Tips

Storage Tips

Store supplies in a sturdy trash barrel, box, suitcase, backpack or duffel bag.  Store in closet, garage or other safe place. Consider outdoor storage in water proof plastic trash can. To store in a plastic trash can:

• Top: Flashlight, batteries, first aid kit, leather gloves
• Middle: Food
• Bottom: Clothing, bedding

Keep water in a separate container.  Label your containers.

Other Important Tips

• Do not use candles.
• Keep fire extinguishers in separate locations.
• Pre-tune radios to emergency frequencies (88.5 FM or 740 AM).
• Always keep car fueled.
• Plan ahead to have emergency chargers for cell phones.

Secure Your Gas Appliances

Your stove, water heater, furnace, clothes dryer, etc., may run on natural gas or propane.  Unsecured gas appliances may crush someone or rupture their gas feed line during a quake.  If these objects move or topple, the resulting gas leak may destroy your home, which would otherwise have survived with only minor damage.

1. Secure all gas appliances to a wall stud, and use flexible gas line. The flexible gas line should be longer than necessary to allow for some movement.
2. The appliance should be secured top and bottom to prevent tipping, rolling and sliding.
3. Use heavy plumber’s tape or braided cable to secure your water heater to the studs in the wall.

Secure Your Water Heater

In order to prevent movement of your water heater during an earthquake, you need to secure it to the floor and the wall studs behind it. Movement by the water heater can cause gas or water lines to break, destroying a home that otherwise might have survived the earthquake. Also, insure that your gas lines to your appliances are of current flexible designs.

1. Wrap a 1-1/2-inch-wide, 16-gauge-thick metal strap A around the top of the water heater and bolt the ends together. Do the same about 1/3 of the way up the side of the water heater
2. Take four lengths of EMTelectrical conduit, each no longer than 30 inches. Flatten the ends. Bolt one end to the metal strap as shown B. Screw the other end to a 2-inch by 4-inch stud in the wall using a 5/16-  inch by 3-inch lag screw.
3. Be sure a flexible pipe C is used to connect the gas supply to the heater.

Secured water heater image courtesy of Ready America Inc.
Text courtesy of US Geological Survey