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    The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home
    The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home
    The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home
    Ebook185 pages1 hour

    The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home

    By Zachary J. Brooks

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    About this ebook

    Disaster preparation has evolved. Have you? Is your house safe and well prepared against disasters and emergency situations? If your home is your castle, make sure your castle is fortified.

    This No-Nonsense, Practical Guide brings you all you need to know about disaster-proofing your house. No fluff. Just action packed, concrete steps you can take now to make your home -- and your family -- safer. Right now.

    Learn how to prepare for natural disasters, man-made disasters, medical emergencies and all other crisis situations you may face in your home.

    Not just for elite "preppers", this guide brings you an entire chapter devoted to simple, affordable steps you can take to disaster-proof your home - with supplies you already have on hand.

    Each chapter has a "TOP TIP - that you probably haven't heard anywhere else". Each tip is essential info that might just save your life.

    For example:
    - The #1 thing you should NEVER do in a wildfire. The answer may surprise you!
    - The deadly way most people use a fire extinguisher wrong!
    - How you can still dial 911 even if you have no signal!
    - The #1 cause of death when using a generator in an emergency situation. Don't become a statistic!

    You'll also get this BONUS MATERIAL for free at the end of the book:
    - Six Checklists to Disaster-Proof Your Life
    - Extensive List of References for Further Reading (all free online resources)
    - Learn the FIVE FATAL MISTAKES to Avoid When Bugging In
    - Get our list of 12 Disaster/Survival Apps that Could Save Your Life

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZachary J. Brooks
    Release dateJun 13, 2016
    The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home

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      Book preview

      The No-Nonsense, Practical Guide to Disaster-Proofing Your Home - Zachary J. Brooks

      Introduction: Disaster Preparedness Just Got Smarter

      Not all disaster preparedness guides are created equal. The manual that came with your grandpa’s Cold War-era vault has some useful info, but lots of that is invalid or insufficient in a modern context. In fact, even books from the 80’s and 90’s are largely out of date in today’s world. We have witnessed impressive societal and technological advances in the last few years, and new strategies and gadgets have made a huge difference in how individuals and small communities can take disaster preparation and survival into their own hands. Technology also presents its share of new challenges that can impact your disaster plan.

      The frequency and severity of super-powered storms and natural disasters are greater every year. The Doomsday Clock is now closer to midnight than it has been since 1953. You and your home are more likely than ever before to be swept away by a freak accident. But you don’t have to be more likely to die.

      With a little forethought and preparation, it’s easy to equip yourself to protect your home and loved ones in an emergency. If you have any concerns about being able to look out for yourself and protect the people you care about, you’d be crazy not to have a plan.

      For the last few years, the University of Pennsylvania has been running a little game – a test. Participants are invited to play a video game that gives them a house, $20,000 in cash, and the opportunity to invest in different ways throughout the game. The goal is to end up with the most assets, value of house included, after ten virtual years. Players are warned that their home is in an earthquake-prone area, but told that investing all their cash in the bank gives a 10 percent return each year. Time after time, 88 percent of players fail to invest in safeguarding their home against disaster, and fail to win, even though the name of the game – Quake – spells it all out for them. How many of us fail to invest in something as tangible as their physical security in real life? Hopefully it shows you just why it’s so important to step outside the blinkered mindset of abstract finances and into the very real possibility of a disaster hitting you where it hurts – your own home.

      If you live in one of the top ten most disaster-prone states in the US, then the chances that a natural disaster and/or state emergency will be called in any given year are almost 100 percent. The most likely disaster depends on the state, and not all of them have been natural. Since 1980, the US has experienced more than 188 natural disasters with overall damage and costs totaling more than $1 billion each. The cumulative cost of these events exceeds $1 trillion.

      In 2015 alone, there were more than ten different billion-dollar weather disasters, including wildfires, floods, droughts, severe storms and blizzards (yes, ‘winter storms’ are in a separate NOAA category from ‘severe storms’). 155 people lost their lives to natural disasters in 2015, and thousands of people lost their homes and/or their livelihoods. After hurricane Sandy, some families in New York State waited months for their mains power to be reconnected to the grid. Others still hadn’t been allowed to return home at all.

      If a natural disaster happened in your state, your town, and your homestead – how would it affect you? Do you know how to safely escape your home and workplace in case of emergency? Do you know what you would do if your water or gas were cut off unexpectedly? If you couldn’t leave your home, how long could you survive on the food and water you have in your house right now? Do you know which of your neighbors has first-aid skills?

      What about other man-made threats like a home fire, medical emergency or other crisis situation? Is your home prepared for those? Are you?

      When disaster strikes, you have three options:

      Hope that someone with all the right skill-set (and good intentions) will tell you what to do

      Gain all the right knowledge, skills and equipment to be able to take care of yourself, disaster-proof your home, and protect your immediate family

      Gain all the right knowledge, skills and equipment to be able to take a leadership role in your local community, inspire the strong and skilled, protect the vulnerable, and help your local area recover quickly

      Most disaster prep is pretty straightforward stuff, but it’s no use if you leave it to the last minute. Jeff Swiney, a towboat pilot from Lafayette, Louisiana, has seen three major hurricanes hit his home in the past 10 years. His strategy for weathering storms is easy to execute because everything has been fully planned out in advance. Nothing's basic when a hurricane is blowing down your house, he says. By then it's too late, and that's when you see people fighting for the last bag of Doritos at the grocery store.

      You can’t control whether or not a natural disaster or freak accident will happen where you live. What you can control is how prepared you are when it does happen.

      This guide you now hold in your hands is an action-packed walk-through of a disaster scenario in your home. What to plan for, what to pack, how to fortify your infrastructure, and some smart uses of modern technology to ensure that you don’t just survive in a time of disaster – you thrive.

      Let’s get started.

      1. Identifying Threats and Risks

      This chapter is broken into bite-sized chunks. First, we’ll give an overview of the most common natural disasters that are likely to occur across the United States. Second, we’ll outline the biggest ‘unnatural’ and man-made threats to your home and your family’s safety. Since the first two questions only look at external threats, we then turn our focus to the risks that your home itself can present. What are the weakest links in your home’s defenses?

      Identifying Threats to Your Area

      Natural Disasters

      Every year in the US, about 11 natural disasters occur that deal over $1 billion in damage each. But a disaster doesn’t have to be on that scale to knock your life off course – it only has to be big enough to hit your house. Would you rather spend the $10 thousand you’ve got saved on flood repairs and dysentery treatments, or holidays and beer?

      The US government lists thirteen types of major disaster that you can prepare for:

      Blizzards (winter storms) and Extreme Cold

      Drought

      Earthquakes

      Extreme Heat

      Floods

      Hurricanes

      Landslides & Debris Flow

      Severe Weather

      Thunderstorms & Lightning

      Tornadoes

      Tsunamis

      Volcanoes

      Wildfires

      Each of these disasters is more or less likely depending on the region you live in. To learn more about each of these events and how to secure your property against them, read the next chapter, and visit http://www.ready.gov/.

      Zombies, Triffids and Space Weather: Other threats to your survival

      Major threats aren’t just caused by the weather. Local, state, or national disasters can be called for a range of other events that pose the same threat to your life and safety if they catch you unprepared:

      Pandemics

      Serious breakdowns to infrastructure

      Power outages

      Disruption to water or food supplies

      Water or food shortages

      Military conflict

      Space weather (disruptions to the magnetic field etc.)

      And pretty much every science-fiction apocalypse scenario ever

      The bottom line is this: if you make your home disaster-proof with natural disasters in mind, your home is probably unnatural-disaster-proof as well. If you’ve already installed hardcore anti-hurricane storm shutters, then boarding up your windows against the undead

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