Earthquakes are one of the most disruptive events Mother Nature can dish out. Few of us have properly planned for the eventuality of a large seismic devastating Earthquake. You should have a plan and know what to do after an Earthquake. Do you know how to do a damage assessment of your home or business? After an Earthquake, first go turn off the gas if you smell anything, a leaky gas line could explode and take out your entire home and your cats nine lives. Look for cracks in the slab or any areas where the house carpet is lifted up. Then walk around the exterior of the house, what do you see? Do you see downed fences, retaining walls and support structures holding up the garage at weird angles or any areas where your house was knocked off its foundation? Look also for water pipes which have been broken, if so shut off the main water line coming into the house. If there is extensive damage then that means the other neighbors have also and the entire area. As we saw with Hurricane Katrina, with roads out, power off and water supplies contaminated or water mains broken, you maybe on your own for many days without any assistance. You must protect yourself and not simply rely on government to come to your rescue. There maybe fires, after tremors and floods from broken or beached dams. Thus there will be many other victims, which will need the immediate services, so you will have to wait it out and pay attention. The chances are all communication can also be out for weeks. No cell towers remaining, no phone lines and forget Internet service unless you are on satellite and then you may not have power to even run a computer, even laptop batteries only last so long. When entire neighborhoods are damaged and cities you have to worry about chaos and riots, form a group with your neighbors and block off the street with cars if you live in a culd-a-sac. Expect more after shocks. Instruct your family to ration water, fill up your bathtubs with water now incase main water lines to the city have broken. Join in with your neighbors to form a support group and access all damage and get with other neighbors near by and find out what is going on. In the event of power outages, instruct all neighbors to turn off all appliances so it does not spike the system when everything turns back on. If the power is still out after several hours; figure out a plan for food and BBQs and have a street party, but do not waste your food; stick together and ride it out. Also plan what to do incase of huge fires or forced evacuation. Have a care package ready for your entire family for 5-days food and have it easily portable incase you have to pack up the SUV to get out of dodge. The best time to plan home security in the event of an Earthquake is before it happens, so think on this. "Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
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