Week 10 - Earthquakes! What is the most dangerous room in your home?

By Jackie Kloosterboer -Earthquake Preparedness Specialist, Speaker & Author - My Earthquake Preparedness Guide

After an Earthquake your number 1 concern will be your family. Where are they? How are they? These questions will flood your mind until you can make contact with your family.

Over the past weeks we have looked at several ways to connect with your family after an earthquake.  For the next 4 weeks we will focus on how to better protect your family and pets inside your home.

There is a lot that can be done to make your home safe to better protect your family which leads to an important question.  Where do you start?   Let me ask you this:

  

What is the most dangerous room in your house?

For most of us the answer will be “Our Kitchen.” 

If you are at home, go into your kitchen and take a look around – if you are not at home, think of your kitchen - your counter tops  - coffee makers, blenders, juicers, toasters and many other items that are stored on the countertops.  What about the cabinets over your counters - is that where you keep your heavy items like our Corning Ware and glass serving dishes? 

What if the cupboards fly open when the ground starts shaking and all the items tumble to the floor smashing into thousands of pieces.  Those countertop items now become projectiles  shooting across the room?  

Your appliances – are they secured in place – probably not – and they can easily break free and bounce across the kitchen.  Your kitchen is not where you, your family or pets want to be during an earthquake.

So how do you make our kitchen safe?

Today, I am going to select one task to get you started to better protect you, your family and pets. For more tasks you can check my book – My Earthquake Preparedness – Simple Steps to Earthquake Preparedness. There is a check list of many steps you can take to keep your family safe.

When our kids were small we placed our Tupperware in the low cupboards so they wouldn’t get hurt if they got in the cupboards. We were thinking of their safety but now we need to also think about their Earthquake Safety.  A great place to start to make your kitchen safer is to simply  move heavy items from high cupboards down to the low cupboards and put the lighter up high.  If your cupboards fly open and you get hit with a piece of Tupperware – that is not going to injure you like a heavy casserole dish.

For those of you with small kids this may not be quite so simple, as we need to protect our families day to day. A great solution for you is to invest in child proof latches that attach to the cupboards making them difficult to open. These latches will help to keep your cupboards closed when the earthquake happens. They are a bit of a struggle to use at first but you will soon get used to them.  Remember we are talking about the life safety of our families and pets and we need to ensure they will be safe! 

Your Task for Week #10

• Move heavy items to lower cupboards
• Move lighter items to higher cupboards
• If moving items is not an option or you want to keep your kids out of the cupboards, purchase child proof latches and install on cupboards to help protect your family and pets
• Remove what you can from your counter tops

 Week 11 we are going to look at how you can incorporate Earthquake Preparedness into Holiday Gift Giving for those you care about. Until then stay safe and get you, your family and pets prepared!

Jackie Kloosterboer - BIO

Jackie Kloosterboer has been leading the way in earthquake preparedness for 2 decades presenting more than 100 Earthquake Preparedness sessions each year to groups and businesses. She is often interviewed by a variety of media outlets across Canada as she promotes the importance of earthquake and disaster preparedness.

As an Emergency Preparedness Specialist and an Instructor with the Justice Institute of BC Jackie travels across Canada teaching people how to respond to disasters to help those who have been displaced. Throughout British Columbia Jackie has taken on leadership roles assisting those who have been impacted by disaster.

Contact Jackie to speak at your next group or business event to help you get prepared for earthquakes or whatever disaster comes your way. Jackie will lead you through the necessary steps helping you identify what is important to you and your family or business.  

Contact Jackie with any questions or to book her for your next event at jackie@survive-it.ca or call (604) 355-2414