FIRST, REGARDING EARTHQUAKES
We live, work and play in the Pacific Northwest and whether we like it or not, we are going to have a giant earthquake one day. We don’t know when. We don’t know how large it is going to be. We don’t know its location. If you want truly sobering descriptions of its potential impacts read The Really Big One by Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker; she won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for the piece.
The kids are going to be fine. It’s the parents that – in the event a giant earthquake occurs during school hours with an epicenter near Portland – are going to be stressed as they try to make it to the school to pick up their child. The main purpose of this exercise is to get organized in order to minimize how much our emotions freak out.
We thought through some logistics. We have a maximum of 16 children at the school at any one time, with at least two teachers tending them. In the event of any emergency, our preferred response is to hunker down at the school. If for some reason that is not a safe space, our alternate emergency site – Meredith and Gene’s house – is ½-mile away from the school. We don’t know what the weather or time of day will be. We don’t know how communication methods (cell phone towers and internet services) will be impacted. With those variables in mind, we’ve gathered the following supplies for an initial pass at an Emergency Kit:
- Storage – We purchased three 28-quart rolling coolers at a nearby store. They’re orange which reminds us of an emergency. They’re portable: imagine if the teachers and children need to mobilize an adult or child can roll them easily. They’re small: if necessary, a child could ride on each cooler.
- Water – Above all else, water will be needed during an emergency. We purchased two seven-gallon containers that conveniently stack on either themselves or on top of the coolers. We also added two five-gallon containers. This volume won’t last very long (common emergency-preparedness wisdom says to budget 1 gallon per person per day), but it’s a start.
- Food – Okay, don’t laugh: we grabbed four boxes of assorted nut-free granola bars. Clearly, this will not feed many children for many days, but they will help stave off any immediate sense of starvation doom. And, more likely, it will provide a welcome distraction/focus for the children.
- Light Sticks – They’re kids. Again, these will only last a couple nights. But we have a hunch while the adults are trying to organize supplies and sytems, the kids will turn the situation into a party.
- Emergency Blankets – We didn’t feel the need to go overboard on giant cloth blankets that will just take up space in the storage. But it seems prudent to have a few emergency blankets in case someone gets cold or wet.
- Soap Sheets – We will want to keep washing hands throughout any emergency to minimize the spread of germs. At some point we might want to do a test run of these sheets. It’s probable a sanitizer gel would work better and use less water — we’ll probably upgrade to a bottle of sanitizer gel during our next “review and reset” exercise.
- A Small Water Filter – Again, not perfect but a start in getting organized.
- A Clothesline – Thinking through how to usher 16 children through mostly-calm-but-some-major-road streets, we’ll want something for them to hold onto. Voila: a clothesline. One teacher can go in the front, and one teacher can go in the back, and the kids can go in the middle holding the line.
- Storage Bags for Personal Items – This is where the parents come in. I timed myself putting ours together and it took me about eight minutes total; we want to make this easy for parents because, well, life is too busy and we just want to get this done. Here’s what I grabbed:
- one change of cozy clothes (a pair of pants and a shirt that we don’t normally wear, so our child will be comfortable but won’t miss these items from their normal wardrobe)
- a note (again, quick and upbeat)
- a few stickers of characters that he loves (again, easy to grab and will be a nice distraction if needed)
The “Personal Items Bags” contain a change of cozy clothes, a note, and a non-perishible comfort item. Here is one example all sealed up. It took less than 10 min to assemble.
We’ll distribute empty ziplock bags in cubbies a couple weeks before a daylight savings time event. Completed “Personal Items Bags” can be dropped off with any teacher. They will be placed in an orange cooler on the back porch where they will be stored for easy access in the event of an emergency. We’ll do a “review and reset” exercise every daylight savings event (e.g. every fall and spring).
Other items we’ll stock:
- A few laminated maps to get to our alternate site
- A couple copies of lists of all children, allergies or medical details, and contact details of parents/guardians
- A small safety kit
- A stack of diapers and wipes
What else should we consider adding to our emergency supplies? How do you prepare at home?
SECOND, REGARDING AIR TEMPERATURE AND QUALITY
The smoke event of September 2020 was sobering: the AQI (air quality index) of Portland was higher than 300 for multiple days straight. Also, temperatures keep rising and we believe most families don’t have air conditioning at home. Gene has decades of experience in building science. Given this background we wanted to take a moment and create some content that might serve our families and teachers well at home. The following is written and illustrated with the caveat that phd’s and dissertations could be written on just one of these topics.
The Basic Concepts of Managing Air Quality and Comfort
In general there’s the infrastructure and the operation of spaces. You could have an incredibly efficient home with a great air filter system, but if you leave the door open during a smoke event you’ll have a house full of smoke. Here are some things to think about in terms of managing airflow in your home to create clean and temperate conditions.
- Air Sealing and Insulation
Look around and notice windows, doors, vents for fireplace inserts, etc. In general, anywhere there is a hole from the inside to the outside of your space, there’s more likelihood there is a gap that needs extra help being sealed from indoors to outdoors. Is your home new or old? Does it feel drafty in the winter? Those same drafts that make it colder in the winter also make it hotter in the summer. The list of opportunities is almost endless, but a few basic things to think about can help seal it up. These include:- those long snake-like bean-bag-sand things that can be put below doors that go to the exterior
- masking tape (for extreme events) to seal cracks or spaces such as a fireplace insert
- the plastic wrap that you put on your windows to add a second (or third) layer creates air insulation that keeps your space warm during the winter and cool during the summer; I did this with a hair dryer when I lived an an old apartment
- a longer-lasting window-sealing product (originating here in Portland) called Indow Windows
- increased insulation in your walls and, more importantly attic
Rock out with your caulk out: here’s the EPA’s explanation with a way better diagram.
2. Air Pressure
When you turn on an exhaust fan, it pushes air out. Think of when you take a shower. Or cook a meal. Or make a poop. Using an exhaust fan in these situations works well: the hot or stinky or humid air gets pushed out. This creates a negative pressure in the space, and then fresh air from outside then naturally fills in.
This is fine under normal conditions; the air quality in Portland is typically quite good. But when the air outside is of terrible quality (or super hot), think twice about turning on an exhaust fan; by keeping it turned off you will maintain your pressure (and not invite stinky or hot air to move in).
OH! And on the fan front. NOTE: Fans cool off people and pets. They do not actually change the temperature of the air. So if you leave a room, then turn off the fan. Otherwise the motor whirring around is actually making the space a little warmer.
3. Air Flow
This was a bit of a mind shift for me. During the smoke event, I was looking at our front door (left) and our garage door (right) and thought, “Of course, I should use the front door because it is smaller.” And yet that was a bit folly. The better move was to use our garage door because even though it has a wider opening, and takes longer to open and close, the space – the garage that then has another door that opens into our home — buffers the air exchange. In this way, the air exchange was much less than if I had opened up our front door. So if you have a door that opens up into a buffered space between the indoors and outdoors, then consider using that entrance during extreme weather events to minimize air exchange.
4. Natural Rhythms
This is mostly for heat: open your windows at night, and close your windows before it heats up.
5. Getting Organized
It’s easier to buy emergency supplies when it’s not an emergency. Get your box fan and extra air filter ready (tape the box fan to the filter during a smoke event). Or get your additional portable filter; this NY Times article ranks air purifiers and has some tips. We use the iWave-R at Mud Pies (a unit installed in our HVAC system; cost roughly $1300). In the Portland Metro area we trust and use Connors Heating and Cooling for all of our HVAC needs.
*. Bonus: The Penny-on-an-Ice-Cube-Tray Trick
When the power goes out, the freezer no longer gets frozen. It can be tricky to know how much things thawed because you don’t want to keep opening up your freezer to check how things are doing (because in doing so, you hasten the thawing). And yet you might be out when the power goes back on. So then things freeze again, and you’re not sure how much. This can be particularly maddening for anyone who has a stash of frozen breast milk. Et voila: the ice-cube-tray-penny trick. Place a penny on the top of your ice cube tray. At the end of a storm event that you lost power, you can check: if the penny is still on top or only slightly down, you know a little bit of ice remained and your breast milk stash is still good (so long as there’s a little bit of ice left, it’s okay). And if the penny is all the way at the bottom, you know it thawed completely (and you need to sadly toss it).