Disaster Preparedness Month, night five: “3 to Get Ready”

| Preparedness | Safety | West Seattle news

Each night in April, we’re marking Disaster Preparedness Month with info on one more step you can take to increase your chances of getting yourself and your family through the unthinkable – just in case. Tonight, it’s actually 3 steps, but we’ve mentioned two of them already: It’s the City of Seattle’s “3 to Get Ready” Preparedness Challenge, during which the city Office of Emergency Management is sponsoring WSB and other media outlets to promote a campaign to take those 3 steps and get 3 people you know to do the same thing. Step 1 – Store emergency water. Step 2 (we highlighted this Saturday night) – Set up an out-of-area phone contact. Step 3 (mentioned here Sunday night) – “Drop, cover, hold” in case of earthquake. Got all those? Follow the link on this city page to sign up for a special prize package between now and May 7. We’ll mention it again as the month rolls on – and you can find it again by looking for the “3 to Get Ready” ad in the WSB sidebar. ALSO: For WSB, we’d love to share preparedness pix, to inspire others – For starters, once you have your water stored, send us a pic of yourself/your family/any or all of the above with the big container(s)! (Here’s how to get us that pic.) Final note – our nightly reminders: Know your Hub; and join The Group!

MargL April 6, 2010 (7:29 am)

I found more info about Drop Cover and Hold
http://www.dropcoverholdon.org/
It refutes the ideas of the “Triangle of Life” method of staying ‘safe’ in an earthquake that I’d heard about.
Also,
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp

homedk April 6, 2010 (11:07 am)

Good links; thanks MargL!
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The link to the triangle rumor & other preparedness rumors are included on the Additional Reading page (in the Resources section) of West Seattle Be Prepared.
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The Office of Emergency Management, FEMA & other organizations are also trying to combat this rumor; here’s a link about it on the OEM site:
. http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/prepare/personal/during.htm#triangleoflife

Amanda April 6, 2010 (1:14 pm)

Hey, questions about storing water… I heard that you are supposed to put bleach in it for long term storage (16 drops per gallon). Is that the only option (besides switching it out every month or two)?

bsmomma April 6, 2010 (2:08 pm)

I just recently heard about this Triangle of life theroy. I used to be in the Safety industry and my 1st thought was the chances of getting hit in the head and severely injured are way higher than being crushed by a collapsed building in the types of earthqueakes we’ve had. Plus a lot of places have elected to have there buildings retrofitted to be “safer” in an earthquake.

homedk April 6, 2010 (6:43 pm)

@Amanda — we’ll post about storing water in more detail on our Facebook group, but the brief answer to your question is that it is best to switch it out periodically, even if you use bleach to disinfect it. Stored water will be fine for longer than 2 months; some recommend switching it out every 6 months to a year (when you switch back & forth betweeen standard & daylight savings time).