Family Disaster Plan

It's hurricane season again, and while Ohio isn't a hurricane prone state, it's still a good time to review/comeup with a family disaster plan. Here's a brief outline of our plan. It goes from the fairly common to extremely unlikely, but better safe than sorry.

Level 1-24 hour shelter in place.

v Store 4 gallons of water.

v Have oil lamps and lanterns available with oil and candles.

v Have 10 pieces of wood available (if winter).

Level 2-72 hour shelter in place.

v All level 1 prep plus:

v Store 10 gallons of water.

v Have 40 pieces of wood available (if winter).

v Transfer all frozen foods to chest freezer.

v Spare batteries for radios.

Level 3-24 hour evacuation to center.

v Have enough food and water with cats.

v Map of back roads to center.

Level 4-72 hour evacuation to center.

v All level 3 prep plus:

v Transfer all frozen foods to chest freezer.

v Suburban running with ½ tank of gas.

v Have “toy kits” for each child.

v Pack essential school books.

v A favorite blanket for each child.

v A book for each adult

v Bible.

Level 5-72 hour to 1 month shelter in place.

v All level 2 prep plus:

v Water decon tablets.

v Alternate power source to run fridge, freezer, stove, radios, and well.

v Enough food to last 3 weeks.

v Extra candles/lamp oil.

v 1 cord wood (if winter).

v First aid kit with sutures.

Level 6-long term evacuation to center.

v All level 4 prep plus:

v Sheets and pillows.

v Extra TP.

v All school books.

v Extra books for adults.

Level 7-long term shelter in place.

v All level 5 prep plus:

v Solar power for fridge, freezer, stove, radios, and well, with battery and generator backup.

v 3 months worth of preserved food.

v 1 cord wood if summer, 3 cords wood if winter.

v Chainsaw, two man saw, splitting axe.

v 5 months fodder for farm animals.

v Army field surgical kit.

Level 8-long term evacuation-no shelter.

v All level 6 prep, plus:

v All level 5 prep (excluding full cord of wood and alt. Power source), plus:

v 2 evacuation sites in opposite directions.

v Meeting locations on the way to sites.

v Suburban full tank of gas.

v Tent, backpacks, cooking gear, sleeping bags, hand axe.

v 15 gallons water.

v 15 gallons extra gas.

v Army field surgical kit.

NBC Evacuation:

v All level 8 prep, plus:

v Fine particulate face masks

v Iodine tablets.

v Military ambulance with NBC filtration.

v HazMat placard ID book.

NBC Shelter in place:

v All evac prep, plus:

v Hasty fallout shelter.

v Homemade Geiger counter.

Our list may look radically different than many for three reasons. 1) We live in the country and provide much of our own food. 2) We have limited access to water in a power outage. 3) Hubby is in the state guard and they run a center for distributing disaster supplies, so I know how well stocked our shelter would be, as that is our evacuation location.

Now, progress on the list. Still don't have farm animals, that's a biggie for long term shelter in place. We have all the things we need for levels 1-4, except that the suburban has a huge oil leak that we don't have the money to fix right now. For level 5 we need the decon tablets and the power source. We could make do without the power source if we absolutely had to, but not if we don't have the decon tablets.

Level 6, we're set, but for level 7 we would need the saws and the surgical kit. Level 8 we need only the things I've already mentioned not having. For NBC evac we would need everything but the HazMat book. We are in the process of getting a functioning de-miled ambulance for to take to reenactments and there is only one thing we need to get to make the NBC gear functional, so that I why I list that.

For NBC Shelter in place, I know how to make a hasty fallout shelter and we have a good place in the basement to put one, I also know how and have the supplies to make a homemade geiger counter. Now, I don't seriously forsee there being a NBC incident severe enough for us to have to shelter in place that wouldn't kill us right out, but I figure better to know how to do these things than not. (And yes, I am a bit of a freak).

I will say that some of these scenarios seem pretty unlikely, but I myself was in an ice storm where some families were in shelter-in-place mode for a month, due to the amount of time it took to get electrical service reestablished. Personally, it was only 2 weeks for us. The first week it was too dangerous to leave the house and the second we could go out to get supplies. In that instance, no shelters were set up at all, but the high school was providing shower facilities for the outlying families once their power was restored (again, about 2 weeks).

So, what's your family's plan?