When All Hell Breaks Loose (81 page)

The easiest way to not rely upon a refrigerator is to not need one. Canned foods of the proper size ensure there will be no leftovers.
Prepare only what your family will eat at each meal
, unless it's something that doesn't require refrigeration such as bread.

For better management of potential sanitation breaches when serving food to large families or groups, one person should serve the entire family or group.

Rats and mice can be easily caught in homemade or commercial traps, checked for health, cleaned, cooked, and eaten.

T
here's not a hospital in America that is fully prepared to deal with the effects of a wide-scale disaster in which hundreds if not thousands of people would need urgent care. To staff and equip a medical facility to do so full time would quickly cause bankruptcy under normal operating conditions. In order to combat the guaranteed shortage of health care personnel after a major emergency, there is an effort by some authorities to train civilian volunteers in a quick course on medical needs to ease the burden on regular health professionals. While this is a smart move and would greatly release physicians and nurses from some of the more mundane tasks of patient care, a weekend crash course in disaster medicine can only accomplish so much. Have you ever spent time twiddling your thumbs in a hospital emergency waiting room under normal, calm conditions?

Do yourself, your family, and your community a favor by enrolling in a basic first-aid and CPR course. Call your local community college, fire station, hospital, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) program, or the Red Cross extension in your area today to learn the basic skills necessary to support life when accidents happen or health-related emergencies fall into your lap. Many basic first-aid and CPR courses last a day or two at most and give you a condensed version on what to expect and how to deal with rudimentary injuries and health issues.

For those who wish to know more, Wilderness First Responder (WFR) courses are taught that go well beyond a standard first-aid course and are extremely handy when you're beyond traditional medical care, such as in the wilderness or after a disaster when emergency services may be slow to respond. Many community colleges also offer Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) training for a more advanced look at the human body and how it can be repaired. EMT courses, while worth their weight in gold, rely heavily on transportation to a regular medical facility and technical goodies beyond the scope of ordinary folks. Many ambulance and fire-fighting crews also have a paramedic onboard for even more advanced life-support options. The human body is what you're trying to keep alive, yet it's amazing how little survival students and even survival instructors know about human physiology. The more you know about the human body and how to patch it back together, the better off you may be after a crisis.

Home Sweet Home?

According to a dated, 1985 version of the book
Family Safety and First Aid
, put out by Readers Digest, about 9 million Americans each year called a physician to deal with an injury sustained in their home. Within a twenty-four hour period, 63,000 people cut, bruised, scalded, poisoned, or burned themselves while in the comfort of their own homes. More than twenty years later, this number has probably doubled or tripled if not more. Most of these accidents could have been prevented by simply paying attention, or by correcting the potential causes of accidents in the first place.

What do you think would happen to these statistical numbers after an emergency? How would they be affected if people were forced to rely on unfamiliar disaster supplies for a number of days or weeks? There can be little doubt that even a well-stocked family has not taken the time to learn how to use their supplies on a sunny pleasant day in the backyard let alone when all hell is breaking loose environmentally and otherwise.

If your home is an accident waiting to happen, it ain't gonna get any better under extreme stress. Get your ducks in a row by making needed repairs and upgrades as soon as possible for the safety and convenience of your family.

The Creepin' Crud and You

"W
E DON'T KNOW THE TIMING OF THE NEXT PANDEMIC, HOW SEVERE IT WILL BE
. W
E DON'T KNOW WHAT DRUGS WILL WORK
. W
E DON'T HAVE A VACCINE, YET WE ARE TELLING EVERYONE TO PREPARE FOR A PANDEMIC
. I
T'S TRICKY. . .
T
HIS IS SCARY AND WE DON'T KNOW. . .
T
HAT'S THE MESSAGE
."

—D
ICK
T
HOMPSON
, W
ORLD
H
EALTH
O
RGANIZATION
(WHO)

 

Despite annual vaccinations, run-of-the-mill influenza in the United States kills more than 36,000 people and lands 200,000 more in hospitals each year. In addition to the body count, influenza is annually responsible for a total cost of over $10 billion in the United States alone.

There are very nasty things floating around the planet such as SARS and the avian flu (bird flu). Apparently forgetting about the sinking of the continents Lemuria and Atlantis, Secretary Michael Chertoff of the Department of Homeland Security said, "The avian flu bears the potential for societal disruption of unprecedented proportion." According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a pandemic, or worldwide outbreak of a new influenza virus, could make the above paragraph look like a fart in the wind. A flu pandemic in this day and age would utterly overwhelm this country's health and medical capabilities, with effects, to quote the CDC, "potentially resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of hospitalizations, and hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs." Pandemics have occurred throughout history. The last three occurred in 1918 (40 million dead), 1957 (2 million dead), and 1968 (1 million dead) worldwide. The Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918 has been studied by health professionals over and over again for clues on how to better mitigate a modern-day pandemic, and unfortunately, it has left more questions than answers.

According to the CDC, the next pandemic "is likely to come in waves, each lasting months, and pass through communities of all sizes across the nation and world. While a pandemic will not damage power lines, banks or computer networks, it will ultimately threaten all critical infrastructure by removing essential personnel from the workplace for weeks or months." A worst-case scenario pandemic plan from the CDC involves the general public staying in their homes; no school, no shopping, no nothing, for up to three months. Do you have the supplies, skills, and psychological fortitude to stay in your home for three months? You sure would have time to put a dent in that favorite book you've been wanting to read (or write!).