Fred Allebach is a member of the City of Sonoma’s Community Services and Environmental Commission, and an Advisory Committee member of the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Fred is a member of Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards, as well as Sonoma Valley Housing Group and Transition Sonoma Valley.
A wake-up call for disaster preparedness
We live in coastal California, a risky and hazardous area subject to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfire, flood, drought, tsunamis, and landslides. The list goes on. As Marc Reisner bluntly laid out in his book A Dangerous Place, a major earthquake in the Bay Area will cause tremendous destruction to all critical infrastructure. The Rogers Creek fault is right in our backyard, on Sonoma Mountain. A catastrophic seismic event will be sudden, with no early warning.
The hardships of the last few power outages, fires, and evacuations can be seen as a wake-up call to get ready for the big one.
We live in an age when technology does everything for us including food, shelter, water, energy, etc. All we have to do is pay. People have just about lost all ability to be self-sufficient – the aggregate effects of tech-dependence have left us like helpless domestic animals. When the recent fire emergencies came upon us, the only collective entities we had to look to for help were government, a few non-profits, and private utilities.
This is a wake-up call.
Local government’s response has improved greatly from 2017 to now. Local government is also determined to learn and improve going forward, as presented at the Sonoma City Council meeting. As for the public’s interest in emergency preparedness, only two people showed up to comment on the city’s post fire and power outage performance.
If at the end of the day, earthquakes and fires are likely here, and government will only be able to do so much when disaster strikes, it behooves us all to be ready at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels. How to be prepared? Be ready to camp out.
Forget the generators and trying to compensate for electricity; simplify and plan to live electricity free. This will save you all the crazed Mad Max hustle to stockpile gasoline; save whatever gas you have for your car. Get some batteries for a good radio so you’ll be able to hear KSVY and other public service announcements. Get a headlamp and a battery-powered LED lantern. If you have the means, a small solar charging set-up could be handy for cordless power equipment, for charging medical devices, and for running a 12-volt light system. From my experience living without electricity in the winter: it’s a long night!
Get a big pack of lighters and wax fire starters, and be ready to start a fire, for cooking or warmth.
Stockpile water in whatever ways you can. Get regular, unscented bleach, an eye dropper, and use one drop per quart for clean water and two drops per quart for dirty or really cold water. Have a bunch of five gallon buckets, for laundry, bucket bathing, toilet etc.
Have a Swiss Army knife with a can opener. A two-burner camp stove and a five-gallon propane tank, plus pots, pans, and utensils sets you up as independent for cooking.
Be ready and able to cook, boil water, and wash dishes. Having the kitchen set up means you can get by without delivered water and access to grocery stores. Stockpile dry and canned food. Friedman’s sells large plastic barrels to store this all in. Have salt and basic spices, instant coffee, and powdered milk. One or two of these barrels will easily hold enough food for months, and even a year with rationing. Have a few coolers, one for quick access to dry food and one in case you can get ice, to keep leftovers.
Have a family-sized tent, and bedding, and hard weather and warm clothing; have a folding table and folding camp chairs, shade/ rain tarp, parachute cord, rope.
Get Ziplocs, garbage bags, soap, etc. Get a roll of heavy plastic, duct tape, blue tape, shovel, wood saw, common hand tools.
Another critical bit of stuff to have on hand are creative and entertainment materials: games, books, writing and art materials, musical instruments, something to satisfy our special human capacities.
Being prepared and learning the lessons of our last emergencies is empowering. Staking out the role of the victim is easy enough, and with the built-in tech dependence we have, we’re all accomplices and victims of modernity, yet we have it in us to be self-reliant, and to be ready for the big one. Now’s the time to get ready. In this column are a few suggestions of where to start.
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Volcanic eruptions ? OK. whatever you say… You must know since you seem to know everything !!! All I have is a few extra cases of beer, jars and jars of ganja and my gun !! and of course my flashlight !! But thanks for the advice Big Fred….