Just a few minutes ago I was on the phone with my wife and heard rumblimg upstairs that I thought was my daughter moving furniture. It got worse and the whole house shook so bad the fridge started to dance litterly. 4.6 earthquake in a town about 40 min from my house.

Told my wife to hurry home. All is good for now, no cell phone calls but we can text.

Lessons learned.

1) my wife has such an "aw, its nothing" attitude that quickly set me off. Every point I made about prepardness and my experiences with past earthquakes was countered with a dismissing attitude. Lesson is when your SHTF instincts kick in be prepared to deal with family members that are NOT on the same page as you are.

2) Water. Had some empty milk jugs and filled them ASAP for toilet flushing or washing...non potable. Made me realize how lacking my water cache is. Lesson is get your H2O going folks.

3)Disorentation. Whats the right thing to do with my BOBs, food supplies, EDC bags, weapons and supplies thats scattered all throughout the house?

4) Cars/fuel. my Rav4 is in the shop and my ranger is on less than 1/4 tank. I know I know

5) Cell phones inop. NO calls but texting was still good. Scary that I couldnt check in with elderly parents at all.

6) Emergency brodcast station. NOTHING on tv or radio about this incident. BTW, have several am/fm/shjortwave NOAA radios that were eaisiably accessible...good planning on my part.

7) Neighbors came out into the street to communicatge. A good indicator of the poitential for establishing alliences, leadership and other emergency actions to take care of those in need. This was a mild event but a good trainer for SHTF scenerios.

Stuff happens so fast and unexpectedly. What if my house crumbled? My daughter upstairs and the wife on the road in the car. If fire broke out or ? you have practacally no time to act. One thing I learned in the military was when it gets crazy you will automatically go into auto pilot and revert to your training. Suppose that running practice drills would be a big help. At least a basic first reaction checklist. Personally my family wouldnt take anything more than stocking up on supplies seriously and getting them to comply with a bug out safety exercise would be like hearding kittens.

Hope something I posted will help someone.

Pooly

PS empty boxes to load supplies from shelves to cars would help.

Thats weird, do you normally get earthquakes in your area?

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb000d75b.php

No I know NH is on a fault line but its never happened before.
Very strange in my book. When I lived in central CA we'd get them from time to time but this one was intense. Thank God it lasted only about 15 seconds.

Sounded like a good opportunity to break out the Tea Mug from the tin as you chatted with the neighbours.

New England is certainly not as active as say Alaska or California, however some fairly large earthquakes have occured. See the New England Historical Earthquake Atlas. Also see the Northeast States Emergency Consortium earthquake page for some historical info.

While popular thought associates earthquakes in the United States with California, and with good reason, EQs have occurred throughout the United States. I believe there are only two states from which quakes have not been reported. Central Canada is extremely stable.

Remember, the most severe quake in US history did not occur in California. It struck 200 years ago.

Unlike most weather events, there are no reliable predictors or precursors of quakes. They just happen and there you are. It is smart in EQ country to never let your gas tank fall below 1/2 full. (I am in violation of this standard as I type this....)

one of the "paper labs" I did with my students was a hurricane supply check list... it identified the threat, offered a solution, and provided space to write in an alternative solution...additionally it identified the location within their home where it was actually stored at....personally, I use a wall closet shelving to provide a central location for those supplies that "most" of the time would be considered emergency supplies...FAK, cook stoves, kero lamps, LED area lamps, potable stored water, Sawyer 5 gal filter kit...a rolling tool chest houses the dedicated electronic gizmos..

greenghost... a section of garden hose that can access your hot water heater can provide some emergency water..make sure that there is not a build up in the bottom of the tank to limit its use

Thanks, Ive heard that a while ago and completely forgot it. I'll go out tonight and steal a hose from a neighbor. JUST KIDDING EVERYONE

The thought did cross my mind to fill the tubs but I didnt

We hope to build a greenhouse,to moderate temps at approx freezing temps we will use the 50 gallon blue water barrels to hold heat,works for greenhouse PLUS there we have our water storage,win win!

Green,you had a perfect example of why to prep,dont worry,they will get it eventually,in the meantime do your best I guess.

Mother Nature just gave your dependants a meaningful wake up call. I don't recall many EQ's in NH before.

Perhaps they will listen!!!