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What’s In Your Earthquake Kit?
By Julia Frey
May 24th, 2009 @ 4:15 PM Community, Earthquakes, SoCal

earhquakesuppliesIn 1994 I was single and living in a studio apartment in Santa Monica when the Northridge Earthquake hit. Santa Monica got hit pretty hard considering its distance from Northridge, many houses came off their foundations and one apartment building two blocks from me had a gas leak and explosion minutes after the earthquake struck. (Thankfully due to the MLK holiday, none of the tenants were home at the time.)

And how well prepared was I for the earthquake? I had one small maglight flashlight IN MY CAR. That’s it. So in the pitch dark — and you know what I mean by how dark it was at 4:30 in the morning with a lot of power out throughout the city — I found shoes and went to my car to get the flashlight. After that day I was only slightly better prepared: I kept water in my car and bought many more flashlights to keep around the apartments I lived in.

Since we got married 8 years ago, my husband and I have been keeping a fairly decent earthquake kit in our easy to get to storage area and after all the recent shaking we pulled it all out and refreshed it. The photo above is of the supply box and the small blue bin behind it has our foodstuffs. We wrote down a few more things we needed and I have been perusing Sean and Jason’s Urban Journal website for additional ideas.

I would love for you all to share things you have your kits, items you have in your cars, what you keep by your bedside. I would love recommendations on hand crank/solar flashlights and radios. Tell me what oddball things you keep in those boxes, just in case.

Click through the jump to see photos from Santa Monica damage in 94 as well as a sample of our foodstuffs and a more complete list of things in our supply box.



So you might think to yourself, “Well, how bad could it get, really? I mean, even if stuff is just all over the floor, I could still get in the house and find food.” This is how bad it very easily could get.

apartmentfire

Granted, if your kit was in there, that’s not good, which is why you keep a small one in the car and make sure you have backup plans with friends or family.

Also, your house may not have burned, but the foundation could look like this:

foundation

It may be hard to see (hey, my hands were still shaking!), but the house has moved about three feet off the foundation. Those are the walls buckling forward. With the very major aftershocks that happen after a significant earthquake, you would not be going back in there. (I hope.)

And this is just earthquakes I’m talking about here. If there is some other kind of major natural or man-made disaster, you have to know that the emergency responders probably won’t get to you and your neighborhood for days. DAYS.

Okay, enough with the stern lecturing because I’m not in any way a Nervous Nelly. The real reason I love to put an earthquake kit together? IT’S FUN! And it doesn’t have to be that expensive at all. I mean look at a sampling of our food choices here:

earthquakefood

These are cheap and filling items you find in the grocery store, just about all of these items are less than a dollar a can. Some are much less than that. And it’s hilarious in the comfort and safety of today (sans emergency) to decide what meals you might enjoy eating while looking at the stars, listening to the emergency broadcasts on your hand crank AM/FM radio. “Honey, do you want spagetti-os or chili tonight?”

So get yourselves a sturdy storage box, find a spot that is easy to get to, but out of the way (I suggest NOT in the attic!) and start getting it filled. Then put a big marker on the calendar for a year from when you put the kit together to go through and replace items that have expired. I hope you never have to use it. Ever.

A sampling of things in our supply box (there’s more, but this is what I remember off the top of my head):
flashlights/radio/batteries
hammer/hatchet
nylon and cotton rope
cotton towels
latex gloves (these will need replacing after a year)
first aid kit
toothbrush/toothpaste/lotion/chapstick/sunblock
baseball caps/work gloves
nylon tarp
plastic army men/playing cards
pens/pencils
cat food/cat litter/small litter pan
camping dishes/utensils/can opener/corkscrew(!!)
Ladies: sanitary pads! And if it’s not that time of the month, they do double as large wound dressing, if the need arises. And ideal for the job as they were designed to absorb blood after all.

Random selection of items in the food bin:
Dehydrated meals (requires hot or boiling water)
Canned meals (chef boyardee and chili and beans)
Canned veggies and fruit
Instant coffee (dude)
Salt/Pepper/Sugar



We are considering a camp stove, but we have a gas grill and have an extra bottle of propane always on standby. Thoughts?

Related posts:

1. Can’t Believe I Didn’t Feel that Earthquake Next Door
2. Marina Power Outage = Earthquake Dry Run
3. Senator Boxer on Earthquake Preparedness
4. Earthquake Insurance?
5. 7.8 Earthquake to strike Los Angeles in T minus 6 days…



1.
elise on May 24th, 2009 @ 5:04 pm

Extra shoes. My husband will laugh that even for A earthquake kit I pack shoes. But in a bad earthquake you do not want to get caught barefoot.

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http://la.metblogs.com/2009/05/24/whats-in-your-earthquake-kit/