reduce risks of infection. This is a legitimate survival concern. But standard first-aid training does not cover it at all.

other Pete