The First 24 Hours
The first 24 hours after a disaster hits is a critical time frame. How you handle those first few hours can mean success or failure. There are several objectives that must be met in order for you and your family to not just survive, but hopefully thrive.
The order in which you tackle these areas will be at least somewhat contingent upon the situation at hand. First and foremost in any emergency or crisis is the safety of you and your family. It only after that is at least reasonably assured that you should look toward completing any sort of “to do” list.
24 Hours: Gather Information
By definition, you can only make an informed decision if you have information to act upon. Use every resource available, including radio, TV, and the Internet. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric) broadcasts, often referred to as “weather radio,” may be used to transmit official emergency announcements. The National Weather Radio service partners with the Emergency Alert System to broadcast information that is critical in a crisis. For this reason, one of your first investments should be a weather radio.
Look into amateur (ham) radio as well. The licensing process isn’t difficult and the benefits are tremendous. Ham operators are often the backbone of emergency communication in a disaster. On top of that, many operators will do everything they can to help someone who is genuinely interested in obtaining their license. Most counties have a ham operator club of some sort and that would be a great place to start.
Bear in mind that news outlets often get as much information wrong as they do correct in the initial stages of a disaster. They are all in a rush to be the first to announce the smallest bit of information and in their haste sometimes run stories without properly vetting the information. Rumors get reported as fact and stories can snowball from there. Social media is even worse. But, social media can still connect survivors to one another and allow eyewitness information to be shared.
Consult a variety of sources, if possible, and cobble together the facts presented in order to get a true picture of what’s happened. Use that information to determine your best course of action.
While you’re at it, do what you can to let others know about your individual situation. Utilize telephone, texting, and social media so people know if you’re safe or if you need assistance. An app that has gotten a lot of press is Zello, which allows your smartphone to be used somewhat like a walkie-talkie. It works well but bear in mind that it requires an Internet signal to operate.
Assess Resources
Just as you take stock of the crisis and gather information about what’s going on around you, you need to take stock of your individual situation. Determine what resources are available to you and whether there are any gaping holes that could hinder your survival.
• Is your home safe or has it been damaged in the disaster?
• How much food and water do you have on hand?
• If any family members take prescription medications, how long will the current supply last?
While some of that seems like it would be information you should know ahead of time, bear in mind that we cannot accurately predict the nature of the disaster that might be coming someday. It is not unheard of for a truly well-stocked prepper to lose some or all of their supplies due to flooding, for example, or another type of damage directly related to the crisis at hand. Despite our best efforts, we’re not infallible.
Deal with Perishables
Assuming the grid is down, the food in the refrigerator and freezer isn’t going to last. A full refrigerator will stay cold for about four hours. A full freezer will keep food frozen for a day or two. If the freezer is half full, figure 24 hours or so. Of course, the more often you open the door to the fridge or freezer, the quicker it will warm up inside.
If your freezer isn’t usually full, it is a good practice to fill 2L bottles with water and put them in the freezer. A full freezer doesn’t have to work as hard, thus this will save energy. Plus, the bottles will help food stay frozen longer during a power outage. On top of that, the bottles are a source of clean water in an emergency. When filling the bottles, leave a couple of inches of head space to allow for expansion as the water freezes.
Keep in mind that food doesn’t go from good to bad in an instant. You have a little time to decide what to do with the perishables. There are a couple of options to consider.
If you have the means to preserve food, such as pressure canning or dehydrating, get to work. Put as much of it up as you can so it doesn’t go to waste. This will also augment whatever shelf stable foods you already have stockpiled.
The other approach is to consume as much of it as possible before it goes bad. Drink the milk and eat the yogurt. Warm up the leftovers from last night’s dinner and have them for breakfast or lunch. Cook up the hamburger or steaks. Invite the neighbors over if you have enough to share. It is far better for that food to go into someone’s belly than the trash.
Documentation
Once everyone is safe, fed, warm and dry, start documenting what happened. Photograph and video any damage to the home or possessions. Take photos from multiple angles and when shooting video feel free to narrate what the viewer is seeing. Upload those files to some sort of cloud storage right away, just in case your phone is later lost or damaged. One easy way to do this is to simply email the files to an account you can access remotely.
Notify your insurance agent as soon as is feasible. You might be able to get the claim process started online, if you still have access to the Internet. Either way, it is a good idea to have the phone number for reporting a claim saved in your contact list on your phone.
Clean Up
As soon as is practical, begin the cleanup process. While you might not be able to deal with everything, at least not initially, do what you can to put things back in order. In some cases, there might not be a whole lot that needs to be straightened up, of course. But in the aftermath of severe storms and such, there may well be downed branches or trees, debris strewn about, that sort of thing. These can be safety hazards so the sooner they are dealt with, the better. Be very careful about possible downed power lines and such.
About author Jim Cobb
Jim Cobb is a well known freelance author on survival and other topics.
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“Look into amateur (ham) radio as well. The licensing process isn’t difficult and the benefits are tremendous.”
What benefits? Second or third-hand information? Getting your name and address on a list for anyone to see? Spending a bunch of money? This is one of those recommendations like “buy a shortwave radio” I never understand. What’s on shortwave nowadays? in the 70’s and 80’s, sure, but now?
Sounds like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or has a
case of trollitist.
I was hoping someone would explain it to me. There’s nothing useful on shortwave anymore. There’s nothing on CB. Who are you going to talk to on HAM? Any info you get in an emergency is hearsay. I asked a question, your response was more troll-like than anything I wrote. Anything useful to say?
Interestingly CB his in heavy use around here. During hunting season, especially, by the coyote hunters, and during the ongoing construction of the MASSIVE wind farm going across several counties in Northeast Missouri. It may be dead elsewhere, but it’s hopping around here.
Big Ken,
I’ll give it shot to say something useful.
“There’s nothing useful on shortwave anymore.” Sure there is. It is quite evident that you haven’t listened to a shortwave radio. Not just turned one on and ‘heard’ nothing but static. You have to tune it. Change frequency. Listen in the day time and night time. The BBC still has about 20 AM stations on the air. The Voice of America is still around. They don’t get a lot of political support, i.e.$$$, but they are still going. There are even bootleg (Pirate) stations on the air.
“There’s nothing on CB.” Yes there is, but it’s not worth listening to. Just like it was in the 60’s and 70’s.
“Who are you going to talk to on HAM?” Any one of the 750,000+ licensed people in this country, Or the 3,000,000 plus licensed people on this planet.
“Any info you get in an emergency is hearsay.” You talking about the MSM? If you know where to listen the information validity is good. If you don’t know where to listen, it’s just like the internet.
Now, think about it. When we get to the point that power is out, what are you going to do? Your computer won’t be any more useful than a doorstop. No power…no modem….no internet. Your cell phone won’t be functional after about 24 hours. (Few cell sites have a decent battery backup.) Why don’t you try turning an AM radio on and tuning to a Clear Channel AM Radio Station? Don’t know what that is? Google “Clear Channel Radio Stations”. (NOT the ‘Clear Channel Radio’ internet fakes.) Try www dot csgnetwork dot com/amclearradiotable.html for the real thing. Why? Because these stations VERIFY the things they transmit.
So, why don’t you spend $50 – $100 and get a radio. Learn how to make a real antenna for it. Then just listen. Not on one frequency, but tune around. You might be surprised.
Oh, you might notice that there’s no ads on shortwave radio.
Thank you, that was much more informative. I did buy a shortwave radio, although it was only a $75 one and I did not build a 50 foot wire antenna for it or anything, so I was disappointed with the results. All I was able to get was foreign language stations and some fire and brimstone preacher dude. Nothing useful, but I’m sure there’s other stuff out there. I certainly didn’t know Voice of America was still on. It might be worthwhile to try again with better equipment.
I still don’t see the overall utility of HAM radio, but I’m also not a chatty person. I have met a few radio enthusiasts, and they seem like they would be great help in electronics and technical advice. The few I met seemed much more Sheldon Cooper than Lieutenant Commander Max Fightmaster. Not so sure about them being any sort of reliable assistance in an emergency, except as a rumor mill during complete collapse. Which has some value, I suppose. Still, it’s basically chatting with strangers who are too far away to help even if they wanted to. Hopefully they don’t just triangulate your position and raid your supply. Agree to disagree on this one. My opinion doesn’t have to be yours.
AM seems to be going away. The last few portable radios I purchased do not even have AM on them. I do have several that do, however. I seem to mainly get sports broadcasts on them. I didn’t spend much time on it, I’ll have to give that a closer look.
I’m not trying to be argumentative, differing perspectives are useful and what’s right for me may not work for you. That’s OK.
Thanks for the advice/response.