So let’s begin your home “walk-thru”. Start at your front door. Look around the whole space. Remember your criteria. Is it tall enough to fall on you? Can it move and block your exit. Is it valuable or can it fall on something valuable? Is it attached to gas? Unlikely by the front door, but let’s be consistent.

Now move on to the next room. Go room by room. Make a list. Try not to get too bogged down in detail. When you get to bedrooms, pay special attention to kid’s rooms. Remember anything by their door could move, wedge the door shut, and they might be too small to move it. Bunk beds are also commonly found in children’s rooms these too should be fastened. Take note of whether the beds have been joined together securely top to bottom.

For today don’t worry about the kitchen. We will consider that in an upcoming blog. Take special note of things like televisions and other possibly expensive electronics. Add these items to your list. For more Ideas of commonly fastened items go to our store on this website and click on residential. You will find a wide variety of items. We will spend more time on our website and its many features.

If you find it hard to do this all at one time, don’t. Set a timer and only do it for 15 minutes. You can accomplish anything in 15 minutes segments, including getting your family ready for an earthquake.  

In my last blog I told you that I would walk you through the process of applying Earthquake Lady rule #1. But first I would like to explain the real reason it became rule #l.

On January 17, 1994 at 4:31 in the morning I was one of the millions that was awakened in the pitch black of early morning to the sickening roar of the Northridge earthquake. I was one of the lucky ones. I was located far enough away from the epicenter that the effect of that 6.7 nightmare was not as readily apparent at my house. In addition my husband had fastened large pieces of furniture and attached baby locks on the cabinets. This is one of the few times in my life that my procrastination paid off, because my “Baby” was nine years old. As a result I didn’t have to shovel out my kitchen. I also didn’t have overturned or destroyed furniture. I didn’t realize how fortunate I was until later that day when my father and I went to rescue my mom from the hospital where she just happened to be scheduled for a procedure that day. The closer we got to the hospital the more people we saw sheltering in place on their front lawns, clothing, blankets, coolers strewn everywhere….whatever they could find to make themselves comfortable. It was apparent to me that no one had any plans to go back inside their homes anytime soon.

At the time I worked for the Walt Disney Company. We were not allowed to go back to work for a few days until they determined the buildings were safe to enter. When I arrived my coworkers and I went to work putting our department back in order. About an hour into the process a woman walked in, I didn’t recognize her until she spoke. She looked like someone had beaten her with a bat. In the earthquake she was running down the hall to her screaming children when the corner of her falling bookshelf caught her in the middle of her forehead and nose. She was worked on by a plastic surgeon who just happened to be one of the first doctors who made it to the hospital when she arrived. Carol if you ever read this, you need to know you changed my life.   When I think about what it must have been like for you and your family, in the dark, injured and the ground around you in its ultimate act of betrayal, and I don’t believe that is too strong of a term because an earthquake is the disaster that keeps on giving for hours, days and weeks.

My dear ones in those days there was no education about how to keep bad things from happening to us and the people we love in an earthquake but now there is. Fasten your furniture. A twelve dollar strap would have made all the difference.

Let’s start at your front door……

If you haven’t had the chance to follow the link from the last blog, I intensely encourage you to take a minute to do so and watch from beginning to end. After having seen the video I am pretty sure that Earthquake Lady Rule #1 will make a great deal of sense.

Earthquake Lady Rule #1:

If it can fall on you, block you, bankrupt you or explode…..Fasten it.

Now remember we are envisioning the first 10 seconds to 2 minutes of our disaster. If we conquer this part we are half way there. See that’s not so hard.

Step by Step this is how you can break it down. Is it tall enough to fall on you? if so, fasten it. Can it move and block an exit? Regardless of how heavy it is, fasten it. (Please refer to Notes From the Fault Line blog titled, “The bigger they are the harder they fall on you”). Is the item precious or expensive or can it fall on something that is? You probably want to fasten it. An example of that would be heavy objects stored in a garage over an expensive vehicle. Last but not least, if an item is connected to gas, such as gas stoves, dryers or heaters, there is the risk the item could pull away from the wall and yank the hose loose thus exposing your home to the danger of live gas which is quite often located next to a live flame. Wouldn’t that be fun?

In our next blog we will consider how we can take this information and put it into practical application in your home.

I know we have seen a lot of earthquakes lately. I also know it is tough to get your mind to wrap around what could happen in your own “world”. I use the term “world” for a reason. It would be great if we knew exactly where we were going to be during that inevitable event, but we don’t. That can be overwhelming -- I’m asking you to think about multiple layers of preparedness. But don’t be discouraged because we will take it one step at a time. So where to start? The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland told Alice, “Why not start at the beginning and when you get to the end stop.” So where do most of us start our day?

Home

Home is a good place, because every other layer of preparedness is smaller, mobile versions of what we do there. Let’s begin with the first few minutes of our earthquake. Follow the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIn0q_hSbAM

However I digress.

The couple I was visiting with didn’t have any problem with the idea of preparing. They just didn’t know where to begin. At the time of my visit the Japanese earthquake had struck just one week earlier. Televisions everywhere were flooded with terrifying images, the vast majority of which were of the tsunami which struck so quickly after the initial quake, no one could process what they were seeing.

Though there was footage of the initial shaking, most of that came from Tokyo which was over 200 miles from the epicenter. While I could see that the shaking in Tokyo was bad, it must have been nowhere close to what they must have experienced at the epicenter. In the end this earthquake was finally judged to be a magnitude of 9.

The timing of this disaster made my job a lot easier. When I asked the couple to try to imagine what their world would look like after a really large quake, I could tell by the look on their faces that their imaginations didn’t have to stretch far.

So now my dearest readers I pose the question to you: if an earthquake much larger than anything you have ever experienced were to hit, what would your world look like?

A few days ago I got a call from a young women who asked me to come and speak to both her and her husband about what could they do  to prepare for earthquakes.  I found her request extremely interesting because I knew she was an insurance agent who actively sold earthquake policies.  She and her husband are well educated and informed.  She told me what I had long suspected,  earthquake policies do not cover building contents.  Though at this point in their lives they had not accumulated much furniture, they did have an extremely large flat screened T.V. that was placed against a wall on top of a glass coffee table.  Across the room stood and equally large brand new stainless refrigerator.  They had not a yet gotten bookshelves or the tall, heavy furniture pieces seen in typical homes today. 

In a little while I was introduced to two small children ages 7 and 4.  His mother and father were visiting.  They reminded me of my Mom who lives full time with my husband and I.  I started doing what I do best, imagining what they could be dealing with "when" the next big earthquake would strike.  Sounds pretty melodramatic doesn't it?

As human beings we are constantly engaged in preparedness. As moms we pack diaper bags and lunches.  We pack for camping trips and vacations.  We buy car insurance, health insurance, house insurance, renters, life, boat and umbrella insurance for all the the stuff we might need insurance for but haven't thought of yet. We contribute to 401 k., IRAS ,CDS and savings accounts.  We do this and so much more because we have taken a moment to see a future need and  envision what would happen if these precautions were not taken .  These actions are viewed as sensible and prudent by our society:  a true mark of maturity. 

My experience with talking to most people about earthquake preparedness is quite different. They have visions of people in paramilitary gear with the theme from "Deliverance" playing in the background.  A small segment of the population say all the preparedness they need they got from a company called Smith and Wesson.  Pleeease...   Many take a fatalistic approach.   "If the earthquake is strong enough to move that armoire, none of us is going to live through it anyway".  Or my personal favorite, "If I prepare and my neighbor, brother, sister, cousin-in-law twice removed doesn't, how will I feel?

Hi my name is Trish Granholm.  I am married to a great guy who truly believes I can do almost anything,  Because of that I do a lot more than I ever dreamed I could.  My husband Glen refers to me as the ”Earthquake Lady”.  He calls me that because on one occasion  I was a part of a Los Angeles television news segment about what people can do to be more prepared for future disasters.  One of the newscasters referred to me as the Earthquake Lady and it stuck.  So for the purpose of this discussion I’ll go with it.

While I am no seismic expert, what I do have, is access to  some of the greatest experts in the field and a desire to share what I have learned and what I will learn in the future.  Understand this also, I am nowhere near the spot where I can say I am totally prepared.

My main goal is for us to find a way to make disaster preparation AS EASY AS POSSIBLE.  I am also going to go out on a limb with a very bold statement: “YOU ARE PROBABLY MORE PREPARED THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE!”  

More tomorrow…