Preparing for Danger

Preparing for Danger

The San Francisco Chronicle is offering an informative guide, Preparing for Disaster (PDF), a guide to surviving the next big fire or quake. From this guide:

We’ve become reluctant experts on misfortune of all sorts. We know, for instance, that a fire makes a hillside ripe for a mudslide the next winter. We’ve signed up for emergency alerts and practiced opening garage doors by hand to be ready for a power outage. And we’ve spent hours in hardware stores, buying supplies we hope we won’t need.

That brings us to this guide, which rests on a simple philosophy: Knowledge is power. The Chronicle recognized last year more than ever that our duty went beyond dispatching journalists to flooded or fire-ravaged towns. This is the second edition of a staff project meant to provide readers with the best information available about how to prepare for the inevitable.

Here you’ll find tips on how to create survival kits, protect pets, shore up finances and much more. We’ve researched useful gadgets and apps. We’ve provided a checklist you can use, as well as links to more resources. And we’ve made it all available in a document you can download to your phone. Even if cell service is out, you’ll be able to pull up the guide.

As allowed, we’ve copied this guide to our Google Drive for an alternative access point. Whether preparing for a wildfire, a house fire, and earthquake or other disasters, make sure you have a plan, some emergency supplies, and back-up information & photos for your important documents. Here’s a quick PDF form for some basic information that can speak for you when you can’t speak for yourself.