How does emergency preparedness work?

into quite primitive conditions. No electricity, no telephone service, no medicine, no clean drinking water, and no shipments of food arriving because the roads were gone. Hurricanes can bring the same kind of destructive force across a wide area, and so can volcanoes. If your city were to be struck with a large scale disaster like this, would you and your family be read need to handle it? That's where emergency

preparedness comes in. The basic idea is to have enough supplies on hand so that your family can survive the week or two of pandemonium that follows any major disaster. One reason to be prepared is because it ensures the survival and relative comfort of your family. The other reason is because it makes things less chaotic for rescuers and relief crews. If you are able to manage your life without any help, it frees up rescue teams to handle those who are truly in need of their help. So

what do you have on hand in an emergency? Perhaps the most important thing is water. Human beings use a lot of water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and even for flushing the toilet. At a bare minimum, a person needs about a gallon per day. You would like to have at least enough water to handle three days, and a

week or two would be even better. If you have four people in your family and you're planning for a week of coverage, you need a minimum of twenty eight gallons stored somewhere in your house, and it needs to be in the right kind of package. Milk jugs of water start leaking after a year or so, clear plastic bottles won't. If there is a natural source of water nearby, like a river or a lake, you can use it. If you have a way to carry and sterilize the water.

You need any prescription medicines that are essential to your life, as well as an adequate first aid kit. Because there will be no electricity, you'll want to have a good flashlight and fresh batteries, as well as a battery operated radio to get information. Glow sticks are also nice to have available. You need some food. Many people have enough food in the pantry to handle a couple of days. In a big disaster, you may want a week or

two of food on hand. Canned foods like soups and other prepared foods, and dry foods like rice and pasta are probably best for long term storage. Keep in mind that you need a way to open the cans and to the food, an old fashioned can opener and a camp stover handy. It's nice to have some cash. With the power out in the telephone system down, a t m S and credit card machines are not going to work for the same reason. Gas stations are not going

to be pumping gas either. If you have some advanced warning of something like an approaching hurricane, filling up your car's gas tank is a good move, and taking out several hundred dollars in cash is also a smart thing to do. And don't forget the little things. If you run out of toilet paper, that is its own special disaster, keep several packages of toilet paper in the back of the bathroom cabinet just in case. Speaking of hurricanes, a big tarp and some rope might be nice things to

have in the garage. If your roof gets damaged, you may be able to cover the whole. If you want to write out a disaster and style, an emergency generator and enough gasoline to keep it running can be very nice things to have with it. You can keep your refrigerator running, provide lights at night, and so on. Having a generator requires an extra level of discipline because gasoline goes bad. If you're keeping gasoline in the garage for the generator, you need to replace it on a regular schedule.

Full on disasters like the one that happened in Japan don't occur very often, but when they do, it's nice to be prepared so you can survive without undue hardship. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.