People, time to take it seriously! The odds of a damaging earthquake in Victoria is about one in three in the next 50 years but as research is done over and over again the odds are higher than people expected.
Each time we have a small quake a few more people are reminded we need to get ready for a serious earthquake.
Note the comments at 2:30. One important reason Christchurch managed to deal with the earthquake better than we could here is because there is a single local government, not 13 competing ones that are refusing to cooperate effectively on emergency planning.
2 comments:
Hi Bernard.
I've been giving this some thought in the last few years. I suspect that no amount of preparation would be sufficient in the event of a truly major quake.
The Japanese are the most prepared people in the world and even they were overwhelmed.
For the initial survivors of the quake, I think 72 hours of water/supplies is totally unrealistic... I think weeks, maybe even a couple of months would pass before significant help arrived on the island.
As I took the ferry home from the mainland this past weekend, I started giving serious consideration about how I would strike out for the mainland in the aftermath of a super-quake.
While it is true we can never be totally prepared, we can change our lives a little so that we are better prepared to deal with what happens. I think much of what is needed is to have a mindset accepting the fact that a damaging earthquake will happen. From that doing that at least your brain will look at the world around you and consider "Will that power pole fall and block my street? Is that bookshelf a danger to me in my bedroom?"
Our goal is a week of looking after ourselves, even though we are not there yet we are better than we were a year ago.
Most of the food in our house is some form of glass jar, I like the look of it and the ease of use but in the event of an earthquake food that could feed us for a couple of months is likely all lost. I accept that one major task for our family will be seeing what food we can recover among the glass shards in the kitchen.
I am not sure getting the mainland will make things better after the M9.0. The whole coast from Northern California to Cape Scott will be a disaster zone. At least here we have CFB Esquimalt.
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