While yes, it’s important to ready your home itself for the fall and winter months ahead, it’s also a good idea to gather supplies to keep you and your family safe in case any emergencies or unexpected events occur.
The NW is known for some heavy duty wind storms, not to mention the potential of an earthquake, so having an emergency kit stocked and ready to go is a smart step toward creating and providing a safe space to hunker down.
Keep yourself and your family safe during emergencies resulting from earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters that may cause power outages or interruptions of your energy service. Here are some tips from Puget Sound Energy for creating a plan:
✓Know how to manually open and close electric doors, such as your garage door
✓ Know how to properly shut off your natural gas and electricity if needed
✓ Create and practice an evacuation plan in case you need to leave your home
✓ Prepare to assist your neighbors, people with special needs, the elderly, and pets
✓ Have a cellular or corded phone (cordless phones will not work during an outage)
✓ Identify an out-of-town contact. Long distance calls may be easier to make than local calls
✓ Check out resources like the American Red Cross or ready.gov that provide additional safety training and preparedness tips.
✓ Finally, create an Emergency Kit, with items like this:
• Water for seven to 10 days (1 gallon per person per day)
• Food for 7 to 10 days (non-perishable)
• Cash (small bills are best)
• Flashlights
• Radio (battery-powered or hand-crank)
• Extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Sturdy shoes, gloves
• Shelter items (tent, tarp, rope)
• Dust mask to help filter contaminated air
• Wrench to turn off utilities, such as natural gas or water
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for sanitation
• Manual can opener
• Multipurpose (A-B-C) fire extinguisher
• Unique family needs (supplies for infants, pets, prescriptions and over-the-counter medications, emergency phone numbers, important documents)