What do you do when the lights go out?

There are three stages to a disaster:

• preparation—planning, training, exercises, etc
• event—this is when the most lives are at stake and time is off the essence
• recovery—when efforts are made to restore life to the way it once was.

If you want to prepare for a disaster, there are several web-based games and quizzes that can help you in your efforts. Two of these are:

• Just For Kids webpage from the government of British Columbia
• FEMA also has a kids’ page with some excellent tests including one that prints as a graphic novel featuring the Disaster Masters when completed

But these two sites are part of the preparation stage of a disaster. They lead to another question: what are you going to do to amuse yourself after the event has passed? Major disasters often result in damage that can take literally months to repair. That may mean a lot of time without power or your usual activities. If you don’t have a computer to read, a Wii to play with, or phone service to text your friends, let alone a ride to soccer practice, how will you stay busy and avoid the trap of boredom and maybe even depression?

Does your emergency kit contain anything on this list:

• A book
• Pen, pencil and paper
• A small musical instrument
• A sewing kit
• A deck of cards or
• A portable game like you might take on a car trip?

What else might you include for entertainment in case you have to leave home for a few days?

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Photo from iStock: Child and mother by Toffic

Can I get a redo?

Photo: Failed by VCTStyle

There are three stages to emergency planning: preparation, the event, and recovery. In June I blogged about how to prepare psychologically for the recovery stage of an emergency or disaster. Now I’m wondering how to prepare psychologically for the event itself.

Hypothetical situation: it’s a sunny, warm summer day. This month is the driest on record for your city. One evening around dinnertime you look out the front window and find a raging river of mud has taken over your street.

Do you:

1. Throw on your bathing suit and flip flops and go wading with all the kids?
2. Grab your camera and start taking pictures?
3. Text your BF to come over and enjoy the spectacle?
4. Hide under your bed until it’s all over?
5. See if you still have fresh water and fill up every large container in your house in case supply is disrupted?

Any answer but #5 is a fail. What did I do? I grabbed my camera and took pictures. When neighbours emerged from their houses to look at it with me, I enjoyed a social moment. Then and only then did I go inside and start doing what I should have done at the outset.

I’ve been a safety warden in an office tower and had the helmet and flashlight to prove it. I’ve trained to prepare properties for bushfires with Fire & Rescue New South Wales. I’ve taken emergency preparedness courses with North Shore Emergency Management teams. It feels like I should have responded more sensibly.

One good thing – it was only a ruptured water main. The District of North Vancouver moved its crews in quickly and cleared the mess. But in a true disaster, like a major earthquake, there won’t be nearly enough resources to go around. That river of mud and debris would signal our drinking water running down to the sea with no hope of recovering it.

The risk of thinking about disasters is that we may only prepare for recovery. Is there any way to prepare for the event itself? I’m not sure. I like to think of Tuesday’s event as a dress rehearsal where the result came back must try harder.

Have you ever been in an emergency situation where you wish you’d responded more proactively? Or have you ever done exactly what you should have done and felt that sense of being in control, as much as being in control is possible in an emergency or disaster situation? 

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Photo by Maggie Bolitho