GJ subscribed to a newsletter Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center. Today the newsletter arrived in by email. One of articles was about Emergency Preparedness. See this link: thehttps://kesslerfoundation.org/info/uh-oh-sky-falling-emergency-preparedness-people-spinal-cord-injury?_sm_au_=iVVR6R03sT1FqhZFCsHGjKsjFQJVc
If you live in California you are abundantly aware of the emergencies we have experienced and are experiencing here. If you don't live in California, you've likely heard about California earthquakes, wild fires, floods, mudslides, and have your own kinds of emergencies where you live.
Our natural gas and electric utility (PG&E in Northern CA) has a program known as PSPS or Public Safety Power Shutoff. During times of high winds, presence of fire, after an earthquake or presence of other disaster, if PG&E decides that electric power and natural gas need to be shutdown in areas to prevent damage, they will shutoff utilities with minimal notice. Once these utilities are off, they can't be quickly turned on again, because power lines and pipe lines must be inspected for damage, repaired, and only then can power be restored. If we are affected by a PSPS, we should expect to be without power for 3-5 days. Recently, local weather patterns and the timing of high wind warnings increased that expectation of being without power up to 10 days in areas of Northern California. Sheltering in place, if possible, is probably what most people would most like to do. But, how feasible is that for any of us, especially someone with and those who care for and about someone with a disability?
Take sometime to formulate a plan and think about what you would need to survive if you would have to shelter in place for 5 days without electricity and/or natural gas. What do you need to have ready at almost a moments notice if you have to evacuate. It is not an easy exercise to grapple with. Having enough supplies and equipment available on a day to day basis is difficult enough without have to have redundant items packed ready to GO and rotated often to accommodate expiry dates.
Another consideration is getting your personal transportation out of a home garage in case of electrical power outage. I don't live near the big fires in Sonoma County, but none the less, over the weekend when I lost power for just a few hours, I didn't know how long it might be before power was restored. Then a couple small fires popped up in near by locations, winds raged at 20-35 MPH for hours, and clearly anything could happen. No one knew what might happen next. Neighbors on the street called or came over and we talked what ifs. We hastily put together go bags, gathered important files and documents, and staged everything in the car/van or at the front door. And made sure that we had our battery operated radios and lights sources ready for night fall if we didn't evacuate.
Power was off and my van was in the garage. The only way to get it out was to use the emergency release. Opening a garage door with an emergency release is not an easy job. The difficulty can be complicated by weak or out of balance springs, location of the release rope, weight of the door to name a few. We got my van out of the garage, but it was a 3 person job. After the emergency passed, I had a garage door company out on Tuesday to reattach the steel lift cables we had to release, replace old weak and out of balance springs, give the opener a tune up, and install a battery back up system to open the door in case of a power outage. It was delayed maintenance and an upgrade for safety.
Just as an aside, in California, as of July 1. 2019, any new installation of garage doors and/or opener or replacement system, must have a battery back up system to open the garage door in the case of a power outage.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to start the ball rolling in your heads about what you would do, if.
Take good care everyone.
NL
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Originally Posted by baldfatdad
