> On Jul 7, 2025, at 8:11 PM, Blake, Wil <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> You might want just a few days on high ground somewhere, and then the ability to quickly return and check your property when it's safe and legally allowable.


The Japanese recommendations are to have a backpack and hard hat at your exit door to grab immediately, but to have other supplies that you might need for a longer stay in a central location, so when you have a chance to come back, you're not going through the whole place trying to find everything.

I keep a bag with a couple days of clothes and medications, some snacks, and a raincoat in my car (which also comes in handy when you're stuck at work late one night, or you end up getting filthy because you have to pull cables, end up staying too late at a friend's house, or the weather changes unexpectedly)

I should probably organize other things a bit better if I had to grab a week's worth of food and such.



> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of charles meyer
> Sent: Tuesday, July 1, 2025 9:41 PM
> 
> ...
> 
> I’d enjoy hearing from survivalists but that conversation could lead awry.
> Most people, at least on the Gulf Coast, haven’t a clue what to do except vaulting for their vehicles and driving like moonshiners trying to reach what they think are safe havens.

Check to see if your local town or county offers CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) classes.  It's a program (managed by FEMA, while they still exist) to train up the community to deal with times when emergency services is completely overwhelmed.

 It grew out of California dealing with forest fires, but my understanding is that Florida and other hurricane, tornado, and flood prone areas are likely to have them, too.

I've taken the training, and it covers some stuff that the average person wouldn't need (like if you join one of the formal teams and have to know how they structure the management of disaster response), but it has basic first aid, cribbing to lift stuff off people, shutting off gas services, urban search and rescue (like markings to let people know you're searching and what you found), etc.



> It’s just crisis management on the spur of the moment. It’s never based preparation for worst case scenario or what you can afford to do reasonably on a budget. You’re told to survive after the hurricane to buy a Generac generator ($10,000 +) or stay with friends in safe places...like Gstaad.
> 
> 
> 
> I’ve printed Google maps from my home to 3 different locations but as Rich aptly shared without updates you could be driving into a flooded area or trees blocking your way or live wires all over… hence the need for live updates which I would need to get a Tracfone data card of 10GB? Would more than 10GB be warranted?

For a couple hours of driving?  That's way more than enough.  I was on a 100GB plan and would use Waze whenever I was driving, and it was only a few GB per month.  Autoplay videos when viewing websites on my phone and games that wanted to spam me with ads or were just badly written and constantly contacting their server used way more data.



> I have a Midland Weather radio which can run on batteries for a while. I asked "the ones responsible for preparations" which radio they’d recommend …. Still waiting for their reply. I’ve read adverse posts re: crank handled weather radios.




> I wish there was a panel of risk managers, rescue pros, techies to all flesh out realistic, budget-friendly planning and steps to take. You try touching on that theme and it gets politized by those who have no answers who survive on the strategy of the best defense is a good offense.

https://www.ready.gov/

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/bosaiscience/

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFEzXnIQVwV8JBaiP0Zu1O5P_PItdn9B5



> So appreciate whatever other helpful, caring thoughts you and others can please share re: Tech and other tools to keep safe by.

I think I missed whatever prompted this email.  (the problem with mail programs that want to show you the most recent first)

It really depends what you're dealing with, how long you think you're going to need to survive on your own (basic recommendation is a minimum of 3 days before disaster response is going to be able to get to you, but likely 5, so food and water for that long).  Are you going to be staying at home, or do you need portable supplies?

If you're interested in the subject, watch the NHK stuff that I linked to above (Bosai + How to craft safety).  They're not trying to sell products, so less likely to be pushing crazy stuff on you.  How to craft safety even shows things that people have made from plastic bags and cardboard boxes.


Les Stroud (Survivorman) did a special on more urban survival type stuff that they put together after Hurricane Katrina.  I can't remember the name of it, but I found that he did a series "Surviving Disasters" that might be an update to it:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdteC6yMLFp1aavCDuVGvUzUIxLOui0ND

(I haven't watched them yet, but he tends to be about using what you can find, so I suspect that he won't be pushing crazy expensive stuff)

-Joe