Breaking news!

My novel, Lockdown, is now available for pre-order here from my publisher.

Where is that first aid kit anyway?

The floor beneath your feet buckles and rolls. The walls around you groan. An earthquake tears the ground apart. You drop, cover, and hold on. You stay in that position until the last tremors pass. Perfect.

Then what?

First inspect yourself. If you have no injuries, put on sturdy shoes, a dust mask, and eye protection if these things are handy.

Get out your first aid kit and inspect the other people around you.

The simple fact is you may not be able to phone emergency services after an earthquake. You may not be able to phone anyone at all. If phones are still working, resources may be stretched thin and it could be a long time before help arrives.

Most earthquake-related injuries do not happen during the movement of the earth. They are a result of collapsing walls, flying glass, and falling objects. That means cuts, bruises and maybe even broken bones. 

If someone around you is injured, the Southern California earthquake site says to do the following:

• If a person is bleeding, put direct pressure on the wound. Use clean gauze or cloth, if available.
• If a person is not breathing, administer rescue breathing.
• If a person has no pulse, begin CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).
• Do not move seriously injured people unless they are in immediate danger of further injury.
• Cover injured persons with blankets or additional clothing to keep them warm.

The United States Department of Labor site says: Fire is the most common earthquake-related hazard, due to broken gas lines, damaged electrical lines or appliances, and previously contained fires or sparks being released.

• Do you know the right first aid for a burn?

The Mayo Clinic offers information on first aid for burns here.

On top of these risks, you have to think about shock. Shock can divert blood and oxygen away from the body’s vital organs.

• Do you know the physiological symptoms of shock?

Hint: the skin may be cold and clammy, the pulse may race and the eyes may seem faraway or fixed on a single spot.

• Do you know how to treat a person for shock?

Hint: have the person lie down, elevate the feet, loosen the clothing and keep the person warm. 

Read more about recognizing and treating shock on the Mayo Clinic site.

All of this information should be in a booklet inside your first aid kit. Now is the time to check that you have what you need. If not, why not go to some of these sites that offer great first aid instructions and print a copy for your grab-and-go bag.

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Photo from Wikimedia Commons: Polish First Aid by Łukasz Rychlik

How do you prepare your inner self?

Okay so you’ve prepared yourself for disaster. If you’ve ticked each of these:

• Food and water
• Clothing
• Shelter & bedding
• First aid kit and medications (See this Red Cross link for a comprehensive list.)

Maslow, with his Hierarchy of Needs would probably give you an A-plus for meeting the two bottom levels of his pyramid. Those levels are physiological necessities and personal safety.

Most emergency prep instructions only address these two core levels. Some add the other important component:

• Food, bedding, and other necessities for pets / companion animals.

Should there be another level to emergency preparation? You know that old game ‘if you could only take one book with you to a desert island, what would it be?’ Maybe you should put a copy of that cherished entertainment into your pack. Maybe these items should be added to the checklist:

• Books, cards, and board games, things allow us to escape to another world when our immediate environment offers little joy.

One thing we will have to cope with after a major disaster is the troubling uncertainty of life around us. Perhaps our packs should have meditation CD’s and Tibetan singing bowls? Impractical for sure but you get my point. We don’t have to be just physically prepared for disaster, we have to brace ourselves psychologically as well.

The dog in this picture is wearing an Anxiety Wrap that uses maintained pressure and acupressure to end thunderstorm fear, separation anxiety, noise phobias and more. I don’t know if it works or not but if it does, I wonder if the technology couldn’t be applied for humans? If so, we could all pack an anxiety wrap in our bug-out bag.

Are you good with sudden and dramatic changes in your life? How does a person prepare themselves for the unthinkable? Is there any point in trying or should we just go with the flow should worse come to worst?

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Photo from Wikimedia Commons by: www.anxietywrap.com

Are you ready? Ready for what?

I have an earthquake app on my iPad. That’s why I can tell you that within the past twenty-four hours there have been eight earthquakes within 1,050 kilometres (652 miles) of Vancouver, BC. From Alaska to Northern California they ranged from magnitude 2.5 to 4.5. Some quakes have happened offshore but most were on land.

Every time a quake registers somewhere on the globe, my iPad chimes an alert. Sometimes the proximity to where I am is scary but having information makes me feel a little bit more in control, not that I can do anything about it.

I use Quakes – Earthquake Notifications by TAWCS to monitor this information and watch the updates with great, if a little morbid, interest. There are a lot of other earthquake applications out there too, along with apps that will alert you to tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes and just plain ‘severe weather.’ I haven’t investigated those other apps as they aren’t the focus of my novel but it makes me wonder what disaster do we prepare for?

Are you disaster-ready? What external threat worries you the most?