In my first post about preparedness for disaster Prepare Yourself, Know the Basics! I presented the main list to keep in mind when preparing for an eventual disaster. In Prepare Yourself, Shelter, Water and Food, I developed a little bit more on the Big Threes of preparation.
With this post and the consecutive ones of this series, I will go a little bit deeper on each one of the Big Three. In today's post we will begin with the Shelter. As said before, it could appear a strange thing that the shelter is seen as more important than the water in a situation of preparedness. But when considered in its general context it makes a lot of sense to think about protecting yourself first, before even considering the question of Water and Food.
First, let's make things clear here, in the Big Threes the notion of Shelter is to be taken in its general sense, more like a protection from outside elements (those elements could be natural or human). The notion of shelter can then apply to Clothes, House, Tents, Shelter per se. In every case it is there as a way of protection, as in a state of emergency where you need to be shielded from external danger.
For instance
- If there was a Typhoon going on, you would need to be protected from debris flying around.
- If there was a looting going on you would have to protect your belongings (and all the Survival Food and Water you saved).
- If it was a Drought going on you would have to protect your water supply and have some shadows to keep yourself from the Sun.
But, for sure, in every Emergency situation, you would need to protect the most important for you - your life, and the life of those you care of. So sheltering is extremely important and should be placed first in Emergency Preparation.
This being said, and for good measure, let's develop the idea of Shelter with examples with four different cases : The Rain Case, The Wind Case, The Heat Case, The Cold Case.
In this post let's stop to the first of our list,
THE RAIN CASE
For most of us, it looks like the most obvious and logical reason to have a shelter of some sort (clothes, house, tents, etc) is to shield us from the rain. If rain can be a nice thing in the absolute, no one of us like to be under the rain or see the rain falling for too long - giving time it permeates everything, goes on your face, in your eyes, or on the windshield of the car preventing good visibility. It slow down your movement, it is sticky on the skin and definitively annoying in your shoes. In every case, the rain make any situation difficult to work or act in. Ask builders, gardeners, farmers... or someone who had to change a wheel under the rain what they really think about...
Now, take a simple rainy condition and put it in the context of a disaster and you have a heavy cocktail to deal with. Everything, absolutely everything is slowed down in rainy condition, emergency services can't do their work properly and victims see their condition worsen.
In a case of disaster we must be able to think and act with clarity, as such we must avoid, or at a minimum diminish, the impact of anything, like the rain, which can prevent us to act and think clearly.Shelter is important in every situation, but even vital when it comes to disaster.
Any type of Shelter is our protection, our shield, against external danger in every conditions, but even more so when it comes to disasters. Rain is one of those conditions which can go from normal to disastrous. Yet, if you think rain can be a problem, wait until we look into the Wind Case.
Until next post, Mabuhay!
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