Category Archives: Emergency Preparedness

Oral Rehydration Solutions for Emergency Preparedness

image of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)Click here for homemade electrolyte solution information.

As the coronavirus continues to make the news, we’ll be offering some posts with advice for preparing. As with any potential emergency, there are common-sense preparations that one can make, such as making sure that your family has an adequate supply of food and other items, in case supplies are interrupted or you are unable to leave your home.

Note: Please keep in mind that I’m not a doctor. I’m a lawyer. Just as you wouldn’t take legal advice from a doctor, you probably shouldn’t take medical advice from a lawyer. So please do your due diligence, and take medicine only upon medical advice.   But you can’t take medicine if it’s not available. My main focus is giving advice to make sure you have medicine available in the first place.

Basic Preparations:  Food and Medicine

For pandemic preparedness, the Department of Homeland Security’s ready.gov website recommends that you store a two week supply of water and food. (You can find food storage pointers at many earlier posts, many of which are linked here.)  The site also stresses that you should make sure you have a continuous supply of any prescription drugs you are taking. This seems especially critical in the case of the corona virus. According to news reports, about 90% of the active ingredients used by U.S. drug manufacturers originate in China. It seems quite possible that supply chains will be disrupted. If you take any prescription medications, it’s best to get refills as soon as possible, so that you always have a supply on hand. If the pharmacy can’t fill your prescription, it won’t be an emergency if you have a month’s supply at home. But if the pharmacy can’t get your medicine, and you just took the last pill, this could turn into a serious emergency.

Unfortunately, some insurers won’t pay for the refill until you’ve almost run out. If that’s the case, you might consider simply paying cash for an extra refill. But whatever you do, don’t just walk into the pharmacy and say that you’ll be paying cash. That could be a mistake that costs you hundreds of dollars. In this post and this post, I have suggestions that will dramatically reduce the cost of your prescription. You’ll save so much that you’ll be angry that the pharmacy was willing to charge so much in the first place.  In fact, in some cases, you might wind up paying a cash price that is less than your insurance co-pay.

Ready.gov also recommends making sure you have adequate supplies of nonprescription drugs and other health supplies, “including pain relievers, stomach remedies, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes, and vitamins.”

Oral Rehydration Solutions

By “fluids with electrolytes,” they mean oral rehydration solutions, the most familiar brand name of which being Pedialyte. If you are dehydrated by a condition such as diarrhea, this could be a lifesaving item to have on hand.

Unfortunately, this could be expensive to stock up in advance. However, with some foresight, you can do this economically. The simplest way to plan for possible dehydration is to stock up is to buy some Pedialyte or generic equivalent. It’s probably less expensive to buy it in powdered form. One replacement, albeit probably not as good medically, is a sport drink such as Gatorade. It is available ready to drink, or as a powder. (I have noticed that Dollar Tree sells small containers of a generic equivalent of Pedialyte, and at $1, these are quite economical for stocking up.)

Preparing to Make Homemade Rehydration Solution

As a last resort, you can make an oral rehydration solution at home. There are a number of recipes available, including from reputable sources such as the World Health Organization.

In most cases, you can make an acceptable oral rehydration solution with items that you normally have at home, such as sugar, table salt, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). If this is all you have, then this is certainly better than nothing. Many recipes, however, also call for potassium chloride. For example,  this recipe from physician Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, adapted from the WHO formula. includes potassium chloride. This is probably something you don’t have in your kitchen. However, the good news is that it’s readily obtainable prior to the disaster, and you can get enough to last a lifetime for just a few dollars. You can buy it at the grocery store in the form of “Morton Lite Salt.” This product is half regular salt (sodium chloride) and half potassium chloride. Since sodium chloride is also part of the recipe, this can be used. Dr. Fitzgerald, gives the following recipe, to be added to four cups of water: 1/4 tsp. table salt, 3/4 tsp. baking soda, and 1/4 tsp. Morton Lite salt.  For flavoring, you can add some Crystal Light or Sugar Free Kool-Aid.

Another alternative is Morton Salt Substitute, which is 100% potassium chloride. If your recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium chloride, then you would use a full teaspoon of Morton Light Salt. On the other hand, you could also use a half teaspoon of regular salt and a half teaspoon of Morton Salt Substitute. The only difference is that the Morton Salt Substitute appears to be slightly more expensive.

Since the Lite Salt is so cheap (it’s probably about $2 at your supermarket), it seems to me that it’s cheap insurance. Since the only reason we would ever use it is for an emergency rehydration solution, I wrote the recipe and taped it to the container. We always have the other ingredients on hand, and it’s good to know that we have a method to produce a lifesaving medicine, if the need ever arises.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site earns a small commission if you make a purchase after following the link.



Broadcasting and the 2010 Haitian Earthquake

U.S. Marine shows Haitian man how to operate crank radio. US Dept. of Defense photo.

U.S. Marine shows Haitian man how to operate crank radio. US Dept. of Defense photo.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the catastrophic magnitude 7 earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010. The epicenter of the quake was about 25 kilometers west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where tens of thousands died.

The actual death count will never be known, but estimates range from 100,000 to 316,000. The morgues were overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies, and most were buried in mass graves.

Over a quarter of a million residences, along with 30,000 commercial buildings, had collapsed or were severely damaged. Not surprisingly, the country’s communications infrastructure was severely damaged. The public telephone system was totally unavailable, and cellular service was severely impacted.

A bright spot in communications was radio broadcasting. The Port-au-Prince region was served by 50 radio stations prior to the earthquake.  All but one of these, Radio Signal FM, were initially knocked off the air. Within a week, however, about 20 stations, including Radio Lumière, a Christian station serving most of the country, were back on the air. Radio Lumière’s staff moved the station’s equipment to a tent outside its main building in order to resume broadcasting. Also, within about a week, a French community broadcasting association had a 300 watt transmitter flown in from Paris.

Additional broadcasting came from foreign countries. The U.S. Air Force Commando Solo aircraft was broadcasting Voice of America programming in Haitian Creole, which was also transmitted from the VOA’s 1180 kHz transmitter in Marathon, Florida. The BBC World Service also launched a Creole service with information about aid and rescue programs, as well as messages from people trying to locate family members. Initially, broadcasts were on shortwave, but were later relayed by FM relays from stations in Haiti as they came on the air.

One of the first voices on the air came from station 4VEH in Cap-Haïtien. That city, in the north of Haiti, was largely unaffected by the quake, and broadcasts continued on its AM station and FM network. The 10,000 watt AM signal on 840 kHz, would be listenable 136 kilometers away in Port-au-Prince. But to make sure, the station quickly made arrangements with Trans World Radio (TWR) on Bonaire to simulcast the 4VEH program. While the distance covered was over 800 kilometers, the entire path is over saltwater, and TWR’s then-100,000 watt 800 kHz signal (it’s now 400,000) watts was beamed directly toward Haiti. It put in a formidable signal which could easily be picked up on even the most inexpensive AM radio. The Creole program from the Christian radio station shared both practical help and a message of hope.

For those without radios in Haiti, a number of groups distributed solar or crank radios in Port-au-Prince. Among these was the U.S. military, which distributed 50,000 radios in the city.

This story serves as a reminder of the importance of having a battery-operated radio available in case of disaster. Even though the cellular network is down, and there is devastation for many miles in every direction, radio signals can be picked up, even with an inexpensive radio, for hundreds of miles. A battery-operated radio is a minimum requirement, as long as you have plenty of batteries. A radio that can be operated with a hand crank and/or solar power is an even better option. Shown below are some inexpensive options.

Battery Radios

Solar and/or Crank Radios

U.S. CDC image.U.S. CDC image.

References



Note: Some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site earns a small commission if you purchase after clicking on the link.

Car Winter Survival Kit

CarSurvivalKitWith winter soon upon us, I decided it was time to make sure the cars were equipped with survival kits. Other items are important (such as blankets or sleeping bags, extra winter clothing, tools, a shovel, sand, and probably others), but here are the items that I put in to make sure that the passengers have something to eat if the car gets stuck. This kit contains food and a method of cooking the food.  I made identical kits for each car.

My experience with getting stuck in a blizzard actually involves getting to a hotel in the nick of time, only to find that the hotel didn’t have any food. All of the food here could be heated up in a hotel microwave. Everything here came from either the dollar store or Walmart (with the exception of the pan, which came from Goodwill). Here is a list of the contents, with links to Amazon.

For all of these foods, water is necessary, and I always have some in the car.  But if stranded in winter, it’s probably because the car is stuck in frozen water, meaning that it’s readily available.

Links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site gets a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on the link.



Inexpensive Emergency Stove

With winter coming up, I’m looking for a small emergency stove to toss in the car, and this one looks like it should fit the bill.

The official winter survival advice from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety is “don’t expect to be comfortable–the challenge is to survive until you’re found.”

On the other hand, if you can be as comfortable as possible, it seems to me that’s an added bonus. The state recommends keeping candles in a car survival kit. They can safely be burnt inside a metal coffee can for both light and heat. The best choice is probably a package of inexpensive tea candles.  Most brands reportedly burn for about two hours each, and a couple of them in the bottom of a coffee can can warm up a cold car surprisingly well.

You could cook over candles, especially if you just needed to warm something up, or to melt snow. But an improvised stove made out of tin cans isn’t the most convenient setup. To make the ordeal of being stranded in a blizzard a bit more pleasant, a small emergency stove like the one shown above would be ideal. The great advantage of this stove is that it comes with fuel in the form of 24 fuel tablets. While the brand name isn’t given, they appear to be the similar to Esbit fuel tablets.  Thus, you can just toss the package in the car, with the knowledge that it’s ready to go, complete with fuel.  Any metal container, such as the coffee can the candles are stored in, could be used as a cooking pot.  (The pan shown in the picture on the box is not included with the stove.)  You might consider getting a cheap pan from the dollar store or an inexpensive aluminum mess kit.

Each tablet provides enough fuel to boil a few cups of water, so the 24 provided tablets are probably enough to ride out the entire crisis. But if more fuel is needed, you could use your candles o ra gel fuel such as Sterno or Fancy Heat (Fancy Heat is available at Dollar Tree,
so you can stock up economically).  Whatever fuel you’re using, crack open a window if using it in the car.  Outside of the car, you can also use sticks or even paper for fuel.

If you’re ever stranded in your car in the winter, then it’s undoubtedly because of snow.  The good news is that you don’t have to worry about water for drinking or cooking.  After all, frozen water is what your car got stuck in in the first place.  With this stove, you can easily melt it.  Canned goods wouldn’t store particularly well in your car in winter, but with a stove such as this one, you have the opportunity to cook many inexpensive dehydrated foods and beverages such as ramen noodles, instant soup, instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, or instant coffee.  In fact, even in lesser emergencies, such as forgetting your lunch money at home, a stove such as this would allow you to cook a pleasant lunch at a city park or highway rest area.

The link below shows the current price for this stove on Amazon.  As you can see, the price is quite reasonable, given that it comes complete with fuel.

Of course, for all of these ideas, don’t forget matches.  Wooden matches are probably the best, since they’re easier to use if your hands are cold. But in a pinch, book matches will serve the purpose.  Keep in mind that a lighter will stop working at extremely low temperatures.  Whichever kind of matches you get, it’s probably a good idea to store them in a ziplock bag to make sure they’re dry when needed.

See this link for more ideas for your car winter survival kit.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site gets a small commission if you buy after clicking on the links.




Canned Bacon: 1919 and 2019

1919Sept25MilJourFullAd1919Sept25MilJourWith World War 1 soldiers on their way home or already there, the U.S. Army had some surplus commodities to get rid of a hundred years ago, and that included bacon. This ad appeared in the Milwaukee Journal a hundred years ago today, September 25, 1919, for the Boston Store in Milwaukee.

The store offered mostly dry goods, ranging from from toilet paper (6 rolls for 19 cents) up to a player piano ($395).  They also had a limited selection of food items, apparent “loss leaders” to get traffic into the store, shown at left.  And, of course, what stands out is the twelve pound can of army bacon for $3.66.  That, of course, is before a century of inflation, but a good way to put old prices in context is to remember that the money was made out of silver, so that the $3.66 really meant about 3.66 ounces of silver.  Today, that would be about $60.

That’s still a reasonable price, however.  The current WalMart price for 12 pounds of bacon is about $53.  That bacon, of course, isn’t really suitable for long-term storage, whereas the 1919 product was canned.  Interestingly enough, though, canned bacon is still readily available, and can be purchased at Amazon.  As you can see below, it’s rather expensive, especially considering that this price is for a nine ounce can:

On the other hand, for your emergency food storage needs, it might fill a niche.  According to the reviews, the product is excellent, and the 9 ounce can contains about 50 slices of bacon.  So having a can or two in the pantry might not be out of the question.

Since the modern product has 50 slices in the 9 ounce can, this means that the 12 pound can from 1919 contained several hundred slices.  So it probably was worth racing down to the store to get a couple cans.

If you’re looking for more ideas for protein for your home food storage, the most economical is probably dry beans or perhaps peanut butter.  If you crave real meat, one of the cheapest is probably tuna.  Other good options are potted meat, canned chicken, or, of course, the venerable Spam.  But if you want to get a can or two of canned bacon, I can’t blame you.

For more information about emergency food storage, see my food storage page.



Review of XioNiu Hand Crank Generator

When I placed another Amazon order, I decided to try one of these little hand crank generators. The XioNiu Hand Crank Generator is designed for use in an emergency to charge USB devices. The cost was so low, that I couldn’t really resist. You can see the current price at the Amazon link below. I believe it’s eligible for free Prime shipping. I got free shipping by combining it with a larger order:

It does work as advertised (at least until it gets broken), but you need to understand its limitations.  The product is really more of a novelty than something that is particularly useful.  I received it from China a couple of weeks after ordering it.  The one I ordered was broken.  I requested an exchange, which prompted a few e-mail exchanges from the seller in China.  The seller didn’t want me to bother sending it back, and offered me a refund.  I asked for a replacement rather than the refund, but the seller didn’t seem interested.  The link I ordered from didn’t have any reviews, but I found another link for what appears to be the identical product, and a good portion of them seem to arrive broken.  So it looks like the XioNiu factory has some quality control issues they need to resolve.

Finally, I agreed to a refund, and it was applied to my Amazon account promptly.  Rather than throwing it away, I gave it to my son and asked him whether he could repair it.

Amazingly, he was able to fix it, at least for a while.  The actual generator was slightly out of line inside the case, and didn’t connect to the gears attached to the crank.  My son simply set it back in place and it started working.  In the process, however, the plastic into which the screws go broke off, and we had to put the case back together with electrical tape.  And after working for a day, it must have gotten jostled and stopped working again.  He’ll probably be able to repair it again, although I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.

There is a small red LED on the outside of the case which comes on when the crank is turned.  This light is very small and red, so it’s not particularly useful as a flashlight.  But in a pinch, it does provide some light, so if you’re trapped in utter darkness, you’ll at least have enough light to find your other flashlight.

The USB charger does seem to work.  It would probably take forever to fully charge a device, but at least it would provide enough juice to make a call or two in an emergency situation.

Overall, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to keep one or two of these at home, and toss one into your vehicle or desk drawer at work.  It does perform its intended function, assuming you get one that’s not broken.  However, I wouldn’t want to rely upon one of these as my sole source of electric power in an emergency.  Even though it works, it is cheaply made, and won’t last forever.  Indeed, as my experience shows, it might not even survive being mailed here from China.

This charger contains a USB socket, so you will need the cable to connect to your phone or other device.  I wouldn’t want to rely upon this charger in an emergency, but it is infinitely better than nothing.  You probably have a phone and the connecting cable.  Eventually, the battery will go dead, and this charger would at least allow you to use it for a few minutes.

If you’re thinking about making more serious preparations for a power outage, see my earlier post and some of the others linked to it.  If you’re just looking for a good quality crank charger for your phone or other device, then I recommend the Midland Emergency Radio shown here.  It’s larger and more expensive, but it seems to be very well made.  It is first and foremost a radio, and a quite good one, pulling in all local AM and FM stations as well as any portable.  At night, it does receive distant AM stations very well.  It has a NOAA weather radio, and includes the alert feature, meaning that you can set it to sound an alarm in case of a severe weather warning.  The flashlight is also excellent.  It contains a built-in battery which can be charged in three ways.  To keep it topped off before an emergency, you just need to occasionally plug it into a USB adapter.  It also has a solar panel, so it should maintain its charge just with normal daylight.  And it does have a hand crank that seems a lot more reliable than the cheap Chinese one I tried.

If you don’t mind taking it apart and fixing it occasionally, then by all means get one of the cheap hand crank generators shown at the top of the page.  And it looks like many buyers luck out and get a working one, so it might be worth taking your chances.  I would imagine that some of them are working when they arrive, and it is a good concept.  However, this particular model is simply unreliable for emergency use, and should only be considered as an additional backup if your basic needs are already met.

Links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site gets a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking.



Hurricane Preparedness Links

cone graphic

NOAA image.

With Hurricane Dorian bearing down on Florida, here are links to earlier posts on hurricane preparedness.



Preparing for Power Outages

New York during 20__ power outage caused by Hurricane Sandy. US Govt. photo.

New York during 2012 power outage caused by Hurricane Sandy. Image Credit: Hybirdd, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

The recent blackout in New York serves as a reminder that you should be prepared and have some useful items on hand.  The suggestions on this page are a bare minimum, and you probably want to be more prepared.  But this page can serve as a checklist to make sure you have at least the very basics on hand.

We call it a “blackout” because the lights go out, and the natural first idea is that you’ll need light.  Chances are, your cell phone will work as a flashlight, but the battery won’t last forever, and it’s probably not the most convenient.  Fortunately, flashlights are very inexpensive, and you ought to keep one or more in various locations in your home and vehicle.  The Eveready flashlights shown at left are very inexpensive, but they are fairly durable and have long battery life.  (Even though they look like your grandfather’s flashlight, they actually contain quite good LEDs and use only one D cell rather than two.)   They come with batteries, but it doesn’t hurt to   get some spares.

Your next need is information.  In many (but not all) blackouts, the cellular network will keep functioning, at least for a few hours, so being able to power your phone is important.   Obviously, you won’t be able to plug it in to the wall, so at a minimum, you’ll want to have a charger that plugs into your car, such as the one shown at left.  Obviously, you’ll want to make sure that the plug fits your phone.  This one uses a micro USB plug, which almost all non-Apple phones now use.  If you already have some USB cables, the 12 volt USB plugs are very inexpensive.

If you want to charge away from your car, one very inexpensive method is the USB charger shown at the right.  This charger contains a USB outlet (so you’ll still need the USB-Micro USB cord) and is powered by four AA alkaline batteries.  Therefore, you can charge your phone at any time, as long as you have AA alkaline batteries.  The extremely low cost of this type of charger makes it ideal to keep a few on hand in case of emergency.  Even if the power is out, you might still be able to buy batteries.  But more importantly, it allows you to keep batteries on hand to keep your phone charged.

There are a few downsides of this type of charger.  The main one is that it goes through the AA batteries quite fast, so it’s not a good long-term solution.  Also, it does not “use up” the batteries completely.  In other words, even after you are unable to charge your phone with that battery, the battery is still good for other things, such as a flashlight or radio.  Therefore, if you have some of these chargers on hand, I would recommend also getting some inexpensive AA flashlights.

And speaking of radios, you should have at least one battery operated radio.  You can get information on your cell phone, but streaming is generally battery intensive.  Also, in many emergencies, the cellular network will become unavailable or extremely slow.  During the New York blackout, WCBS radio was providing excellent information about current conditions, and anyone with an inexpensive radio would have been able to tune in.  The inexpensive radio shown at the left would give you this information immediately.  As an added bonus, it runs on AA batteries.  So when you have depleted a battery charging your phone, you can still use that “dead” battery to listen to the radio.

 

One product you may want to consider for all of these needs is the Midland emergency radio shown at the left.  I own one of these, and it can come in quite handy.  It is a combination radio/flashlight/cell phone charger.  The flashlight is excellent, and the radio is quite good.  In addition to normal AM FM broadcasts, it picks up NOAA weather stations, and even includes an alert feature that will sound an alarm in the event of severe weather alerts.  It has both a USB and micro USB plug to charge a phone.  One micro USB cord is included.   It has a built-in battery which can be charged in three ways.  First of all, before an emergency, you can charge it up by plugging it into a standard USB charger, or even by plugging it into your computer.  It’s a good idea to keep the battery topped off in this way.  But when power is unavailable, you can charge it with the built-in solar panel, or with the built-in hand crank.  Thus, this one device will provide you with a flashlight and radio, and will also keep your phone charged.

Obviously, these suggestions are just the starting point for preparedness.  But just having a source of light and information in an emergency will go a long ways in making an emergency more bearable.  And the cost of these minimal preparations is extremely low.  After you have made these basic preparations, some of my other pages will provide you with ideas of other preparations you can make for emergencies:

Some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site receives a small commission if you buy after using the link.  The links above are for ordering on Amazon.  

 

 



Hurricane Preparedness Links

cone graphic

NOAA image.

With another tropical storm bearing down on the Gulf coast, here are links to earlier posts on hurricane preparedness:



Radio Direction Finding

1959JuneElecWorldCoverSixty years ago this month, the June 1959 issue of Electronics World carried a good basic introduction to marine direction finding (DF).  The cover image shows a number of commercially made DF units, and the article explains how they work.

While the technology looks archaic, it actually still works quite well, and will continue to do so as long as there are AM radio stations on the air.  While commercial direction finders are no longer readily available, virtually any AM radio will work well, as long as the antenna is directional.  And if the radio has an internal loop antenna, it will be directional.

For example, the inexpensive portable shown at the right will perform very well.  (It’s available at Amazon at this link, but any other inexpensive portable will work just as well.)  You simply rotate the radio until the signal is the weakest.  At that point, the internal antenna (usually in parallel with the top of the radio) is in a straight line with a station.  You place a ruler on the map over that station’s location, and draw a line in that direction.  You repeat the process with a second station, and where the lines meet is your location.  You’ll need to orient the map, so if you don’t know what way is North, it’s a good idea to have an inexpensive compass.  And you don’t really need a ruler.  You place the map on a table oriented with the Earth–the top of the map facing North–and then use the top of the radio as your ruler.

1959JuneElecWorld

This method is surprisingly accurate.  It’s very easy to find your location within a mile, and with some practice, you’ll be able to narrow it down even more.  It’s not quite as accurate as GPS, but if GPS ever becomes unavailable for any reason, this is an excellent backup method.  The example shown at the left is typical.  By knowing the exact location of radio stations in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Benton Harbor, MI, the boat can find its location within a few hundred yards.

Radio station locations are shown on maritime and aeronautical charts.  You can also find the exact locations of AM radio stations from the FCC database.