Blast's Emergency Binder details

The following is a list of what I keep in our emergency binder. I put down url's for stuff if I had the information, but I can't guarentee the links are still active.



Blast’s Emergency Binder

Section 1: Emergency numbers
1. Emergency 911
2. Non-emergency 311
3. Information 211
4. Poison control 1-800-222-1222
5. Child Protective Services
6. County Sheriff
7. Precient 4 Constables
8. Local fire department
9. Animal control
10. County SPCA office
11. Water/Sewer
12. Electric company
13. Gas company
14. Trash pickup
15. Family cell phone numbers
16. Friend’s home/cell phone numbers
17. Neighbor’s home/cell nuumbers
18. Phone company number
19. Work numbers
20. Travel Agent’s number
21. Bank’s phone number
22. Credit card companies’ numbers to report stolen card
23. Houston red cross
24. Local school numbers
25. Home owner’s association’s number
26. Lawyer specializing in self-defense cases number
27. Call-Before-U-Dig
28. Emergency number of company in charge of nearby gas pipeline

Section 2: First Aid
1. American Heart Association book: Heartsaver First Aid With CPR and AED
2.. “Guidance Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in radiation Emergencies” from www.fda.gov/cder/guidance/index.htm
3. print out of medical FAQ from old misc.survivalism usenet
4. “Venomous Snakes of Harris County” sheet from www.cp4.hctx.net/jones

Section 3: Flooding
1. Personalized checklist of what to if flooding threatens our house (who moves what to where and when)
2. Harris county pamphlet “minimizing Flood Hazards in your community”
3. Print out of “Frank’s Flood Facts” from http://www.click2houston.com./weather/955650/detail.html Frank is the Channel 2 weatherman.
4. Print out of “Flood Information” from Houston’s Emergency Management website at www.ci.houston.tx.us/oem/flood
5. Print out of “Flood Information Disaster Plan” from www.ci.houston.tx.us/oem/flood/displan.html

Section 4: Hurricanes
1. Pamphlet from Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management “Hurricane Preparedness & Evacuation Infromation”
2. Pamphlet from The Home Depot “Hurricane Preparation Guide 2006”
3. Pamphlet from Institue for Business & Home Safety (www.ibhs.org) “Protect Your Home Against Hurricane Danmage”
4. Pamphlet from walmart/sam’s Club “Hurricane Preparation Guide”
5. laminated hurricane tracking charts
6. print out of how to brace house windows/doors/garage doors/trusses for hurricane. I don’t know where I got this.
7. Booklet from 2002 Fort Bend County Hurricane Workshop
8. Maps of Houston’s evacuation routes from Texas Dept. of Transportation
9. CD of Houston Hurricane Safety from Harris County Emergency Management

Section 5: Maps
1. Map of neighborhood streets
2. Houston map from AAA
3. Texas map from AAA
4. Map of nearby ATM’s
5. Map of local emergency church/Red Cross shelters
6. topo map of area

Section 6: Water/Food Safety
1. Water FAQ from misc.survivalism usenet group.
2. Dosage chart for treating water with Clorox bleach.
3. Pamphlet from FDA on food safety in a disaster.

Section 7: Power
1. “Everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about emergency power sources and generators!” which I think I got from http://theepicenter.com/tow1230.html
2. “How to calculate power load” from misc.survivalism usenet message board

Section 8: Bugout Bags
1. “Mike’s Bugout Bag FAQ v2.1” from misc.survivalism usenet group
2. “Disaster Supply Kit” from misc.survivalism
3. “Emergency Car Kit” from misc.survivalism

Section 9: Communication
1. Listing of local radio stations
2. Copy of article “Hearing Voices” by Avery Comarow from Oct. 15th, 2001 issue of U.S. News and World Report. This articles gives shortwave frequencies of BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Canada, Radio Netherlands, Voice of America, Voice of Russia, Kol Isreal, Radio Cairo, Radio Pakistan, Voice of Iran.
3. List of FEMA, National Guard, CanForce, Army MARS, Navy Marine Emergency, Air Force air-to-ground, NORAD, FAA, Coast Guard, Maritime ship-to-ship frequencies.
4. List of assorted “nutball news” shortwave radio broadcast frequencies

Section 10: Nuclear Incident
1. “Nuclear Blast Mapper” article from www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/1mtblast.html
2. Map of US nuclear powerplants
3. Diagram of usual Houston day/night wind directions

Section 11: Misc
1. keys to neighbors’ houses (labelled with pictures of their pets)
2. Harris County Citizen Corps ‘Emergency readiness and National Security Wheel”
3. Harris County Hospital District “Pocket Guide to Emergency Preparation”
4. Recent family photographs
5. Recent family heights/weights/distinguishing marks
6. Pamphlet on pipeline safety and emergency actions

-Blast

I need to add our doctors' numbers, pediatrician's number, dentist's number and contact info for some of y'all (kmat, Librarin, Wildman and a few others).

-Blast

Very nice, Blast!

Just out of curiosity, where do you keep it?

Sue

Sue,

Basic paranoia suggests I answer that question by PM.

-Blast

Looks great.... Only one problem- now I've got homework.

Sweet Mother!!!!!

Damned impressive binder.

You put me to shame.

Couple of Suggestions from the health care provider end of the boat.

Emergency Phone Tree:
Think sitting in the ICU waiting area in the middle of the night, destraut and thinking "who do I call? What do I do??". Someone will get left out in the stress of the situation that may be a valuable resource.

Medical Info Sheet:
For each family member
You can even import a photo of each family member onto their sheet and it could be faxed to an Emergency Room anywhere if need be.
Dealt with a number of families split up by Katrina and members scattered all over the place in varying levels of conciousness/mental faculties and trying to figure out what the patient's history was. Patient couldn't tell us and even their old medical records were under 10 feet of water.

Don't trust yourself to remember all of your wife's medications or your child's allergies while they're screaming and/or bleeding in front of you. Been there, done that, went brain dead, and I'm a nurse that deals with that on a daily basis.

The Med Info Sheet should includes:
- Allergies including foods, tape, latex,....
- Medications/doses
- Surgeries and any metal implants (no not the ones the aliens put in , they don't show up on xray)
- Physicians and their contact numbers
- Vaccinations especially most recent tetanus.


Living Will Copy:
Yeah, you're young now but drunk drivers and demonic cats happen. Best to talk about it and get it in writing now while y'all are both calm (relatively) and able to talk about it.

Funeral Plans:
At least an overview or a sheet that says "look in the 'Funerals' folder in the second drawer of the green file cabinet" The more specific the details the less the survivor has to try and think about.

I love (not like,... love) punchlists. Don't even have to think about things, just follow the punchlist in order and nothing gets missed.

For example:
I have a punchlist for an individual storm such as
- tasks/shopping list for storm watch issued.
- tasks list for storm warning issued.
- tasks list for direct hit
- tasks list for post storm stuff including who to check on. (I always forget somebody).

Most impressive, Obi Wan has taught you well.

Let me guess… recent additions?

Seriously, though. That binder is incredible! I think you just shamed us all.

That Rocks Blast Good Job!!

You know, the level of organization in this MOAB (Mother of All Binders) is very impressive. I never thought "binder envy" would be a part of my vocabulary. Just another day on ETS forums I guess......

Samhain,

Those are good ideas. I'll incorporate them. Looking through the binder I realized I was missing one big section: insurance! I'll add copies of our insurance policies tonight along with the medical stuff you suggested.

Thanks!
-Blast

Actually, they've been there since we built the house. Our heighborhood was brand new without a lot of houses back then. It became a prime dumping point for unwanted animals. The second summer I trapped 13 cats for the humane society. Hmmm, I guess they got their revenge...

-Blast

great job. That is an excellent example of great forward thinking

A tip of the hat!

I have a home-made three ring organizer that I've toted for years that has about three times the information in it, not in any real order, just countless names, numbers, and titles, many of which are out of date or obsolete. I add more to the list as time goes by, and I can probably figure out fairly easily which ones I would use for what, but for anyone else, they may just as well pick up a 3 year old phone book.

Great binder.

Just curious, though: how do you keep it secure? I'm thinking about privacy and identity theft issues. Seems like there is a lot of very personal information in there, in a highly portable package.

Dougwalkabout,

The only real "dangerous" information is the copy of my pasport and I consider that an acceptable risk. The neighbors' house keys are coded in a manner that we know which is which but a thief would have a hard time deciphering. The binder itself is has been "domesticaly camoflauged".

In general, there are more valuable objects within plain sight that will tempt a thief. I feel the risk of losing the binder is minor to zero. Meanwhile, it is easy to get in case of a fast evacuation.

-Blast

Besides, would you burglarize a guy whose nickname is "Blast"?
Great binder. Gave me a lot to think about.

Blast,

Some of those documents look like they would be good to have but seem to not be available on line. Any chance you could PDF some of them and post here?

Great Ideas though! Will have to do my homework now too!!

I'll convert a lot of the documents into PDF files for y'all. That'll take just a few minutes. The important phone numbers list will be an excel file so you can add your own numbers.

Anyone who wants copies of these files PM with an e-mail address. If my pm mailbox gets full post a note telling me here in this thread and I'll empty it out.

I'm not sure about the pamphlets. We have a scanner, but the time needed to scan and convert them is more than I have free right now.

-Blast

I have something started that I've never gotten around to finishing. I'm going to get to work now that I have some idle time sitting here letting a one week old sleep on my chest since she won't sleep by herself yet.
Some references I've found for ideas:

http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/familyemergencyplan.pdf
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/checklist.pdf
http://www.ready.gov/america/_downloads/Ready_Brochure_Screen_EN_20040129.pdf
http://www.ready.gov/america/publications/allpubs.html
http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/bestpractices/index.shtm
http://www.operationhope.org/pdpg/
http://www.operationhope.org/smdev/lf1.php?id=187

I work in IT so the term "Disaster Recovery" is commonplace to me. I have servers dedicated to DR, helped with DR plan documents, and have participated in DR tests so my document is a similarly titled "Personal DR Plan".

A great idea. One I have been thinking about for a while but not knowing where to start. I didn't see it but I think it would helpful to have hospital locations within say 100 miles or so as well. Now I know where to start for myself. Maybe some possible hotel information as well. Good job.

I like this form for recording personal information. Uh, but they don't store the info somewhere in their own files, do they?

-Blast

You should consider scanning the binder into a flash drive, in case you need to take it with you.

t

Thanks Blast!!! My book is not near what it should be and can be. I'll be "straightening" my book out per your parameters.

Thanks for the wake-up call.

For what it's worth - we have a similar binder at the fire company, one in each truck - but we're 97% done converting it to a stand-alone "hyper-document" (web site) that allows us to:

a) Keep the whole darn book in the form of a CD-ROM (the current book is in a 4" binder! it's HUGE!)
b) Concurrently issue updates to all copies
c) Embed multi-media in the book

Once that's done, we're going to try to get a grant or donations to buy laptops for each truck, or at least some of them.

Hmmm. Do the laptops have to be 'hardened?' Sounds like they could be fairly cheapp if what they are for is running a MM document...

teacher

I think the two Operation Hope documents the EFFAK and PDPG will be great places to start. Thanks all for your input.

I'll be e-mailing the pdf's tonight. Currently it's a zipped file a 7-8MB in size. If you have a slow internet connection it'll take you a while to download. Should I break it up into smaller peices?

-Blast

I don't use their form so no they get no personal information, I downloaded the blank and used it as a template.
Since I already have most of my important documents scanned I simply made a master document which links to most of the other information. So I just open and print for a paper copy.

Blast,

No problem.

I live to serve (except on the weekend then I live to mow).

Thanks for taking the time to list all that out, It's given me a bunch of ideas for our household binder.

You probably should, just becuase a lot of mail servers will see a 7MB attachment and assume it is something naughty like bootleg music.

OK, and what do those acronyms mean and can you give us a link to where the documents are?

Okay, the files have been e-mailed out. I've also deleted most of my old PMs so if you tried to contact me and couldn't go ahead and try again.

-Blast

What kind of personal information would everyone keep in somehting like this? I'm thinking birth certificate and social security card to start with.
I was organizing our fireproof safe and instead of those items just loose in a folder I bought some thinn report covers, sheet protectors, business card holers, cd sleeves, etc and started making small binders with inportant information. I put the birth certificate in a slot in the business card holder as well as the little card with savings account numbers for each of my children and their birth certificate in a sheet protector and a cd holder which will hold a backup copy of the scans of above and some other documents for them.
Then the other question is should I store these at home in my firesafe or rent a safe deposite box at a bank. Either way I could see a major disaster of NOLA proportion destroying things. I wonder if I can go request copies of the birth certificate and ss card and keep a copy both at home and in a bank, anyone tried getting duplicates?

As far as I know, you can obtain as many certified copies of your birth certificate from your birth county’s Office of Vital Records (Click here to find it) as you are willing to pay for. I believe you can also obtain uncertified copies of relatives’ birth certificates (as many as you are willing to pay for). I have experience in ordering 3 copies of my certified birth certificate (1 for me and 1 for each of my parents) at one time in California.

As far as the Social Security card goes, I believe it is the same situation, although I do not remember if I ordered more than one at a time so I cannot say for sure.

Thats what I was thinking, I couldn't see any security check preventing me from getting a duplicate.

I'm trying to decide about keeping the duplicate just in my parents house or in a bank. I'm thinking a bank near me if somehting happened to destroy my house it could destroy the bank. Maybe I should get the safe deposit box in a bank near my parnets house?

You may want/have to go to your local Social Security office to get any duplicates.

A coworker has a junkie sister, who got sister's SS# from mother's records, applied for credit cards, and ran up $20,000+ in bills. It's been a real nightmare for her.

Sue

Blast,
Reading through the binder info, I can't find the section on "cat attacks". Did you forget it?

It's covered in "Emergency Food/Water" section, but don't tell DW.

-Blast

I think my cats are all fat, very little protine to be fund there, I'd have to find alturnitives

Well I did a little bit of work on mine. I have one of those Sentry fireproof safes at home with important things in it and finally started organizing it.
We have 4 in our family now and I have a folder in the safe for each member. I started thinking at some things that we keep in the safe are not super important and a few folders with things dropped into them isn't the most organized. So I made a trip to the office supply store and bought some stuff. For each person I used a report cover and put a couple sheet protectors inside. In those sheet protectors is an official copy of the birth certificate and a membership/dedication certificate from our church. Then a business card holder page which holds the social security card and savings account number card. Then a CD holder page which has a burned CD with scanned images of the paper items in the folder and a spreadsheet with the savings account register and the electronic statements of the savings accounts (for the kids). I put a fifth folder in the same with things that are joint between my wife and I such as marriage license and all our checking/savings info.
So I have all the most important items in those folders for use as needed. My plan is to duplicate them as much as possible and store the second set offsite at my parents farm in another fireproof safe. Then I'll put my emergency binder near the firesafe, because depending on time, if we have to evacuate for some reason we plan to take the safe but if there isn't time (its big and heavy) then we pull out the 5 important binders.

Eugene,

Feels good to be organized, doesn't it?

-Blast

If I might pick your brain a little more

Do you have an evacuation/bug out plan in plane? While most situations you would remain home, I'm in an older neighborhood and there are a lot of people who refuse to work who are living on government assistance and abusing that system. Their basic attitude is everything is public, be it my back yard or the contents of my shed or whatever. So if any large situation happens they will be expecting a handout so those situations I need to bug out rather than be put in a situation where I have to defend my family and have to deal with legal issues later. I have a primary location already, my parents farm but its 250 miles to there.
So some of the things I need to work out now are meeting places, if my wife needs to leave the house while I'm at work where can I catch up to her at. I had thought about some of the travel centers we stop at while going that way but in a NOLA situation they will probably have a lot of people stopping to get gas so I'm thinking we need to stay away from them. I'm trying to decide what would make a good meet up location.

Eugene,

We used to have a bugout plan then Hurricane Rita shattered our illusions.

Let me clarify that some.

If all of Houston is trying to escape it'll need to be something more dangerous than a class 4 hurricane to get us bugging out. That being said, we'll load the Honda Pilot with water, food, gas (tied on top disguised in old suitcases), important papers, guns, a chemical toilet and join the streaming hordes. Both our vehicles are permanently stocked with maps, gear and some (3-6 liters) water. I top the gas off every time I've used 1/4 tank, DW always refills the Pilot at 1/2 tank. In an evacuation we'd add much more water plus the other stuff mentioned. We have friends in Austin, TX (three hours away). If we need to go farther we'll head north to family in Iowa or Minnesota. We've made that drive several times before and know it well.

DW is a stay-at-homer and I work 13 miles straight down the road. Between us is a mixture of suburbia and rural land. There's a railroad track that runs directly from my work to our neighborhood plus assorted other possible on-road choices. The girls are in preschool ten hours a week, otherwise they are with DW. The preschool is less than two miles away from home. If something happened while I was at work and we had to leave seperately we have out-of-state contacts set up who we can both check in with (assuming phones work )to see where each other is. That being said, it would take A LOT to get DW/DD1/DD2 to leave home without me. She'd rather hide than run.

I actually think our most likely reason to bug out would be due to a release of hazardous materials from a train derailment. If that were the case the area of effect would be relatively small and we wouldn't have to deal with all of Houston trying to run. In this circumstance we have a checklist in the binder for emergency evacuation. It lists what we need to grab, where it is, what priority it is and whose responsibility it is to grab it. However, a trial run shows it takes 20-minutes or so to do everything on the list, due mainly to trying to handle DD1/DD2 at the same time.

Sidenote: Thanks to the show "Jericho" DD1 knows if she ever sees a mushroom cloud she needs to get inside and turn off the A/C unit. Not bad for a 4-yr old.

Hopefully this helped a little, if not please ask for clarification. I like talking about this.

-Blast

p.s. The reason for taking the guns mentioned above would be to keep others from getting them. They would remain locked away in the vehicle. During the Rita evacuation there didn't seem to be much need of a gun. However, if the situation dictated it a pistol would be with me.

Eugene,

In your case do you have someone out of state that could be a mutual contact between you and your wife/kids if you get seperated? That might be your best bet.

I would avoid travel stations/rest stops. They'll be overrun. This may sound a little creepy, but do a search for graveyards along your expected paths. They are usually easy to find, have plenty of parking, and are much less likely to be overrun by refugees. Good ones also have a hose or other water source somewhere on the grounds.

Something to think about.

-Blast

My parents are on the farm but the only communication is a phone line so its not reliable enough to count on, even during normal times it doesn't work half the time.
My long term plans are to have some solar/wind power generation on top the farm and put up a ham repeater and get my license so I can relay messages down to it via other repeaters, its the second highest point in the county and you can see over other mountain tops for miles so that should work well.
I was thinking things like state parks hopefully no one will be thinking about recreation during whatever causes us to need to bug out.

How would bugging out to a state park be better than bugging out to the farm?

Sue

The question was finding a meeting place to continue on to the farm.

I know this is a good format to use because of the effort I am having to put out to get the Lousy-anna version of the info that Blast has already found in the Houston, Tx area. It must be nice to live in a state that has a functioning, working Office of Emergency Management.

Ah, the beginnings of "The Blast Family Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan"

Between this thread and another I started "Family Records Organizer", I have been compiling all sorts of info and came across a beautifully simple way of improving my records for "Hospitals". This may help some others interested in this topic.
I have never been admitted to one near my current home, so I logged onto my company healthcare providers website, under "looking for a doctor". I quickly found I could run a search for hospital within 10, 20,50 miles of my zipcode who are in my insurance network... another big consideration in many scenarios.
It spit out a list of 25 hospitals within 20 miles, in my network, with full contact information, links and a map function. It allowed for prinint out as well as setting up in a PDF.
Your insurance provider may not offer this feature,or you may not have access to healthcare insurance but I am sure most of the "find a doctor" websites could provide some this info painlessly.
I even can run a list of Hospitals for my kids away at school, just in case.
Hope this helps someone...

Hey, good idea! Expanding on that, it might be worthwhile to run the same search as part of any travel plans. Knowing which doctors are in/out of your health plan could very useful if someone gets hurt or sick while far away from home.

-Blast, who's binder seems to have taken on a life of its own.

We have a family doctor so I took his business card and scanned it and made copies for each of my important information binders.