I'm part of a rescue unit in Sydney, Australia, and I've learned that it's incredibly difficult to be ready for an emergency. San Fran residents should all take that rescue course that you mentioned!

So much of the advice you posted would be applicable to hurricane aftermaths here in Florida. Thank you.

I am a volunteer with Emergency Social Services in Vancouver, and I heartily concur with the last comment, everyone should take an emergency preparedness course.

I have taken courses on assessing damaged buildings, and one important thing to remember is that you don't want to become another statistic yourself, you want to think twice before you rush into that damaged building.

I'll second that, Scott.

Caterina, the training is actually very interesting and really does a lot for your peace of mind. I did it years ago in San Jose and was starting to go through it again here in SF, but got sick and didn't get to finish. I'll take the classes with you if you want to buddy up to be sure we get through them. They're free, of course.

Nobody but the police and military should have emergency prepardness training.

I concur with SB - if everybody "knows" what to do in an emergency, this will only demean the efforts of the professionals. They have a job to do - let's let them do it.

One comment on the natural gas issue: It's been pointed out in other disaster-preparedness literature I've read that yes, gas lines are an important thing to keep an eye on in a disaster; and obviously, any smell of gas or sound of a possibly-leaking pipe means OFF NOW. But, well-meaning people with pipe wrenches shouldn't go haphazardly turning off every gas tap in the neighborhood -- this can cause worse problems after-the-fact if the gas lines are unharmed, because many folks do not know how (or are unable) to safely turn the gas back on and re-light the associated appliances themselves, and the gas utility's field workers often have bigger fish to fry in the first few days.

Just FWIW.

You can't count on a professional emergency worker to be right with you when the earthquake hits. Sure, defer to the professional if there's one there -- but the people on the spot should start helping immediately after the earthquake subsides, instead of hours later when an expert arrives. This works far better if someone who is there right after the earthquake knows at least the basics of what to do.

For SB and Kelso, please understand, in a major disaster (earthquake, hurricane, tornado, tidal wave, etc), such a wide area is damaged that there is simply not enough first responders (police/fire department/paramedics/etc) to help everyone (and this is assuming they aren't casualties as well).

It's not a matter of "demeaning them". Yes, they are the most qualified to do the job. However, they aren't superhumans, and they have an upper limit of what they can do. By taking classes like CERT and training yourself, you can help take some of the load off them by taking care of the lesser injured/trapped and identifying the more injured/trapped people so that resources can be better used helping them.

Incidentally, just so there is no misunderstanding. CERT classes are not training for doing major rescues. You don't go digging around into the collapsing structures. You don't have heavy duty jaws-of-life/chainsaws, etc you cart around. You're at the peripheries in the "safer" areas so that the first responders are freed up to deal with the more dangerous rescues.

Satire Brady and Kelso are deranged, if serious--they want people to sit on their butts and WAIT for help? In a severe crisis, professional emergency personnel will be overwhelmed. The general public has a moral duty to rescue each other as much as is possible.

You have to know what you are doing, you don't want to move someone with a spinal injury without the proper procedures. You really can do more harm than good.

I've been through 5 hurricanes in the last 2 years, we lost a lot of folks who left their homes and just had to inspect the damage. They stepped on downed wires or were injured by falling debris.

Soemtimes sitting tight is the best thing to do.

You have to know what you are doing, you don't want to move someone with a spinal injury without the proper procedures. You really can do more harm than good.

I've been through 5 hurricanes in the last 2 years, we lost a lot of folks who left their homes and just had to inspect the damage. They stepped on downed wires or were injured by falling debris.

Soemtimes sitting tight is the best thing to do.

My question is, how the heck does Instapundit find these links?

Can anyone help me?

My question is: did a commenter above really just ask if "Satire Brady" was serious?

I ran a trauma center for years. Everyone should have some bottled water and canned food stored for an emergency. Fire is the biggest risk and extinguishers are a necessity. Don't expect EMS to show up for several days, depending on the size of the event. You have to be prepared to help yourself.

Years ago, I had a patient who had been in thr 1906 earthquake. He was 15 at the time, traveling around the country. He and two boys sharing his room in the rooming house gathered their belongings and walked around San Francisco watching the fire spread. He told me they sat in Union Square watching the buildings burn on three sides. It was a month before they could get out of the city.

C'mon folks. SB and Kelso are humorists at best and trolls at worst. Don't feed the trolls! Those who can, do. Those who can't, troll.

When an emergency happens, prior training is what grabs us and pushes us through that feeling of stunned helplessness. Once through, we can reach back and pull others through by asking for their help and by directing and encouraging them. I took Red Cross CPR training many years ago. Fifteen years later(!) an older trader collapsed in the trading pit at my exchange and I found I still knew what to do. I had plenty of help once I asked for it. Go take those emergency prep classes. Training works!

I'm giving Satire Brady the benefit of the doubt here. There is an unfortunately common mentality that holds that only those with the proper credentials should do certain things. We have even criminalized things like 'practicing medicine without a license'. Eric may be alluding to this in an oblique way with the caution about doing more harm than good. In SF, the attitude toward guns seems to be that only the police and military should have them, if anyone. Mere citizens apparently can't be trusted with decisions about how to use guns, cigarettes, drugs, motorcycles without helmets, autos sans seatbelts, cell phones,... and yet those same citizens are trusted to elect the government that makes (and where referenda are part of the lawmaking process, directly) those decisions on everyone's behalf.

One thing to note. If you and your team are digging people out and someone has had a large part of their body compressed for more than about an hour you really need to call for real medical help BEFORE you remove the crushing weight. Tell them you have a crush injury and they need to have huge amounts of IV fluid with bicarb ready to administer, otherwise all the released potassium and other things from the damaged tissue will kill the person as soon as the pressure is releaved. Google "crush injury" and "compartment syndrome" to get a good explanation of this. This is what kills the majority of people that could have been saved after earthqaukes. Look at the first few pdf files listed.

Great post, thanks!

I call those who are first on the scene -- because they were there when it happened -- the 'Zeroth Responders'.

Everyone must be taught some basics of response, and even pre-response, or we'll have more pitiable views of 'helpless victims' such as in New Orleans, where the mentally unprepared caught-by-surpriseds cried out to news cameras for more airdrops of bottled water -- while it was frigging RAINING.

As ex military, ex law enforcement, current SAR team member, and spouse of a Paramedic, I can state flatly that in a major disaster "sitting still" is almost always the wrong thing to do. If you can't help, leave the area.

If you can, help. Tote water or food to the rescuers. Staff a shelter. Volunteer to hold somebody's hand who's trapped and waiting for heavy rescue (assuming the site is safe enough for you). DIRECT TRAFFIC.. There are all kinds of little things you can do to free up "professionals" for the heavy work.

I whole heartedly recommend the CERT class for everybody - at a minimum - with refreshers every second year (things change, after all). CERT won't make you a rescuer, but it WILL prepare you for a disaster, and will let you anticpate what the rescuers will need.

As for the gas lines - if you even SUSPECT there might be a leak, shut it off. Any 'Joe Civilian' who turns it back on before the gas company has a chance to inspect the property is a fool and deserves what happens.

I could go on, but I'll reiterate: Take a CERT class. If you can't help, leave the area. Take CERT class. Learn First Aid. Take a CERT class.

Get my drift?

Satire Brady was making a satirical link between disaster training and Firearm Training/ownership with the obvious link being the name Brady.

Many anti-firearm organizations use the arguement that only professionals NEED firearms, that non-professionals cannot handle them safely, and that in an emergency what you should do is CALL A PROFESSIONAL to help you.

Anyone in *ANY* sort of emergency field knows that there just aren't enough professionals go to around on a normal day, much less after a 8.5 hits.

And preparing for an emergency is easy. Just remember:
Don't Panic.
THINK.
Improvise, adapt and overcome.

I'm a firm believer in CERT, and think it should be a required course in high school. Let me add a couple of observations from recent disasters.

Most suburban neighborhoods have plenty of stored water. Swimming pools. Yes, it has a little more chlorine than we'd like, but it's perfectly potable, unless it's contaminated by a flood. If you want to get rid of the chlorine, filter it through charcoal, or leave it in the sun in a shallow pan for a couple of hours. Little kids swallow gallons of it every time they swim.

If you are doing a job that needs more people - ask! Most of the lookie-loos are more than happy to help, they just need a little direction.

This is one that gets me in lots of trouble because it's not "sensitive." If an obese diabetic doesn't have any insulin, they should stop eating. If they don't have insulin their blood sugar won't go too low, if they aren't eating it won't go too high. They will, slowly, starve to death. That will take several weeks, possibly months. As long as they have water, they will live. And, BTW, insulin will keep fine without refrigeration for 30 days.

$100 spent at the 99 cent only store buys a LOT of canned goods.

A satellite internet link, a laptop, Skype and a 2kw generator and you can call or text anyone in the world, no matter how badly the infrastructure is damaged.

In your stockpile include Cipro, Vicodan, Xanax and Tamiflu. If your doctor won't give you a perscription for your stockpile - find another doctor.

Grain alcohol is an amazingly versitile substance.

A lot of people won't buy emergency supplies because they think of them as taking up space, wasting away in the dark. So make it simple on yourself: Buy emergency goods-- and cycle through them regularly.

Have that case of water, and keep a few bottles in the freezer, ready to go in the cooler to keep things cold-- and provide drinking water as they melt. Make sure your supply never drops below a certain level, but use it as you go.

Do the same thing with canned goods. Buy things you use and love, and stick the new ones at the back of the cupboard. Keep a first aid kit in the car, because it's not only good in emergencies on a grand scale, but on the small scale (such as a car accident.)

Your basic Boy Scout Handbook has first aid instructions, and you can get other basic books from numerous sources. The primary instruction should always be to remain calm, or at least be constructively hyper.

Come to think of it, I've got almost every component of an emergency kit. I just haven't put it together. You may have almost everything you need, too.

In the event that you are in an evacuation situation, you will need the following supplies when you leave your home. Put them all together in a duffle bag or other large container in advance: Gather essential supplies and papers:
Flashlight with plenty of extra batteries
Battery-powered radio with extra batteries
First aid kit
Prescription medications in their original bottle, plus copies of the prescriptions
Eyeglasses (with a copy of the prescription)
Water (at least one gallon per person is recommended; more is better)
Foods that do not require refrigeration or cooking
Items that infants and elderly household members may require
Medical equipment and devices, such as dentures, crutches, prostheses, etc.
Change of clothes for each household member
Sleeping bag or bedroll and pillow for each household member
Checkbook, cash, and credit cards
Map of the area
Important papers to take with you:
Driver's license or personal identification
Social Security card
Proof of residence (deed or lease)
Insurance policies
Birth and marriage certificates
Stocks, bonds, and other negotiable certificates
Wills, deeds, and copies of recent tax returns

Emergency: LOST YOUR PASSPORT AND YOUR RUSSIAN VISA
What to do: It's better to be very careful and not to lose the passport with a visa, but if that happened, you should do the following procedure:
1. Go to any police station around the area where your passport was lost and get a special paper, which says that your passport was indeed lost (it's called "spravka" in Russian). It is very important to get the spravka, otherwise, you won't be able to have the new visa issued.
2. Make sure you still have your plane ticket with the date of return. If you don't, book a new flight and get the printed confirmation of booking. You can do it in any airline's office.
3. Make some passport size photos on a special matte paper - available in any photo places. The photos made in photomachines at the metro stations won't work.
4. Go to your embassy to get a new passport (you should contact the embassy just after you lost the passport to start processing). See the list of foreign embassies in Moscow and in St. Petersburg.
5. Try to find a copy of your lost visa or at least of the invitation letter.
6. Take all the documents and papers listed above (the spravka from police, your plane ticket, photos, new passport, copy of your lost visa (if you have one)) and take it to the office of the travel agency that issued your visa support. Usually, it's the same office where you had to make your visa registration. You will be fined about $150 US by immigration officials and, if everything will go allright, you'll be given a new visa in a few days (about a week).

If you make a tourniquet to stop a limb bleeding, make SURE you check at what EXACT time you did it. Write it down on the skin or something.

Why: toxins build up in the limb that's blocked off, so even if anyone can make a tourniquet, not everyone should take a tourniquet off, because then the toxins will travel to other parts of the body and will eventually kill the person.

Great collection of posts and thanks for recognizing the ethics issue. We are starting the discussion on what, if any, standards should be developed. Please weigh in.

Most suburban neighborhoods have plenty of stored water. Swimming pools. Yes, it has a little more chlorine than we'd like, but it's perfectly potable, unless it's contaminated by a flood. If you want to get rid of the chlorine, filter it through charcoal, or leave it in the sun in a shallow pan for a couple of hours. Little kids swallow gallons of it every time they swim.
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