I was watching some coverage of the earthquake/tsunami the other day and it occured to me that if a 9.0 magnitude quake (or maybe one considerably smaller than that even) were to hit my earthquake-prone area, then my house would most likely be a large, flattened pile of lumber. Assuming I survived, how would I get to my survival supplies and gear that, by and large, I have stored in the basement?

My solution was to move all my supplies and a large portion of my camping gear out to my 19' travel trailer. If a quake hits then at least the trailer will not collapse and destroy my goods. I had to empty out some of my water to allow for freeze/thaw but aside from that it worked out well. If my house is destroyed or rendered uninhabitable then I'll likely be bunking out there anyway, and it is easy enough to remove some of it if a trip is planned.

The downside is the risk of theft, but all the gear is inexpensive and older coleman-style stuff that is easily replaced if stolen.

My guns are another matter. I obviously won't be keeping any of them out there. This needs some more thought. Ideas anyone?

Regards, Vince

We keep most in a shed in the back yard, thinking that even if we lose the house and the shed, the shed should be easier to pick thru to get our stuff. Other stuff in the garage is on an outside wall, so it may be easier to get to. We have the usual BOB and FAk in the vehicles and places to evac to if we have to.
Dave

I keep a 72 hour kit for two (my wife and I) near the bed. My pistol and shotgun are within arms reach as well. We have little threat of earthquake, tornados are our main concern here, but I'd think you'd be well served to keep everthing clear of your house/building.

Perhaps you could store a select firearm (I'd go with a shotgun, but that's just me) in your camper when not in use in a hidden area. Underside?

My truck kit would suffice for two for 72 hours but is mainly designed for a one person "bug in". I keep a pistol in my truck.

Your ahead of the game with the trailer. I'm going to either find an old one and rebuilt it or just buy a frame and build one from scratch.
Put 1/2 your supplies in the trailer and 1/2 in the house. That way the loss of one or the other you still have half your supplies. I have for example a a lot duplicate set of tools in my truck and my garage. Most of my truck BOB gear is duplicated in other areas as well so the loss of either I still have some gear. I have a bit of each in most rooms of the house, each room has a primary and secondary gear type, for example the kitchen has most of the food stores and the garage has some more. Garage has most of the camping gear and the spare room has the rest. Most of the fuel for the camp gear is in the garage, some in the shed. Most first aid gear in the bathroom, some in the garage, some in the truck/car. So everything has some of a duplicate somewhere. I'm branching out into three locations for everything, primary and two secondaries. So if/when I do get the trailer, I will store 1/2 my water in the primary location of the kitchen, 1/4 in the secondary of the garage and 1/4 in the secondary if the trailer. I'll probably keep my camp grill in the garage and put another smaller one in the trailer and maybe a spare for that in the shed.

Personally, I think stashing guns about the backyard is a bit dicey, but to each his own.

Myself, I have my main supplies in the basement, a BOB in the car and another BOB in a disused car that occupies the driveway. Since theres no way it will be stolen, we leave it unlocked so you can seek shelter in it if you forgot your keys or what have you. The bag goes in the trunk and is accesible from the backseat. It seems like an odd system, but it came in handy last year when my bro got home early from a trip without his keys. I would highly reccomend that you store an out of hose kit in a car or a shed. If you go with the shed, why not organize and clean it so it can be used for shelter and storage for things other than the lawn mower and that broken week whacker you keep meaning to fix.

I have been considering building one of those emergency dome shelters for just this purpose (including shelter). One of the advantages of them is that if you don't get them built ahead of the disaster, if you have the simple & minimal equipment, you can build one in a day or two. They are stable in earthquakes, & I suspect with extra soil dumped over them & planted with something like clover that has an abundant root system, they could be incredibly handy for those in Tornado Alley who also have high water tables that prevent you from having a basement. Maybe not all that useful for those in hurricane areas, but I have no experience there.

The equipment consists of sandbags (number depends on size of the shelter), a shovel or two, a roll of barbed wire, & something to use as a door. And a string & 2 sticks or large nails.

Tie one of ends of the string to one stick or nail. Measure 4 or 5 ft, then tie the other stick or nail there. Punch one of them into the ground & use the other end to scribe a circle in the ground. Or use the scribing end to measure & some flour or lime, etc to mark the circle.

Start digging to mark the edge of the circle clearly, & put the soil in the sand bags as you go. Lay the filled sandbags at the outer edge of the circle, end to end, leaving a gap for the entrance.

As soon as you have one circle of bags on the ground, cut 2 lengths of barbed wire & lay it on top of the bags, in 2 rings. The wire stabilizes the bags & keeps them from shifting. Lay another ring of bags on top of the wire & repeat. There must always be 2 rings of wire between each layer. You would probably want to put in a few short pieces of plastic pipe between a few of the bags for ventilation as you're stacking them.

With each circle of filled bags, work them inward just a bit, gradually building a dome.

Depending on climate, some people have covered the dome with a single sheet of heavy plastic, and then covered the dome with 8-12" of soil & planted it to stabilize it.

Others have applied a layer of concrete over the bags to form a smooth impervious surface. Some add a bit of dry concrete to the soil put in the bags to firm them up (esp in the sandy desert, I would suspect).

As you build, you can leave or carve out sleeping platforms, or include shelving as you stack the bags. How about a small fireplace with a chimney hat sticking out? (I don't know what those things are called.) And a good, sturdy door.

For a visual, you can go to the CalEarth site at http://www.calearth.org/emergshelter.htm. These photos look like the domes were built on flat ground as samples, but then you would have to bring in soil to fill them.

Wow, where to start? First, neat idea Susan, never heard of the barbed wire stabilizers before, but it makes a lot of sense. Next, a couple of you have mentioned the "more than one cache" approach, that's my approach too. While I've got gear at home, I've also got gear in my vehicles. We're also lucky enough to have like-minded family close enough to be mutual support, but far enough away that if the problem is flood/fire/tornado, we (they) have somewhere to go to. The biggest cache is at the house in the country (my parents place) so if town/city life gets unfriendly, we've got a fall-back position. This means a quite a bit of redundancy, but keep in mind, I'm a reformed teotwawki planner (sometimes I'm not sure it's NOT right around the corner) <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />.

Troy

Susan,

You may want to reconsider your opinion of those structures. I strongly believe that if you took the design of those structures to a reputable seismologist or anyone familiar with mud slides, floods, or major earth movements would tell and show you how those structures are in reality death traps. They may stand up to small amounts of all of the above mentioned calamities. But any significant force, including a large motor vehicle, will bring the structure down and bury the inhabitants. Remember the only thing holding them together is gravity, the force that earthquakes use to wreck havoc!

Turbo,

"Superadobe Technology is designed by Nader Khalili, engineering by P. .J. Vittore, models of which have been constructed and tested for the City of Hesperia, California, Building and Safety Department, in consultation with I.C.B.O. (International Conference of Building Officials), in the forms of arches, vaults, and domes between 1993 and 1996. These successfully passed the California required codes for the models."

Actually, adobe-type domes are one of the safer designs for earthquake-prone areas. Many domed buildings in Iran & Iraq have survived earthquakes for over 100 years, including recent quakes that demolished modern buildings. (Please note that I'm not including geodesic domes here, as I know nothing about them.)

Sue

Domes and arches are two of the strongest shapes in the world so its not a bad idea. Its the old trick where an egg will break instantly if you sqeeze its sides but if you squeeze end to end it will take a lot more force. Thankfully, I don't live in an earthquake prone environment.

Susan,

There are three basic elements to creating a structure to withstand seismic and other fluid forces.
A solid foundation, a reinforced structure, and flexibility in both their connection and interconnection. I have designed such structures since the 1960's. Some of the simple structures, i.e., reinforces concrete underground environmental vaults, have floated to the surface when subject to high water pressures but remained intact and dry inside.

I have great respect for arches, domes and other classic building shapes. However, despite what governmental approval these structures have passed, they will not stand up to any lateral force greater than their weak structural interconnection or their lack of foundation. Give me a couple of minutes with a high pressure fire hose and I will show you the fallacy of gravity joined building structures. Remember the only mechanical device holding the building together is tiny barbs stuck into sand bag material.

I have been involved with restoring communication infrastructures after various types of disasters and the prevention of such calamities. The worst thing you can create is a structure that does not allow the occupants the time and a way to escape. These structures, to my way of thinking, are tomes.

Sue, Please heed Turbo's advise on this one! I've read countless variations on the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG promoting everything from Mongolian Yurts to rubber tire and rammed earth Ashrams. They are all long on theory and oftentimes short on real word realities, if not thumbing their noses ( or other hand guestures) at authority, mainstream values etc. An egg may be a marvelous sturctural devise, but mix in DDT and you have peregrine falcons permanently wet nursed to avoid extinction. And that is what most of these alternative designs are, Buckmeister Fuller meets Faulty Towers. Natural or civil disasters test the best of our building codes. We want good structures to stow our gear and ourselves in. The recent tsunami is case in point. A few, very few major buildings survived. Like the 3 little pigs, our wolf huffed, and he puffed and the straw and stick houses came down. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

In the recent earthquake in the city of Bam in Iran thousands of people died in adobe houses.

When you are preparing for natural disasters there is nothing like a properly built single storey precast concrete building.

There are domed buildings more than thousand years old in Istanbul that withstood earthquakes, but it should never be forgotten that those buildings are masterpieces of architecture (for example Hagia Sophia), not regular buildings. I have seen small domed buildings like mosques or chapels, baths etc. come down easily. Last year a very minor earthquake took an adobe house down any killed the family in it.

Burak

I have 3 identical + 72 hr kits.
#1 is in the house in the bedroom. An older gentleman whose opinion I respected once told me to keep your clothes and weapons where you could find them in the dark. I decided this applied to survival kits too.
#2 is in the camper in case fire gets the house.
#3 buried in garage in case a tornado or something else gets the house and the camper. It’s divided up and sealed in 3 sections of PVC pipe.
All our vehicles have smaller kits in the trunks.

That is an excellent idea about storing stuff on an outside wall. That's where I'll keep my pick, shovel, chainsaw, and other excavating tools until I get a shed built. I've been meaning to build one for my ATV anyway. I think a four wheeler would prove invaluable in the aftermath of a big quake.

The gear stored in my truck includes a 10 ton hoist which I'm sure would be handy for recovery work but if I'm home then my truck will be parked in the garage on the ground floor. If the house collapes the truck will be buried as well, and I think it likely that the truck cap will be crushed.

I have the usual network of relatives and friends to evac to but I would like to remain on site and rebuild if at all possible.

Regards, Vince

I agree about the shotgun. I'm not going to leave it in the trailer though. It's not that I'm worried about the monetary loss; it's just if it gets stolen and used in a crime then I might be civilly liable. I'll probably just stash a couple around the house in various places and trust to luck that they will be accessible..... <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Regards, Vince

I think that your idea has merit. If I did not already have the trailer I would consider it, and maybe I will use it for plan "C" if necessary. In my neck of the woods if a quake occurs it is possible that it will occur on a 25 degree farenheit day with a 35 MPH wind. I can't think of anything less comfortable than a tarp shelter, a tent, or a hastily thrown-together shack. Your solution, while labor intensive, would provide a fairly snug, long term shelter.

Aftershocks are going to be a concern no matter what kind of semi-permanent shelter you have. This one reminds me of the old sod houses built by the pioneers, and those proved very durable-not to mention warm. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Regards, Vince

Vince, in the aftermath of an earthquake, I would be likely to use nothing heavier over me than a tent. Your point of the garage crashing over your truck is well taken, but that wouldn't be a problem for me: genetically speaking, no one on either side of my family has ever had a VEHICLE in a garage! And all the junk in is is so tightly packed that even if the garage collapsed, the contents probably wouldn't even shift.

I offered the dome as I consider it: an interesting experiment that I would like to try. While a firehose aimed at it probably would tear it apart, the effects of gravity would tend to help in a quake. BTW, most of the dome buildings in the middle east are built of adobe-type bricks, stacked & caulked with mud. They are exposed to rain, wind & snow, & deteriorate at an alarming rate. The newer method of firing these home from inside makes them much more weather-resistant.

Sue

" no one on either side of my family has ever had a VEHICLE in a garage! And all the junk in is is so tightly packed that even if the garage collapsed, the contents probably wouldn't even shift."

Why are you describing my garage <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />