How to Prepare Your House for Emergencies

olldbobbi Of the top 10 items to have on hand, we have all but two: photocopies of personal documents and extra cash on hand. We never have extra cash so I guess I'll copy our documents. Recently we had a 4-hour power outage during an especially hot week. No air conditioning? No problem, I'll use the ceiling fan. Fail. Ok, I'll bring in the fan from the patio. Fail. But happily it was during the day so I didn't need my weather radio/flashlight combo and I made do with my hand-operated hot flash fan. Great ideabook, Laura!

Samantha Hayward This kind of info is so important... We all avoid these emotion provoking discussions - thinking of lose is hard! However, a practical approach and preparation takes a lot of the emotion and inevitable panic out of often very manageable situations. Great idea book!

amyalexander60 Love the idea of having two 6-packs of Guinness and a box of dog bones by the garage door with the emergency kit. What a wonderful idea! Both my redbone, Daisy, and I would be a bit happier as we evacuated. :)

Griffin Interiors I understand that you are talking mainly about fire safety but here is a simple one for medical emergencies. Recently I was standing outside talking with a neighbor when first responders came into the cul-du-sac driving around in circles, literally, until they asked us where house number 2 was. They were unable to see the house number because it was too small and hidden on the mail box post but needed to get there quickly because someone inside house number 2 was having a heart attack! So make sure that your house number is large enough to be read from the street and easily visable. BTW - the man having a heart attack was the husband's father visiting from England - everything was fine in the end.

Casart Coverings Living in New Orleans, you practically learn hurricane preparedness along with your ABCs. Here are a few related tips. Always keep the car at least half filled with gas during hurricane season. If you have windows, have screens. They will be much appreciated if you do not have power for an extended time. Best tip I learned in time for Katrina- If you have to evacuate, take everything out of the freezer, place it in contractor's plastic bags, tie tightly and replace in freezer. When you return to learn everything in the freezer is spoiled, just having to remove those bags and not dealing with the cleaning and the permeating stinch is worth the original effort.

taureg 1 week's supply of medications that don't need to be refrigerated, and that get switched every time you change the clocks, is critical to have. I carry it with me because, on 9/11, I could not get even a night's worth of meds from the local pharmacy. And good luck reaching your doctor in an emergency).

Paper and digital copies in a fire safe? Really? The most basic security is to store critical information off-site.

Scan everything and save it one of the many free on-line storage sites, like iCloud, Dropbox, the new Microsoft service, Google's storage. And why stop at insurance information. Scan birth certificates, diplomas, passports - and make a copy of digital photos of your family).

Don't trust on-line storage? Leave a hard drive or flash drive with a friend who lives in another area. Or email them critical files. Store a copy in your office.

I had to deal with being displaced for 11 days after 9/11, and then was out of my house for three months, a period during which I needed all sorts of papers.

Laura Gaskill @Griffin Interiors - Great tip! Having easily visible house numbers is vital in an emergency.

jrfromnv This is great post-disaster info! Prevention is important too. I'd like to add a fire safety suggestion for those readers who are planning to build or buy a new home - an installed fire sprinkler system. They work automatically, at the very early stage of a home fire and in most cases extinguish it before the fire department can even get there. That saves lives and limits the damage to a small area. Sprinklers are activated by high heat, not smoke. Only the sprinkler closest to the fire activates, not all of them at once like in the movies. The Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition (HFSC) is a nonprofit and noncommercial (no ads or endorsements) educational group with free info about this: www.HomeFireSprinkler.org

jeffmkeller Not to split hairs, but that fire pit in picture #3 is not "at least 10 feet from house". Also, to preserve the Guinness after an emergency, it is critical to put it on ice ASAP. That is what the buckets are for. Besides the questionable picture selection, great article and advice that I will be using to help prepare out here in Earthquake Country.

linbar These are all wonderful ideas that need to be implemented by all. One other thing I didn't see mentioned under house fires: candles. Ask any firefighter and they will tell you they cause/start more fires in homes than you would expect. Never leave a room where one is burning.

dmann3268 The evacuation plan should proactively include your pets. Last year a storm took out our house and garage roofs. My husband was the only one home and couldn't find all the cats to put them in the basement with him. Everybody was fine afterwards, but now we now have a pole with a loop on it to catch those who hide under beds and sofas as well as leashes and carriers. We also have two small Bug Out backpacks near the door with a change of clothes, a few days of Rx meds, toiletries, pet food, flashlights, etc. In case of an emergency that takes out the power grid and we are stuck at home with ruined fridge food we have about a month's worth of dehydrated and canned food I got online from Emergency Essentials. I also got a deal on a 100-hour emergency light from Harbor Freight, but the best item we have is a car jump starter that is also an air compressor; I think it is a Stanley from Amazon. I keep one in my car and in Wisconsin winters it really comes in handy. You can also fill a flat tire with air using it.

Margery If you dont trust online storage for docs how about bank safe deposit box?

dlorna Margery....if the electricity is out the banks will not open their doors to anyone!! so keep that in mind when using safety deposit boxes.

Corby Hicks On the home inventory discussion, there is a great app called Home Inventory for Mac (http://machomeinventory.com) that will let you snap photos, jot down notes and values, store copies of important documents, etc. all in one place. Keeping an electronic version of your home inventory also makes it very easy to keep it up to date and store duplicate copies in several locations you trust...