Dear Jim,
We have already seen how the largely bankrupt USA has dealt with the Hurricane Katrina disaster. New Orleans remains partially empty and its population is much lower. Those who had any money left when the hurricane was announced to hit. If they returned, it was to recover a few belongings and collect their insurance checks before ceding the property/ruin back to the FedGov/State. Surrounding areas where the Hurricane spent its fury have been abandoned. The wrecked 9th Ward of New Orleans was not rebuilt. Someday it will flood again, and this time with few people to complain, it will probably turn into a swamp and spin doctors will make it sound like this was a happy accident. The sad fact that the USA doesn't have the money to keep rebuilding poor people's homes when they get flattened by natural disasters is the NWO of our DMGS (Dreaded Multi-Generational Scenario).
 
Someday the New Madrid Fault will break again near Memphis, and the Midwest will be largely flattened like it would have been back in 1805, had it been built up like it is today. The aftershocks will rattle the Midwest for the following 80 years, since that's how long they had aftershocks Last time. There were earthquakes during the Civil War that were direct aftershocks following the New Madrid quakes. Stone/masonry tends to fall apart in quakes, depending on luck and positioning. There are places where the shaking is worse than others, and places where it is not as bad. This is complicated by lots of factors so luck determines who gets hit or missed. At least the Midwest has food to eat.
 
Someday the Big One will hit California. If it hits Los Angeles, the damage to the infrastructure and water supply will cost a Trillion Dollars to repair. California insurance companies cannot afford this. Neither can the State government, as the budget is not organized such things. [Some conjecture deleted, for brevity.]
 
If the Big One hits the San Francisco Bay region, the damages are likely to be worse and more expensive than in Los Angeles, since the San Francisco Bay Area is more expensive, more valuable, and more established in a smaller area. The bay itself has been landfilled in various places, and homes and buildings placed on that. These are expected to fail in a strong enough quake. Many did in the 1989 quake. Entire elevated freeways were destroyed by the shaking, and bridges damaged. And that was only a 7.0. The Big One is in the 8.6-9.0 range, much stronger. Imagine all the water, sewer, natural gas, and electrical power being torn up by the ground waves. That's trillions to repair, and years to repair it. The population can't wait that long. Many of the places hit would not have the money to pay for repairs, so most of the area would be abandoned, much of the old buildings bulldozed as unsafe, even if they go through the shaking somewhat intact, just because they have no public utilities. Nobody talks about costs in Hollywood disaster movies, or that those costs are so huge to rebuild that it stops making sense. The East is likely to announce that the disaster areas are mandatory evacuation zones, and all civilians are required to leave. This is about money.
 
Because we live in a time where money is largely concentrating in the 1%, and jobs are all going to China, massive unemployment means no tax revenue. Even if there's no lives lost in a disaster, there's no money to pay for rebuilding. With many mortgages underwater, walking away is the smart move, financially. The above scenarios are likely at some point in the future, inevitable really, just as Hurricanes keep pounding the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and tornados rip up midwestern towns. At some point, people will be choosing between insane tax rates or leaving, and most will pack up a U-Haul with their surviving material possessions and go somewhere not ruined yet. When the Big One hits California, taxes for the state should go so high that it will probably be a good time to flee. Leave Big Agriculture to keep growing the food we eat. Just go somewhere else.
 
Your job is to recognize when the place you live stops making sense and to leave while the leaving is good. - InyoKern

Sir:
My husband came up with a great idea to store more items out of sight. He is slowly placing our buckets of storage food in the ceiling of our basement in between the floor joists. He cuts a couple 1x6 planks the proper length, and bolts them down securely [with lag bolts] them a few inches apart on the lower "lip" of the joist which is about 1/2", and places the bucket on top of the planks. Once he completes the drop ceiling, all food storage will be safely tucked away out of sight. Should we need the food, we simply need to remove the drop ceiling. Just make sure you create a cheat sheet of where everything is located! - T. from Pennsylvania

JWR Replies: That is a good idea, but I must mention one proviso: What goes up can come down, unexpectedly. To provide earthquake protection it is important to add a threaded eye bolt on each side of every bucket. Then select heavy rubber bungee straps of just the right length to provide a snug fit around the middle of each bucket.

Mr. Rawles:
The recent article about conducting a home earthquake audit reminds me of a preparedness step that I took: A little over a year ago I saw an automatic gas shutoff valve displayed at a professional plumbing store. After looking in the cutaway demonstration  valve , I inquired about the cost of the valve, which was around $100. I have kept a wrench next to the gas meter for years, but last year I had to commute 60  miles  away for school. Now with a new prepper mentality  , I wondered what would happen if a big quake did happen while I was gone. If it took me a week to get home,  only to find a home burned to the ground because of a broken gas pipe, I would be mad, and feel stupid for not protecting everything for  a paltry $100 valve.

I installed the valve and forgot about it, but  then it had an unexpected test just one week later. I was also having a very large tree removed (one that could crush half of the house). My mother and I were eating lunch when we heard and felt a large thud, as the tree trimmers felled the last portion of the tree trunk, which was about 12 feet tall. Not until the next day, when the hot water became very cool, did I realize the valve had in fact worked and automatically shut off the gas to the house. I would rather spend $100  now, than to lose everything and be covered by the world's best insurance policy. For those people that don't think they are in earthquake territory, I only need to remind you of the magnitude 5.8 quake  that hit Virginia last year, and the fact that 75% of quake related fires are caused by  unsecured and top heavy gas water heaters falling over and breaking the gas pipe.

Thanks again for getting the word out,  - Solar Guy

Hello James:
Attached is an e-mail I sent to my daughter.  Her boyfriend is from Honduras and she dreams of doing missionary work there.  I thought it may be of interest to some of your readership.  I left out a great deal of information on building site selection (her boyfriend already owns five acres) and foundations.  There seems to be differences in opinion regarding firmly anchored and sand-bed isolation between footings and walls.  Most of my information was gleaned from the book Technical Principles of Building for Safety (Building for Safety Series) by Coburn.

Dear X.:
I did a little bit of reading this weekend regarding safe house construction in earthquake and hurricane prone regions.  I thought of you since you might be spending significant amounts of time in that part of the world.  Some sobering pictures of what an earthquake can do to masonry structures (Italy) 

Key points for concrete block construction (very common in Honduras):
1. Don't build the house out of masonry, use wood which is lightweight, strong and flexible.....but if you cannot.....
2. Single story construction (probably the single most important thing)
3. Use thick blocks (at least 8" across).  Use good blocks (should ring when blocks are struck with hammer or another block, mortar should be mixed on-site, in small batches by somebody who knows his business.
4. Simple rectangular outline.  Long, skinny houses shake to pieces while those that are closer to square in outline stay together
5. Small rooms.  No room larger than 15' by 15' (5 meters by 5 meters)  (probably #2 in importance....especially for bedrooms)
6. Use concrete block for interior partition walls to tie exterior walls together.  See note below about corners.
7. Door and window openings small, minimal number and evenly spaced around the building.  It is advantageous to have the tops of the windows and doors at the same elevation (see note on ring-beams)
8. No window or door openings in walls within 3' (one meter) of an outside wall or inside partition wall
9. The strength is in the corners (see points 4,5 and 7).  Reinforce the corners with steel wire, mesh or rod laid horizontally in mortar as the walls are built.
10. Build with two ring-beams.  One even with the tops (lintels) of the doors and windows, one along the very top of the wall.  Ring-beams can be cast of concrete/steel rod or constructed of wood.  This is a picture of a structure with FIVE wooden ring-beams
11. Use a light-weight roof that is well tied together (plywood sheathing is recommended) but steel is OK.  See picture from line above.
12. Roof should be relatively steep, 30-to-40 degrees is recommended.  Flatter roofs can act like airplane wings and lift off more easily in high winds.
13. Roofs should not extend more than 24" past wall
14. Hip roofs tend to be most resistant to blowing off.  House with five ring-beams is also a hip roof house.
15. Put the bed in the middle of the room.
16. A decent article about how to make an existing house safer. 

We are survivalists who live on a hobby farm within The American Redoubt. In the 23 years we have lived in this region I have yet to feel the ground shake beneath my feet. That’s welcome news speaking as a former Californian who has been through two “big ones”. Yet, for whatever reason (the Holy Spirit, possibly) I began thinking about earthquakes two months ago. Because of this mind set, when three earthquakes, southeast of us, occurred in Utah around the 13th of February and the next day a magnitude 6.0 quake hit off the coast of Oregon. That got my attention.
 
The Oregon coastal quake had Seattle news outlets airing special segments about the possibility of a “big one” along the “ring of fire” that could cause substantial damage to cities like Seattle, Portland Oregon, Vancouver B.C., etc. They asked one seismologist about this prospect and his answer was, “the good news is that large scale earthquakes on this fault over the last 10,000 years have occurred on average about every 300 years”. “The bad news?” The reporter asked. “The last 'big one' on this fault was 329 years ago." Oh, that’s reassuring.
 
But we don’t live in earthquake country, we are hundreds (thousands?) of miles and a couple of large mountain ranges between us and “the ring of fire” so no worries right? No, I don’t think that is correct. We have never experienced TEOTWAWKI but we are preparing for that. I lived through an epic ice storm in an area not know for such things also. In fact, portions of the region were without power for 13 weeks from that ice storm. We also had a “fire storm” where none had ever occurred previously.
 
In the remainder of this essay I will:
 
1) Describe what an earthquake audit is
 
2) Review some of the findings of our earthquake audit
 
3) Review some of the mitigation steps we took to resolve our “audit deficiencies”
 
4) Share an analogy that I think is fitting
 
 
1) What is an Earthquake Audit?
 
I believe I coined the phrase “earthquake audit”. My version of an earthquake audit was to take a clip board, note pad and marking pen and go room by room; house, shop, outbuildings, everyplace. Using my experience being in quakes plus video’s I have seen of them and trying to visualize what would happen; what would go flying and what would be okay in a modest earthquake. My main focuses were looking “up” to identify things that could fall down with force and looking with an eye to the protection of mission critical items versus lesser important assets. For example having your AN/PVS-14 and Night Vision compatible EO-Tech sight go flying would be much worse than if that large pile of firewood gets scattered. This is mostly common sense it’s just a matter of actually doing it. I made a list of things that I observed to be problematic and then prioritized that list into actionable items.
 
2) What were the results of our own Earthquake Audit?
 
Frankly, we failed miserably. Here are three examples among dozens.
 
Our preparations are extremely organized and inventoried. We have eight of the Gorilla Rack shelving units to store items. I could not believe my eyes (although I should have because I am the one who put them there) when I looked up on the top shelf of one of the shelving units and saw all three of our pressure canners sitting side by side, not in boxes, resting nearly seven feet off the ground on an unsecured shelving unit.
 
The next “finding” was when I went into a food storage location (with a cement floor) and again could not believe my eyes. We purchase raw local honey from a vendor who sells them in half gallon glass mason jars. We love it as the honey is excellent and you get a half gallon jar to use when you’re done. Also the jars are temperature stabilized in case you need to heat the honey to liquefy it. There on the shelf at eye level was 18 half gallon glass jars of honey on an unsecured shelving unit with the jars right up the very edge of the shelf.
 
With even a minor rumble in addition to having no honey could you imagine the mess of nine gallons of honey and 18 broken half gallon glass mason jars in one big pile on the cement floor?
 
The last example was when I walked into the fuel shed. This was an accident waiting to happen. The fuel shed building is built over the top of an underground gas tank. The riser off the tank, 12 volt pump, filters and filler hose are inside the shed. Also inside the shed are shelves and items stacked on the gravel floor. There are metal gas cans, metal 5 gallon kerosene cans, plastic diesel containers a couple of metal 55 gallon drums and a dozen or so propane cylinders. The riser coming up off the underground tank was not protected at all and things were staked up all around it. It wouldn’t have taken much for things to have fallen on the riser likely breaking it. Wouldn’t it have been lovely to have gas cans and propane cylinders flopping about inside a metal walled shed with a severed riser attached to a large gas tank!
 
3) Mitigation Steps
 
All of these “deficiencies” had to be fixed. The pressure canners got put in boxes and moved into cupboards with locking doors. For the honey, I secured the shelving unit to the wall and purchased nice plastic totes with locking lids that would hold six half gallon jars each. A couple of layers of bubble wrap on the bottom of the tote then each jar individually wrapped in bubble wrap that was taped in place. The jars were placed in the tote and then shipping “popcorn” was put between the jars. Two layers of bubble wrap on the top then the lid of the tote was securely attached. The totes then were “strapped in” to the secured shelving unit.
 
The fuel shed got gutted and redone. The fuel tank riser and pump are now completely protected and everything in the shed is strapped down. This was done with 3/8ths x 4” eye bolts and six foot locking tie down straps.
 
This clearly isn’t rocket science its just taking the time to get it done. Generally speaking; Shelving units need to be secured to something. If not an adjacent wall, look up, is there something above to secure to? On one occasion I had two shelving units at a 90 degree angle to one another. One of the units could be secured to the wall but not the other. So, what I did was attach the units to one another where they met. At the opposite ends I ran a tie down strap to create a triangle from the end of one unit to the end of the other unit, this gave some good strength.
 
Watch for items that could fall on your head while you are in bed. And some items, there is not much you can do but pray. For example we have a river rock chimney that runs up 25 feet from the main floor through the ceiling of the second floor. I have not idea how strong it is but there is not much that can be done other than building some kind of cradle for it. So if it comes down in a quake it comes down. I guess that’s why you have wood stoves in the shop, master bedroom and back patio as backups. Guns and especially ones with optics need to be protected. My main battle rifle and main defensive shotgun are in metal hard shell cases strapped to something solid. Cushioning inside gun safes are a good idea. Are there items that could fall down behind a closed inward-opening door and block it closed?
 
4) One way to think about this.
 
The analogy to this line of thinking is nautical: Sooner or later we are all going to take a journey. Hopefully your journey will be on the good ship “Faithful Survivalist”. We don’t know when we will be leaving on that journey, where it will take us and what the conditions are going to be like along the way. Our sense is though that we are probably going to be leaving sooner rather than later and with the storm clouds we see developing off on the horizon we are not expecting “smooth sailing”. As with any wise captain heading off on a journey of unknown conditions, lets be sure that everything is lashed down; “Everything has a place and every place has a thing”. Because, if the going gets rough we don’t want important items sliding around on deck or falling overboard. Batten down the hatches, mates!
 
I don’t have a crystal ball and don’t pretend to know the future. I do know that the Holy Spirit put it on my heart to look at our survival stores with a new set of eyes and it was eye opening. I hope you do also and I hope this was helpful.

Hi Jim,
Living in an area that’s earthquake prone and overdue for a large one, I’ve spent a fair amount of time researching ways to limit any damage that we might experience in our home.  In 1994 the Northridge earthquake and the resulting fires were the cause for the creation of a device that, I feel, is instrumental to possibly saving any home with a gas-line.  It’s commonly referred to as a Northridge valve. 
 
Simply, it’s a seismic device that stops the flow of gas at the house meter should there be any seismic event over 5.2 on the Richter scale.  I got one and installed it myself for less than $150.  To anyone concerned about preparing for an earthquake, this would be cheap insurance.
Thanks for all you do, - John T.

2011 was a year of deadly and devastating tornados, and an earthquake that shook the east coast.  One of the largest tornados hit a suburb in my county in the Birmingham Alabama area. We are also only one state over from the New Madrid earthquake zone that starts in the Memphis area.  After taking several closer looks at the foundation and basement of our 50 year old house, I realized we were living with a false sense of security.

After researching online, I learned that in certain large events, mainly earthquake, but also from high winds, if the house gets shaken, the metal [pier] poles holding up the center of the house in the basement may or may not move in unison with the rest of the house above them that they are supporting.   Our house [has a conventional perimeter foundation and aside from the perimeter it] is simply sitting on those poles, and that is it. In large earthquakes, houses with basements can simply fall into the basement below them, if the support poles [or posts and piers] do not stay intact. I set out looking for an easy fix, and discovered nothing readily available on the market for this situation.   Maybe in frequent earthquake territory like California, there might be something on the market, but I did not find anything at the big box hardware stores or online. 

It appeared it was time to get creative. I am not in the construction business, but I’m guessing I do have a few more tools than the average household. My small shop has a miter-saw, table saw, drill press, chop-saw, and a small, bottom of line wire-welder. There are lots of people with way more tools than this, but this is a modest amount and I’m comfortable using them.   I spent a much of my time staring at the rafters and those metal poles, knowing there had to be way to tie them together.
  
The goal is not to keep the house from swaying, but rather, if the house is swaying, the poles sway in unison with the house. This way, when the house stops swaying, the metal poles are still in position as there were intended, holding up the center of the house.   The metal poles of our old house are 4-1/2 inches in diameter.  A double row of 2”x10” rafters run lengthways of the house, with 2”x10” rafters attached perpendicular to them.   These perpendicular rafters run from the center of the house out to the foundation. I would like to have been able to tell you that all of the rafters are evenly spaced, but they are not. Wiring and plumbing run along the bottom of the rafters, and it appears that plumbing had a major say-so in what rafters went where.   Sure, there are a few rafters that are evenly spaced, but quite a few that were placed very close to another rafter to accommodate the plumbing.

So, in staring at the poles and rafters, I obviously needed something to attach to the pole, and something that could be attached to the rafters, and each of these had to be able to be attached to each other.   Oh, and in my case, cost was an issue. To explain: most of those tools were bought before we had kids. Now my paycheck is spent before it gets home. And in this economy, it’s not getting any better either. I wanted to make the house a little bit safer than it was before I started, and yet still not break the bank. Besides being on a tight budget, time is precious these days too, and I can only work on this project on the occasional, rare, weekend free from other events begging for priority on the calendar.   

I knew I could drill holes in the wood, even if I have to use a right-angle attachment to do so, to mount some type of brace. As is ‘just my luck’, some of the closest together rafters were the ones near the poles I was going to be working on. But, what kind of bracing to use?   Flat aluminum or steel [stock] is readily available at the hardware stores, but in an earthquake, you never know for sure what direction the house is going to be shaking in. Nature has a tendency to keep that thing called the ‘epicenter’ to herself and let the scientist figure that one out later. Angle iron has support both vertically and horizontally. Luckily, and beloved neighbor, ‘Joe’ had given me some scrap angle iron before he passed away a couple of years ago. I still had the rusty angle iron in the shop, and I would need to clean it up with a portable electric grinder and a wire wheel attachment on a drill, but it was free, and I had plenty of it to do the job. I love to recycle, and re-using this free angle iron for my project is better than it getting sold for scrap.  I wanted to clean up the surface rust and paint it to roughly match the gray color of the poles. The drill press would eventually come in handy for the angle iron too. 
 
I did some research on eBay, and found that the do make U-Bolts in the needed size, but due to the size and weight, the shipping and handling were going to cost more than the U-Bolt. I discovered that one of the auto parts chain stores carried the 4-1/2” U-Bolt on their web site. The highway nearby has just about a half dozen auto parts stores within a 15 minute drive.  The auto part store that had the U-Bolts had them at a very attractive price, and they would ship them to your local store for free.  Bingo. This way I could get the U-Bolts at basically the same price as I’d seen on ebay, but without the shipping and handling costs.   The auto parts store only needed a couple of days to get them to the store.  This worked out great for me, because I ordered them early in the week, and wouldn’t be using them until the weekend anyway.  

The large 4-1/2” U-Bolts are made out of steel that is 3/8” diameter. I could drill 3/8” inch holes in the angle iron, to attach it to the U-Bolt, and additional holes to attach it to the rafters.  I wanted angle iron on each side of the pole, where-ever possible, for the push-pull effect that an earthquake might cause.   I also wanted to put two holes in each piece of angle iron where it attached to rafters, so that it would be rigid enough to move the poles with the house.   If I were to only put one hole in each piece of angle iron where it attaches to the rafter, it would like just be a pivot point and the angle iron could easily let the pole shift away from the center of the house.  

I wanted to paint the U-Bolt, and angle iron pieces, because they would be in contact not only with each other, but also with the metal pole. Although in this particular instance they are all steel, I’m not sure what kinds of steel they are.   I’ve learned that dissimilar metals that are in contact with each other can vastly increase the oxidation (rust) rate of the metal. As a side note, always be aware if you are using aluminum, steel, and any alloys, that are touching or are bolted to each other, as this can oxidation can become a real issue.   Don’t think that aluminum oxidizes?  Next time you are in a salvage yard, look at the chalky white powder on some of the aluminum parts you see is oxidation. It just doesn’t turn dark like steel does when it rusts (oxidizes).  

I made a dry fit of the U-bolt to near the top of the pole, about 3-4 inches from the top. I wanted to keep it near the top for leveraged strength, but not so near the top that if it did attempt to sway in an earthquake that it would try to jump over the top of the pole. Measured the lengths I needed for the angle iron to have a piece on each side, and cut them with the chop saw.  Drilled them on the drill press, then painted all of the pieces and let them dry completely. In keeping with the recycling theme, I was able to use up some old cans of [rust preventive] ‘primer gray’ color that matched the existing gray color of the metal poles well.   

The U-Bolts come with a bracket that fills in the gap of the opening at the open end of the ‘U’, and with the two nuts needed to hold it all together.   When measuring for bolts to use on the rafter, take into account not only the thickness of the rafter, but the thickness of your angle iron, the nut, and washers.   I recommend using washers on sides of the rafter, where the bolt head is and on the other side where the nut meets the angle iron. I even painted the washers, in case they are a different metal from the angle iron.   Who knows, a few seconds of extra painting could add years to the project and protect the old house for the next generation.  

Are there better ways to do this project?  Sure.  Are there more expensive ways to do this project?  Sure.   This just happened to be the best fit for my situation, of wanting to build a little more safety into a 50 year-old house, without having to take out a loan to do it. Maybe you can adapt some of these ideas into your next project.

Hi Mr. Rawles:
I want to share with you today’s events in Washington DC. I came home early from school and decided to go to the gym to burn off some of those summer pounds. As I was walking to the gym (two blocks away), listening to my iPod. All of the sudden I heard some crashing and screaming. Since this is DC, everything happens so I kept on walking. I finally realized that something was definitely wrong when I saw people pouring out from every building including a rather overweight man wearing only a bath towel  that was way too small for his waist. After finding an English speaker (I live in a mostly Hispanic area) I found out that it was an earthquake which apparently I did not feel. Immediately I tried calling my fiancée who was in our apartment but of course all the lines were busy. I sprinted back the one and a half blocks to our apartment and to my delight I saw her, on the sidewalk. She was barefoot, dressed in a bathrobe, with a pair of shoes in one hand and her Bug-Out-Bag in the other. I had never been so proud of her.  

All of it is thanks to the information on your blog that gave us food for thought and a foundation on which to build.   Sincerely, - B.K.

After the first few days, it was possible to get some idea of what had happened. The initial numbers of fatalities had been fairly low, and it was hard to know how many had survived in the coastal towns. As the phone systems and many roads there were devastated, a big effort was going to be required just to scope out the damage. Sadly, it became clear that well over 10,000 lives were lost. In terms of life in Tokyo, though, it was electricity and basic supplies useful during disasters that became somewhat hard to come by. The other major factor that seriously damaged daily activity was that many train lines were not running.

I went to work on the Monday after the quake, in many ways just to see how co-workers were doing and what my company was planning to do to deal with the disaster. Many had suffered property damage, but the real damage was to those who had relatives along the coast or near the Fukushima facilities. My wife had relatives in both of these areas, so she spent time on trying to figure out if everyone was okay. They were, but news that a cousin had been forced out of his house due to radiation was a sign that things were looking bad. At first, I wasn't so worried about Fukushima, and was far more concerned with getting more cash out of the bank and trying to get more supplies for possible disruptions. As it turned out, disruptions were going to become normal, and Fukushima was looking less and less like it was under control, or even within its expected disaster scenarios.

The week after the earthquake was one of verifying that property was undamaged and businesses working to figure out their workarounds for problems like employees who couldn't ride the trains or the big issue of just-in-time systems having almost no room for failure. And we just had dozens of failures, whether it be destroyed factories and roads, or a new reality of inadequate refinery capacity or electricity. In my case, the initial observation of property damage looked fine, but the shock meant that I missed something. This may be one of the lessons of the disaster. It's hard to judge things accurately when you've just had your life changed dramatically.

During this week, we tried to obtain many things, such as mineral water, and large orders were no longer possible. Small amounts, such as water in supermarkets, were still possible, but that was fading, and vanished once the story about radiation in tap water came out. And a troubling story with a major bank being unable to handle ATM transactions came out. On a personal note, my bank had old banknotes, which was a first. I'd always received new banknotes before. Tokyo Electric announced a rolling blackout system to cover for the loss of power due to the tsunami. This system exempted the central part of Tokyo, and the suburbs had to suffer. The real shock was hearing that the blackouts would likely last for years. A high-tech, just-in-time society cannot function efficiently with blackouts, and the harm to business will be off the charts if this actually goes through the Summer. The loss of electricity and nuclear contamination could end up costing dramatically more than the loss of infrastructure due to the earthquake and tsunami.

As the situation at Fukushima seemed to deteriorate, a rush to get out of the nearby areas occurred. Foreigners generally had a more pessimistic view of the situation than most Japanese, probably due to the different way news described things, so flights out of Japan became ridiculously expensive. Still, I know several Japanese who sent their families outside of Tokyo because they do not trust Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government. Like many others, I decided to spend a week in Osaka to see how things played out, but had too many things to take care of for at least a few more days. A particularly troubling thing has been that it was never clear what was going on, and there are many reactors in question, and even speculations about problems at other facilities. This leads to the question of when one should take emergency nuclear precautions, such as consuming Potassium Iodide. In my case, I had lots of iodine products, such as sea vegetables, as well as products that many recommend for protecting against radiation, such as miso soup. It was clearly time to consume these. It was also time to break out masks and to create a clean area at the entrance of the house. I had N95 masks, but nothing that could be expected to do much for radioactive particles. So part of dealing with this series of disasters was going to be research. (To be continued.)

Where We Were
In Kogoshima, in the southern part of Japan, residents know that when the active Sakurajima volcano finally erupts with its full force, they will most likely be killed. Some of them even know that it will be the quaking and the toxic pyroclastic flows that kill them rather than flowing lava.

Similarly, living just 15 miles from the heart of Tokyo, we have always been aware that Tokyo is past due for a major earthquake. When it hits, it will cause suffering on a scale that will make Kobe and Mexico City seem as if they got off easy. Yet, when the ground shakes, as it does fairly often, we've become complacent. Guessing how strong a quake was before the official report appears on television is one of our family games.

In Japan, you see, it's very easy to become nonchalant about disaster.

We lost our nonchalant attitude on March 11, 2011 at 2:46 p.m. Despite some intense shaking that drove my family outside for several minutes, we were, and remain, relatively untouched. Our problems are mere annoyances compared to the survivors in the northeast, but those annoyances exposed huge gaps in our disaster preparation and planning.

A few years ago, a major earthquake hit the Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture near where my wife is from. It caused substantial damage and shook radioactive water out of the spent-fuel storage pools at the nuclear plant in Kashiwazaki. As a result, we bought a survival kit consisting of a silver backpack, some food, some water, some non-stormproof matches, a first aid kit, a water carry bag and a small cutlery set. We added a bit more food, a bit more water, and some towels. Yet, when we ran outside during the quake, none of us thought about grabbing the emergency kit until the shaking was almost done. This was probably for the best as, although not even a single book was knocked off our apartment's shelves, the emergency kit was pre-buried under the detritus of life and school. In fact, I wasn't even sure at the time if it was in the closet or on the floor in front of the closet. If our complex had collapsed, I probably would have been caught in our first floor apartment looking for our emergency kit.

As a result, as we stood in the parking lot, we had no spare clothes, no money, no food, no way to make fire and no water. We didn't even have the keys to our car, which were hanging on the door. All we had in hand were our cellphones, which proved to be useless. During the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, and just a few weeks ago in Christchurch, cellphones had been a literal lifesaver for some people. Yet, in Tokyo they became, as described in Rawles Precept #3, like cars stuck in traffic as everyone tried to contact their loved ones. This meant we also didn't have any means of communication.

After we went back inside, we heard news about the tsunami and the reactors at Fukushima Number 1. I tried to assess our situation. We had a couple Maglite flashlights but few spare batteries. I had two Swiss Army knives and a Gerber multi-tool, but they were scattered around and would have been inaccessible after a collapse. We had no form of portable shelter. We had food but it was all old. We had bottles of water, but no way to purify water. We had no spare clothes ready for a quick escape. We had only one way to make fire and no small pans to cook with.

Nonchalance returned, however, and we tried to settle back into a normal life. Two days later, however, with rolling blackouts scheduled, I went online to try to get supplies. Batteries and flashlights were already sold out and I felt the first chill of concern creep up my spine. Also sold out, or delayed, were the Japanese versions of MREs. I tried to order several things, including AMK Spark-Lite firestarters, stormproof matches and a proper utility knife. Oddly, despite Japan's strange laws about knives (more on that later), the knife (a SOG Trident Tanto) arrived along with a waterproof match case and a roll of faux paracord. The entire rest of the order was cancelled and I was forced to order goods from the United States.

By the time the crisis in Japan was over, I figured, I'd be ready for it.

Where We Are
Two weeks after the quake we are much better prepared for it.

There have been compounding problems: rolling blackouts have forced people to take cars when normally they'd take trains. This and damage to a major refinery have led to fuel shortages. The government continues to issue garbled information about the radiation from the reactors without providing any context, which has led to a run on bottled water. We are fortunate that my wife's family own a farm and have been able to send us vegetables, rice and other goods. Which means we are also fortunate that the post office and private delivery services are still running. That said, it is still easier to buy steak and vegetables in our area than a flashlight and batteries.

Despite the fact that our neighborhood has not, to this point, suffered a blackout, we haven't gotten complacent. We have assembled a much more robust survival kit. We have one way to purify water (Sodium chlorite) tablets with one more, Aquamira Frontier Filters, on the way. We have three ways to make fire. We've updated our food and water supplies. We have emergency blankets, more flashlights and money and spare car keys hidden away.

Also, after being forced to walk six miles when the trains were abruptly stopped after I got to work, I now have an Everyday Carry (EDC) kit. I carry medicine and bandaids; some of the faux paracord and a couple carabiners; three ways to start a fire; a couple snack bars; water; a flashlight; and a phone card as, after the cellphones crashed, the old-fashioned phone booths were suddenly back in fashion. Just in case, though, I also carry a cellphone charger.

Knife and "Sword" Legalities
I would like to carry a knife; however, this poses some interesting problems. Japan, after a series of knife attacks, expanded its ban on swords to include carrying any non-folding knife with a blade longer than 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) “without a reason”. Going fishing is considered a valid reason to carry a knife but self-defense is not. (In fact, in Japan, people defending themselves against an attack have to be careful of using excessive force or they will get in trouble as well.)  A folding knife can have a blade up to 3.15 inches (8 centimeters) but the entire knife, with the blade extended, cannot be longer than six inches (15 cm). This means my new SOG and my Swiss Army knives are classified as swords and are not street legal. For this reason, I've also acquired a Leatherman Squirt PS4 which, nonetheless, has to be carried in a backpack or bag and not in my pocket.

Where We Hope To Be
In the future, our goal is to have a proper G.O.O.D. Kit. To accomplish that, we plan to buy a new and proper backpack for our B.O.B. The current one is not designed for a family of four and is not designed to be carried long distances. Also, it is bright silver with the Japanese words for “Emergency Carry Out Bag” in bright red letters. Although the Japanese have, with a few exceptions, been very calm in this crisis, this is only because in most areas food is still plentiful. I've seen the Japanese unleashed a few times, mostly during after New Year's sales, and it's best not to have something that attracts attention.

We are looking to acquire another good folding knife, some solar charged flashlights, a portable water filter with a pump, some cooking gear and some American style MREs. Despite the lack of space in our apartment, we also plan to stock a lot more emergency food and water. We still need something to serve as a portable shelter.

More importantly, though, we are slowly developing a bug out plan. We have enough supplies in our emergency kit to get by on, but we don't yet have a plan for what we will do in the case of another large quake or an evacuation order. What will we do if we have time to gather things before we leave and what will we do if we have less than a minute? We have yet to decide several small details and this puts all our other preparations in jeopardy.

For example, one detail we've yet to resolve involves shoes. The Japanese don't wear shoes inside the house and, because we sleep on the floor on a futon, we can't put shoes under our bed. The silver bag would be good for carrying shoes in case we can't get out the front door and have to switch to Plan B. Of course, since we don't have a Plan A, we need to do some thinking. We also need to make sure our two young daughters know what to do when and if the ground starts shaking again.

Also, as a foreigner, I found myself standing outside without a passport or any other form of identification and with no way to prove my wife was my wife and my children were my children. We now plan to scan all our important documents and keep copies on a thumb drive in the emergency kit.

All in all, we are finally prepared to face a disaster. It's sad that it took a disaster to get us into a survival mindset. We were fortunate, though, that the disaster didn't effect us before we were ready.