Planning for a community?

What special considerations are there in planning for a community of about 100 people in earthquake country?

Move to non-earthquake country?

Or at least pick an earthquake country that is well equipped to deal with them and has reasonably strong building codes. I would pick San Francisco over Pakistan, for instance.

OK, jokes aside, I have no experience with earthquakes. But I wouldn't think the preps for them would be a whole lot different than for other disasters. The things that do come to mind are: (1) There may be major disruption to roads and other transportation arteries. (2) Infrastructure (fresh water, sewage, electricity, etc.) may be severley affected for a significant length of time. (3) You have to deal with potential long-term instability of structures around you - even once the initial earthquake has passed, you are still in danger of things collapsing around you.

How you prep for this, I don't know. But the first step would be to become aware of what you might have to deal with.

actual building construction.. down here most homes are single family single story of concrete block, hip roof with hurricane straps to a poured solid lintel, plywood roof with shingles or ceramic tile...naturally a collapsing danger, so would need a variety of heavier duty rescue tools... heavy pry bars, Halligan tools, portable chop saws with concrete and steel capabilities and chainsaws, chains

physical location in relation to being flooded

gas line leakage.... clearly identified localized shut off

water/sewage line.... alternate source

power interruption... alternate source

choke points like bridges, underpasses that could limit access to emergency medical care

age and physical ability of citizens... skill set of citizens

provisions to cook, shower, toilet for those not prepared

shelter from the heat and direct Sunlight

looting

1) access to clean water
2) way to dispose of water once 'processed.'
3) way to dispose of the dead



Don't address those and you're asking for an epidemic.

Two things popped into my head:

1) Communications: assume phones (cell & landline) are out: how far away is everyone? Shouting distance? What about radios? What kind, what freqs to use? etc. etc. etc. Someone might to call the community to help get someone who is trapped---they need a way to alert everyone.

2) A roster of who and how many and ages live where. Our HOA publishes a list of who lives where and kids and ages in each home. In an earthquake aftermath, you might want to do a headcount and know who is OK, and who is missing, and possibly trapped. To do that, you need to know (at least on a general basis) who lives in the community.

By far the most important preparation for living in an area subject to earthquakes is to look carefully at the buildings you will occupy. The best kit in the world won't do you a bit of good if you are killed when the building collapses on top of you! Select structures that were built to modern earthquake codes. Failing that, look into a seismic retrofit of an existing structure. Living/working in an earthquake resistant structure is absolutely the most important first line of defense in earthquake country!

By the same token, try to avoid locations subject to tsunami innundation. If you must locate in an area that might be flooded by a tsunami, plan and practice your evacuation route to high ground.

Beyond that, for the most part the same principles apply as for any major disaster. You want to be self sufficient for at least one week (several weeks is better) with food, water, first aid supplies, necessary medications, etc. Even after initial help reaches you, expect that transporation routes, power, natural gas, etc may be disruped for months.

A few additions to your kit specific for earthquakes might be in order. Expect that some structures will collapse, and people will need to be rescued. A powerfull hydralic jack would be a valuable tool, as would cribbing material, axes, saws, etc. Fire fighting gear might also come in handy. While your building may not fall down on you, it might be so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable after a quake. Tarps and tents to rig a shelter could be valuable.

Edit: Also find out about emergency plans for the larger community around you. Learn what outside resources might be available, and how to access them. Get involved with community volunteer groups (CERT, Red Cross, volunteer Fire Dept, volunteer SAR, etc). You will learn a lot that will help you, and be better able to help those around you.

DISCLAIMER: I have NO Earthquake experience!

I have noted one area that prople don't usually think about in both Tornado and Earthquake areas. The easiest way to provide the 4 Survival needs (shelter, water, food, heat) is to acquire a camper that is kept stocked to go. What few think about is the proximity that such a resource(s) are kept in relation to one's home. Tornado's, like Earthquakes, occur along mostly known paths or fault lines. Yes tornado's do cover new paths occasionly just as unknown fault lines make themselves known. Store your supplies in a type of structure away from your home, in case it collapsed. For eq country, use a lightly built structure that if it collapsed, would not destroy your supplies and which said debris could be cleared from your supplies to make them accessible.

The next problem is figuring out where is available to store supplies that is close enough to access but far enough away to escape debris from your home. This is a difficult problem in Tornado country and MAY be an impossible goal to achieve in EQ country.

wildman, you raise a very good point. In the event of an earthquake, your home may collapse. Or, the quake may break a nat gas line, and your home may burn down. Or, lots of other things could happen. It is a good idea to have at least some of your supplies stashed separately from your house. This will increase the odds that you have your kit after disaster strikes. Much of the gear and supplies I would need after an earthquake is in my garage. If my house was destroyed, it might be unusable or inaccessable. For that reason, I've made it a point to put some stuff in the utility shed out in my back yard. If my house (and all it's contents) were totally destroyed, I would still have at least some critical items available from my shed.

Similar thinking could apply to other types of disasters. For example, if you live in a flood prone area, you might not want to put all your gear in the basement, but rather have some of it in the attic.

Two suggestions

Firstly to store supplies and preserve them from earthqauke damage. Place food, water, clothing, blankets and other supplies in strong plastic stacking crates. Stack two or three high in a shed or garage, then cover the stacked crates with a large piece of MDF or plywood.
It is important to select crates with truly vertical sides, the type with sloping sides are less durable.
The crates are very strong and when stacked thus, and covered with wood to spread the load, will easily bear the weight of several persons, or the weight of a collapsed roof/upper parts of the walls.
The plywood cover over the crates may be used for day to day storage of low priority items, accepting that these may be lost in an earthqauke.

For communications for a community, consider stocking field telephones, use less power than 2 way radio and the conversations are private rather than heard by all.

That assumes detached garage or single story house? A plastic crate isn't going to support the bedrooms stacked on top of garages in multiple story houses.

You also need the long rolls of wire for field telephones because you can't count on the existing infrastructure to be in place. Our local telco was bought out by AT&T years ago and residential phone lines went to 50% reliability even in normal non-disaster times.

I do have earthquake experience...

First, a lot of people think "my home will collapse" in an earthquake. Chances are, it won't. I mean, there's always a few buildings that do, but by and large structures usually have some part still standing. For those whose home truly collapses, well, they're typically dead under it (obvious exceptions occur). Even in the Landers quake in CA in ~1992, that apartment building that collapsed, collapsed onto a carport. Most of the living areas were intact. Building codes in most American earthquake areas are pretty good.

Fire is, IMO, a much greater concern after an earthquake. Like I said, if your home is destroyed, you're usually dead too and have nothing to worry about.

No experience with tornados, hurricanes, 4 horsemen ...

Either way, good point about spreading your supplies. It doesn't even have to be different locations, just different parts of the house. My parents for example, have a kitchen pantry, backpacking stuff in the garage, and my dad's wine shed with about 400 gallons of wine and a generator outside the house.

Guess which one he's worried about losing the most?

Good points -- One of the concerns is providing for 100 people ( young, old, etc)

shelter (until building are deemed safe)

water (100 gallons /day)

sanitation

security

Communications

Food

Even in a very minor event, I'm assuming phones and power will be overloaded or non-working.



Good idea on stacked storage in outbuildings/ sheds...easy access.

It is true that properly built wood frame houses do pretty well in earhquakes. They tend to flex and bend, rather than collapse. Also, because they are relatively light weight and generally only one or two stories high they don't resonate so much with the shaking. The main part of my current home was built prior to the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and survived just fine (long before I lived here). Even wood frame houses can often be improved with seismic retro-fits. Taller steel frame buildings also generally do pretty well. Brick, cement block, and other masonry buildings, especially multi-story ones, very often don't do so good in earthquakes, and sometimes do collapse.

Building codes in California have gradually improved with regards to earthquakes, at least since 1906. However, even in California buildings do collapse, especially older ones. In the 1971 M6.6 San Fernando (aka Sylmar) earthquake, part of the VA hospital built before 1933 collapsed and many people died. California building codes have been made tougher several times over the years. Other places outside of California have not necessarily had good seismic building codes. For example, until fairly recently the Pacific Northwest was not thought to have much risk of earthquakes. Prior to the last decade or so building codes in the PNW were not up to the same seismic standards as California. Hence many buildings were built without much regard for earthquakes.
Fire for sure is a problem after an earthquake. However, it is entirely possible your home might be destroyed and you survive. A typical earhquake fire scenario might be: 1. Quake shakes house and seriously damages it, but does not totally destroy it. 2. When shaking stops you run outside. 3. Damage includes ruptured natural gas line. 4. Leaking gas finds a spark. 5. You stand outside and watch your house and survival gear burn up.

As a wine drinker, I like your dad's priorities! I hope it is red wine?

A good resource for planning - and the thought process for planning - is Map Your Neighborhood. http://www.emd.wa.gov/myn/index.shtml. I did this a few years back in my immediate neighborhood, have to look but it was approx. 78 souls. Less than 100% cooperation of even my closest neighbors, some of them thought I was being intrusive asking about where their gas shut offs are. But most got it, and you turn up some good capabilities in the event of a disaster (folks who are prepared, folks who are elderly, on oxygen etc, folks with chain saws, medical or construction experience). And I think I have more street cred now than when I first did this, and could do an even better job mapping and preparing.

Advice: go in with some sort of community organization, a city or even a neighborhood association. I was just walking around alone jabbering about EQ preparedness, my CERT training came from a city 7 miles away and no one has heard of CERT where i live. Even one partner, one other interested neighbor, cuts in half what you need to do to contact your community, and attract others. 4-10 people, all the better. 100 all acting together, marvelous.

Be ready and prepared to respond after an EQ right away, the risks from fire and gas line ruptures is real. They talk about the Golden Hour, that's what it is. Stories about people surviving in collapsed structures for days dominate the news after every shake, making you think you have time to pull out survivors. But your best yield on keeping people alive comes early on. And no one ever wants to be under walls and rubble injured and immobile for very long anyway. Be ready to act right away. Don't rat hole on your first rescue opportunity, be pragmatic. Greatest good greatest number. Move.

Keep cribbing material in a plastic garbage can - extra points if you put that on wheels so you can wheel it down the block and not hoist it (requires 2 people, cribbing is heavy).

A truly isolated community is rare, but I have a friend who settled on an island up in the San Juans, and they purchased surplus fire hose to supplement the local volunteer fire fighters. My friend is former FF so they perform hose drills and otherwise keep up on prevention tactics.

Last thought, I am re-thinking my own expectations based on recent science that indicates the shakes in the PNW are much more severe than anyone imagined. 5 minute duration M8.0 or greater - seldom do the building codes account for that. They are finding that mid-rise buildings are far more prone to this than high rise or low-rise homes and businesses. And we can now expect far less stability from unreinforced masonry buildings (UMBs), which are everywhere. Such shakes may only occur every 700 years though. So I'm re-thinking, I don't have any concrete advice for new scenarios, but I recommend that we don't assume that our structures can survive as they have in past EQs. What if its worse, do you need to shake your assumptions up. At least in the PNW, we have to re-think this some more (California faults may be a tad more predictable).

I want to rspond to JPickett's suggestion - "Move to non-earthquake country?"

There are only two states that have not recorded any earthquake activity -Wisconsin and Iowa. Even Minnesota has recorded two earthquakes - one was the result of crustal rebound as a result of the melting of the Pleistocene ice sheet. Of course, the likelihood a a severe quake is much greater is some localities, like California and Alaska. The New Madrid quake of 1812 was about as severe as any in our history, but very few people and structures were present to be affected.

I would highly recommend CERT training. Even the basic course will render lay responders more effective, and I believe you can take training as far as your community desires.

I'm on the list for the next CERT class taught here.

ROTC students... an overlooked resource...one of the projects our Health and Human Services learning community (high school curriculum focus) undertook was to identify, and contact elderly members of the community that may need assistance in case of a tropical weather emergency... with some help from the Emergency Management team at MacDill AFB as to the use of "green and red" reflective marker panels to visibly display and indicate that they may need or not need assistance.. the NJROTC students spent a Saturday talking to identified elderly community members, and helped them complete an emergency plan, and register them for special needs shelters if necessary... additionally with the support of Walgreens and Wal Mart placed "Vial of Life" pill bottles with lists of medication and contact information in refrigerators for first responder support... we identified the community members through the county's elderly "meals on wheels" nutrition plan...it took a while to convince them to release the names.. the kids did an exceptional job...

teacher

1. lots of clean water. absolutely vital.

2. good supplies of bandages, first aid items, and common meds for pain, colds etc. lots of OTC meds.

3. food, but can be simple. cans of tuna, crackers, granola bars, rice, canned corn. very basic stuff that kids will eat. if kids eat it, adults will too. include cookware - pots, pans, dishes, dish soap.

4. a place for people to go to the toilet. a shovel for digging. some kind of seat to go over the hole. some lime to put into the hole.

5. yes, possibly a place to bury the dead. hopefully not necessary, but you don't know.

6. more likely, a temp medical room where you can put the injured. with flat bunks, extra blankets, pillows etc. plus thermometers, BP cuffs, stethoscopes, simple meds like aspirin, tylenol, ibuprofen. lots of sterile wipes and plenty of old towels for wiping up blood, mucus and diarrhea.

7. a short wave radio with AM and FM. and spare batteries.

just some thoughts.
Pete2