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These Tips Can Help Save Your Life

1} Figure out now what you’d take if given 10 minutes to evacuate. That’s what many homeowners in the recent San Diego wildfires were given—just 10 minutes to sort through a lifetime’s accumulation. Think now about what you’d be able to grab quickly. If you haven’t stored your important documents in a safe-deposit box or fireproof safe in your house, the next-best thing is to put them all in one place, ready to grab on the way out. What else would you take?

2} Change your voice mail message to say that you’re safe. With phone service spotty, it’s possible that people won’t be able to get through to you. So if you manage to get into your voice mail, change the message to say that you’re safe; note the current time, as well as the disposition of any other friends or relatives you know about. Include your location, if possible, and whether anyone else close to you is missing.

3} Keep plants green. If your property includes a slope, keep it well planted. After a wildfire burns away all the vegetation, hilly areas are vulnerable to erosion and mudslides when the rains come. But in sloped areas that are heavily planted, the roots are often left largely intact, holding the soil together and preventing one of the more damaging aftereffects of a fire. For a list of plants that hold enough moisture to be recommended for use in high-fire-danger areas, see the next tip.

4} Plant fire-wise plants. The Oakland Public Works Department has published a list of plants native to California that have naturally low flammability or contain enough moisture to stand on their own during a wildfire (also at www.oaklandpw.com/page157.aspx). Make sure to continue to water them, though, so they don’t become fuel in a blaze.

5} Backup your data online. We all know that survival is the No. 1 priority, but do you know what the 34th is? That’s right, saving your data. You’ve spent zillions on music and taken thousands of photos, so figure out a backup plan. Either burn DVDs and send them regularly to Aunt Marge in Milwaukee, or find an online storage site that allows you enough room for your stuff without breaking your pocket. Or however that cliché goes. Check out My Docs Online, CrashPlan, Mozy, Amazon’s A3 or Steekup.

6} Keep a pair of shoes and a flashlight under the bed. Earthquakes can break glass in windows and knock down vases, picture frames, ceramic curios and that glass on your nightstand holding your thumbtack collection. In the moment you need to be skedaddling out of your house as quickly as possible, you don’t want to be embedding your feet with sharps while looking for a pair of shoes, because we all saw that movie. Keep the shoes in a plastic bag with the flashlight.

7} Designate two regroup places. If you have to evacuate pronto in the middle of the night because of a disaster, you might find a crowd on the
street, so have a place nearby—a neighbor’s front yard or a street corner—designated as a meeting point. Also pick another spot outside the neighborhood, in case you aren’t allowed back in after a disaster. Pick a spot that is centrally located to all your workplaces and schools. Think “mom’s office” or “Alex’s house.” Post both places on your fridge along with the number of your out-of-state contact, so everything gets committed to memory.

8} Get some kitty litter for the disaster kit. Kitty litter is great for handling waste, though Oaklanders who live close to woods may consider burying theirs. In a disaster, when privacy is at a minimum and running water a vague but pleasant memory, kitty litter can be reborn as a safe but effective tool for keeping peace in the family.

9} Don’t let your gas tank drop below a quarter full. When Oaklander Molly Coffey-Smith was evacuated from her house in the Oakland Hills fire, she remembers the lines stretching down the block at every gas station with people topping off before the exodus. In case you’re the guy who uses the low-fuel light as a gentle suggestion that you might want to start thinking about maybe stopping sometime for gas in the next few days, then hopefully the thought of waiting in line at the station will get you beating the light.

10} Be ready to shelter in place. If the disaster involves hazardous material or airborne nasties, Oakland Office of Emergency Services head Renee Domingo says that residents my be required to “shelter in place.” This means turning your house into a plastic-wrapped bunker like Elliott’s in E.T. Or at least, turning off your air conditioner and fans, closing windows and the fireplace damper, and staying in an interior room, preferably one without exterior windows. Get duct tape and plastic sheeting to cover windows.

11} Get a wired landline phone. Remember when the power went out and the phones still worked? It’s magic! Well, almost. It’s because phones take very little power and can run off volts supplied by the phone company by way of a pair of copper wires. This strange quirk of physics doesn’t help you if you have a wireless handset, though, so make sure you stop by Best Buy or Radio Shack and pick one up to store in the closet (or disaster kit). You can get one for less than $10 and have enough change left over to buy an ice cream for the kids.

12} Get a fire extinguisher. I mean seriously, we’d be held in contempt of disaster-preparedness awareness if we didn’t include “get a fire extinguisher.” The ABC-type fire extinguishers are good for regular and electrical fires and run from about $25 for a single use to $40 for a rechargeable one. Teach every family member PASS: pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire, squeeze the trigger, sweep from side to side. Gone in 15 seconds.

13} Get trained in CPR and first aid. The rule with disasters, and I heard this again and again, is that you’re on your own. It could take days for the first responders to reach you—making them, well, fourth or fifth responders. There is a very good chance that you will need to perform CPR in your lifetime, and basic first aid comes in handy all the time, especially if you’re prone to playing Iron Chef with your Wüsthof. Take a class from the Red Cross or join your neighborhood CORE group (www.oaklandcore.org).

14} For Pete’s sake, man, get that heavy art piece off the wall above your bed.

15} Check your smoke detector. According to Erroll Najee, the president of Business Emergency Safety Training in Oakland, in nine out of 10 fatal home fires, the smoke detectors didn’t work. It’s an old saw, but replace your batteries annually at the same time. Birthday? New year? Maybe your anniversary, big guy?

16} Obsess about every little seismic event. The U.S. Geological Survey has a Web site that tracks every rattle and roll in the Bay Area, so if you’re a geologic hypochondriac, this is the site for you. It shows epicenters from quakes in the last hour, day and week. You can report one that you feel, or just look at the biggies. Check it out at http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm.

17} Keep bleach around. Generic, unscented bleach is one of the most important things you can have around during the apocalypse. It will purify water (important because the sewer lines run next to the fresh water lines, and the two are expected to commingle in an earthquake) when you add just 16 drops to a gallon and shake. Heavily diluted, it will sterilize dishes and eating utensils and provide an antiseptic rinse for first-aid use. Plus it will get the soot stains out of your white disaster smock.

18} Make a car kit. There’s a very good chance you’ll be caught out, either in your car or at work, so make sure you have a mini-disaster kit in the car (and at work, if you take transit in). Put a big bottle of water, Clif Bars (or other mobile food), sturdy shoes (if you wear less-functional shoes at work), a first-aid kit, disposable lighters, cash in small bills, heavy gloves and a small LED flashlight, all in a backpack for maximum portability.

19} Visualize. In times of high stress, your first thoughts are automated actions, either reactions or what you’ve practiced. That’s why drills are important in sports, the military and disaster preparedness. Practice by thinking about what you’d do if the earthquake hit at home and at work. Where would you tell your family to take cover? What would you hide under? If your house caught fire in the middle of the night, how would you mobilize? How would you get out? What would you grab? Where would you meet?

20} Reinforce your house. Seventy-five percent of Oakland homes were built before 1950, long before current seismic standards were in effect. To keep your house from sliding off its foundation or buckling under itself, you need to reinforce it. This isn’t as time-consuming or expensive as it sounds. You only really need to do three things: Bolt the house to the foundation, reinforce the outside shear walls with plywood and add shear transfer ties (like metal brackets) to the floor joints. Even if you aren’t handy, you can do these things yourself (I’m told). Check out the contractors checklist at www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/eqmaps/fixit/plansets.html or do it yourself with the guide at www.oaklandnet.com/earthquake/GetRetrofitHandbook.pdf.

21} Keep your homeowners insurance information in your wallet or purse. You’ve got your car insurance information, of course, but keep the toll-free number of your homeowners or renters insurance company and your policy number with you at all times. Many policies include “getting on your feet” coverage, providing fast money for clothes, toiletries and hotel stays, and the faster you can get the process moving, the easier your transition back to normal life.

22} Strap your water heater. But not for the reason you think. Of course you don’t want a 400-pound bowling pin rolling around in your garage, but the main reason to batten down the heater is that you don’t want to lose your 40-gallon supply of fresh water. When the quake hits, turn off the intake valve to prevent backsplash of contaminated water, and you’ve got enough to last you a month.

23} Keep your eyes open for Osama. The Department of Homeland Security has established an East Bay Terrorism Early Warning Group as an information hub for information about possible terrorist activities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and parts south. On its Web site, www.eastbaytewg.org, you can submit a tip when you’ve seen some suspicious behavior, including “suspicious surveillance conducted by unknown subjects in your neighborhood without a reason to be there; lost or stolen identifications and personal documents; or suspicious activity of persons entering dwellings at odd times during the evening.” If you happen into a house that’s sparsely furnished, especially if it’s littered with extremist literature, says Duty Officer Chuck Whitmarsh, submit a tip.

24} Give your kid a buck. Cell phones will almost certainly be expensive paperweights during the inevitable outage, but the landline phones might be working. Give your rugrat a buck in quarters taped together, with the instructions that it be used to call you and then your out-of-state contact in an emergency. Write down both numbers for them to keep in their backpacks—memories can fail when panic sets in.

25} Actually do these things. There will be a wildfire in the Oakland Hills in the coming years, and there will be a big earthquake. There definitely could be an awful El Niño that causes landslides. There might be a hazardous materials spill, tsunami or terrorist attack. There will be huge interjurisdictional confusion on the part of relief agencies, and our supplies will most likely have to be trucked in from Tracy and Stockton on roads that will have to be fixed first. Make a real commitment to making a plan for regrouping, getting your kit together and getting trained as a family in first aid and CPR. Learn to be self-sufficient for a week with no outside water, food or power. Find the time
 to prepare.