The 4 Pillars of Disaster Preparedness (Part 1)

Disaster Preparedness at its basic level is all about preserving the health and life of yourself and those you care about. I believe that it is an expression of love and respect for the gift of life. We can rightly be concerned about the preparedness of our possessions, or businesses, but ultimately none of that matters without the preservation of life.

There are 4 main categories that all our preparations will revolve around. These categories address the 4 essential areas necessary to preserve life in the event of a disaster. They are:

• Air
• Water
• Shelter
• Food

This list will help you prioritize those items you must absolutely pack for any evacuation scenario. Anything other than these or items that support them must similarly go through a rigorous method of prioritization to ensure that you are not adding unnecessary weight to your Go Bag. Your Go Bag must contain the means to provide or obtain these 4 Pillars of Disaster Preparedness.

• Air

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Have you ever tried to see how long you can hold your breath for? Unless this is something you regularly practice my guess is not very long. This underscores the need for access to breathable air in any disaster. It’s not practicable to carry an oxygen tank in the event of an evacuation (unless it’s medically necessary). So, obtaining clear, clean air may require that you move to a new location (and quickly). This may be the case if you find yourself in a fire or near an industrial accident. A KN-95 mask will offer a measure of protection from particulates in the air, and every Go-Bag should have one. There are other face masks you can purchase that will filter out other lethal gases. Just remember, when adding items to your Go-Bag we must consider their weight.

I’ve mentioned the importance of watching your Go-Bags weight several times already. For more information on that subject see the Blog - “The Bag” subheading “Payload Capacity”.

• Water

You can start to feel the effects of dehydration in as little as a few hours. Go a few days without water and you will be at death’s doorstep. The importance of having access to clean water cannot be overstated. Most recommendations that I have read say you need to have access to about a gallon of water per day. That seems like a lot, but much depends on your activity level and the amount needed for cooking and cleaning (personal hygiene and cooking utensils). 

Water is heavy so you don’t want to carry too much of it. I usually carry about a liter around on hikes and other excursions. Having a way to purify water is vital to supplying your daily needs. Of course, it goes without saying that you have some access to it. i.e., stream, pond, lake.

Boiling water is an excellent way to kill all the bacteria, viruses, and protozoan (the little things that swim around the water). It needs to be a hard rolling boil for a couple minutes to make sure it’s done the job.

There are also a lot of products on the market that will filter out all the bad stuff and some tablets that will do the job as well. I’ll talk about some of these in later posts. Suffice it to say, these products can save you a lot of weight while still giving you access to the water you need.

In my next post I’ll cover the next two Pillars: Shelter and Food.

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(These are my personal observations and opinions, yours may differ. Also, I sell and recommend certain products and services here and might be compensated for such recommendations.)