Though many families neglect disaster preparedness, there are a
few simple things to help them through disaster
Even those with lasting memories of the last major earthquake to
impact San Benito and Santa Clara counties, aren’t always as
prepared as they could be for the next
”
big one.
”
Though many families neglect disaster preparedness, there are a few simple things to help them through disaster
Even those with lasting memories of the last major earthquake to impact San Benito and Santa Clara counties, aren’t always as prepared as they could be for the next “big one.”
Ivy Villegas remembers the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake well. As a student, she worked her way through college at a former Hollister restaurant, the Sugar Plum Farm. When the earth started shaking during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake, she was at work. She stood still in the fountain drink area, waiting for soda glasses to fall and cut her.
“I kept waiting for them to fall, but they rolled with the earthquake,” Villegas said. “It just kept rolling. I remember it rolling as opposed to real hard jolts.”
Villegas and her family came through the quake with little damage and no injuries. Like many local residents, Villegas and her husband, who share their Hollister home with their toddler son, haven’t thought too much about earthquake preparedness in the nearly 20 years since Loma Prieta.
Earthquake and disaster preparedness can be overwhelming to families for a variety of reasons and as a result, many families are not prepared. The American Red Cross found that less than 10 percent of households in the Bay Area have a disaster plan in place. Fewer than 10 percent of homeowners have had their houses retrofitted and less than 50 percent have disaster supply kits in their homes.
The Villegas family feels safe because the house they live in, which belonged to her husband’s grandmother, fell off its foundation in 1989 and has since been retrofitted.
“They had to redo the foundation and it’s been strengthened since that earthquake,” she said.
The family has arranged their bedroom to keep heavy picture frames and objects away from their beds because Villegas had picture frames fall off her apartment walls in 1989. Some larger furniture items are secured to the walls, but shelving in parts of the house is not bolted down.
“We do have – and it’s been since our son was born – we have talked about if there was an earthquake what we would do,” Villegas said. “We would probably run over each other trying to get to our son, but there is a door near his room that would be our exit.”
There are several key issues the family hasn’t worked out yet, such as an emergency meeting location or how to get in contact with each other if telephone lines go down. They don’t have complete disaster kits but they do have extra bottled water and canned goods on hand. The family is common in its response to preparation.
“Around the anniversary of an earthquake, or if we’ve had one, [people are preparing],” said Liz Ditz, the director of disaster preparedness for the Santa Clara Valley chapter of the American Red Cross. “In ordinary situations, people are not paying attention and not doing the jobs they should be doing.”
One of the most important things people overlook is having a good pair of sturdy shoes, such as work boots, near their bed. Another is keeping two sets of disaster supplies – latex gloves, work gloves, food, water, medications – and checking them once a year to replace items.
“The cost is a factor,” Ditz said. “It really adds up and costs money because you need to have something in the home and the vehicle.”
The American Red Cross offers courses and will even arrange to send volunteers to train in communities around Santa Clara county for free, though they ask for a donation to cover the cost of handouts for the class. The classes can be geared towards adults, children or community groups. American Red Cross sends volunteers into disaster zones, but it does take them time to mobilize volunteers.
“It takes about 48 hours for National Red Cross to get people in there, ascertain what responses need to be and to get those people on a plane and into the destruction area,” said Jan Masuda, a Morgan Hill Resident. “We need to be self-sustaining for about 72 hours.”
Masuda is a Red Cross-trained volunteer and is involved with Morgan Hill’s Community Emergency Response Team, a group of citizens who are trained under a national program to be first responders in their community.
Despite her life-long work in disaster situations, even Masuda admitted her family isn’t completely prepared for a major earthquake.
“It’s been too long since we’ve had a major disaster here,” she said. “We get too comfortable and we tend to think it’s not going to happen in my time or it’s not going to happen in my backyard.”
To keep herself from feeling overwhelmed, Masuda stocks her emergency kit a little at a time.
“When I go to the grocery store, I pick up one extra item and tuck it away,” she said. “Then it becomes something that people can afford and it’s not time consuming.”
When kids want to toss out an old backpack to get a new one, Masuda suggested families keep it and start stocking it with supplies.
As her children were growing up, she put together a small kit in a Ziploc bag that they carried with them to school. It contained money, the phone number of an out-of-state emergency contact, a letter from her, a foil thermal blanket a flashlight and a power bar.
“It was there all year round if they ever needed it,” she said.
Even with simple tips on how to prepare, many people still don’t follow through. Hollister resident Villegas explained her reasons for not preparing more.
“I don’t want to have a sense of doom,” Villegas said. “If I had all this stuff, I would think I was waiting for a disaster around the corner.”
