Our state government is asking Utahns from all walks of life to stop what they're doing and drop, cover and hold on for one minute. Then, when the "shaking" stops, review your emergency plan and emergency kits and conduct a home hazard hunt. We are also asked to prepare our homes by securing heavy objects, such as the water heater, furniture and TVs. Don't have a plan or a kit? A great place to go for this information is: http://www.utah.gov/beready .
Locally, our city of Syracuse has been holding natural disaster training sessions each year utilizing our block captains. They are NOT holding one this year. However, we have been asked to participate with the state's Shake Out on April 17th. Syracuse City and our stake would like us to try a little experiment on our own beyond the statewide Shake Out. We have been asked to live as if a disaster has hit our area and try to live without electricity for a while (No TV, i-pods, microwaves, regular ovens and stoves, and of course lights), - basically live without power. Cell phone usage should be at a minimum. You can use your battery powered radios if you have one. Grocery stores, gas stations and ATMs could also be off-limits. As we have normal lives to live during the day, we will go to our jobs as usual, but when we get home, we should return to our mock disaster and live at home as if we are without power. Some may want to use their food storage (but plan on replacing what you use), cook on the BBQ Grill or use emergency type stoves, live in their camper or trailer house for a few days, run a generator for light only, use bottled water. These are just a few examples of what one can do.
SAFETY MUST BE OUR PRIMARY CONCERN! For example: do not cook indoors with charcoal, use extreme care if using candles and matches, do not use unapproved items to start a fire, like gasoline. Do not shut off your refrigerators or freezers - just let them run. Do not shut off your power box or natural gas. Just try to avoid appliances that use them. If you have a medical condition that warrants the use of electricity or compromises your health, do NOT participate in this exercise. Use common sense.
Use your imagination as to how severe a situation you want to make the disaster to be. This is purely a volunteer experiment, it will only be you and your family experiencing these things. It would be great to have this happen for at least 48 hours, and some will do it for longer, and for many it will be shorter. It would be nice to have your family drill sometime between April 17th though April 22nd . Also, it would be wonderful to have families share or write about their experience of having to rough it for awhile, their likes and dislikes, their ingenuity to adapt to the situation and how they got by in another newsletter. Again, this exercise is strictly voluntary and for how long you want to do the drill is up to you. You will design your own mock disaster ( large earthquake) and see how well you could cope with such an event. Hopefully we will never have to live through a large one, but we should always be prepared to meet challenges as we encounter them. BE SAFE and learn better how to prepare. Best wishes.
