Old Natural Ways - The Urban Prepper - A Quick Start Handbook for Modern Day Preppers to Prepare For Any Disasters

The Urban Prepper

A Quick Start Handbook for Modern Day Preppers to Prepare For Any Disasters

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

A Quick Look at Disasters, Accidents and Emergencies

The lexical definition of disaster is a catastrophic event, whether natural or accident, causing significant damages to humans or the environment. Disasters are often attributed to natural calamities, which every country experience. However, disaster management experts also coined the term manmade disasters. As the term implies, these disasters are caused by humans or other man-made inventions. Common disasters that threat nations include the following:

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters are triggered by natural phenomena like severe environmental changes. Geographical profiles of countries often trigger these changes. For instance, countries situated along and within the Ring of Fire, a site within the Pacific Oceans basic, tend to experience tectonic activities contributing to more occurrences of earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions. Locations along the coastal area sustain damages from hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis. Usual types of natural disasters apart from the aforementioned ones are floods, tornadoes, winter storms, droughts, heat waves, wildfires and epidemics.

Man-made Disasters

Man-made inventions, infrastructures and technological advancements trigger these disasters. Despite their advanced natures, these inventions and high-end facilities may have malfunctioning systems. These errors can have significant damages on the environment and on human population. Examples are chemical spills, nuclear plant emergencies, explosions and power outages. Man-made disasters also include attacks with the goal of damaging properties and hurting other people. Terrorist attacks fall under this category. Types of terrorist attacks are bombings and chemical and biological terrorism. Civil unrest is also included being disruptive of peace in a community and may even turn into a full-blown chaos.

Government authorities have already provided countless resources about these disasters. Resources are also available online. This stresses that preparation is indeed crucial to handle disasters and their complex effects to everyone.

Preparation also starts at home, which is why its best to know your location well and how to disaster proof your house then have all the needed items at hand before these events occur.

Chapter 2

Local government offices record past occurrences of disasters and their types in the site. Focus your research on past catastrophic events and their severity level to set your expectations. Check if these disasters were too severe that people must evacuate. Look into local officers procedures in handling evacuation and the duration before declaring the site is safe for residents to return to their homes. Details obtained through this research will be useful in this initial preparation phase.

Inspect fire and emergency exits in your property. These are easier to see in apartments as they are often located on window railings. Condominium units have designated emergency exits connected to stairs. Know these exits upon settling in the house. Create a map and mark these exits for your familys use.

Check if the house has installed safety features. Inquire if smoke and fire detectors are installed inside the house. See if there are fire extinguishers, water source and hose in case of fire, and others used for fire accidents. Use these as points before choosing a property. Youre allowed to conduct an ocular inspection of the property, which is the best time to ask the real estate agent about additional safety features. This will give you an idea about necessary modifications to set in the future.

Documents should be protected at all times because obtaining new copies is inconvenient. Important documents to protect are bank statements, tax records, loan agreements, credit card accounts and statements, business-related documents, insurance policies, personal documents like birth, marriage and death certificates, passports, citizenship records, and others. Photocopy these documents to get duplicates, which will be your backup copies if you lost the original through disasters about purification depending on water composition within the area.

Having cash on hand is essential since withdrawing money from ATMs might be impossible. These loose bills serve as your emergency money for buying supplies and other needs. Save at least a hundred dollars cash on hand in smaller denominations.

Some natural disasters, like in cases of typhoons, dont occur instantly. Weather experts study and forecast weather changes to warn people for possible damages they can bring. This gives residents, especially those in nearby cities that may be hit with the disasters, an ample time to shop for supplies.

Keep your devices charged during disaster occurrence. Power outage often follows the initial disaster attacks. Take advantage of electricity while its around.

Chapter 3

Preparing Yourself and Your Family

Preparation extends to your family members. Your goal is to get everyone through the disaster safely in a calm way. Family members are different, which means preparation according to age and health conditions is also different. Follow general and special preparation tips to ensure your family is aware of the disaster and handle the situation confidently.