Self-Reliance During Natural Disasters and Civil Unrest: Revised and Updated Edition

When a disaster or civil disturbance occurs, firefighters, police officers, and paramedics quickly become overburdened with requests to handle simple emergencies—emergencies that every one of us should be able to handle as they occur. This revised and updated edition of the classic original book will give you the knowledge to handle nine types of crises that typically follow a disaster and motivate you to assist your family and neighbors should a large-scale catastrophe strike your community.

This is not just another book on stockpiling food and water. It is a crash course in the types of tasks normally handled by professional emergency response personnel, written by a retired fire department captain with decades of experience training citizens in these skills. It is packed with hundreds of hands-on techniques and tips for:

• Disaster firefighting on your own
• Civilian search and rescue with light tools
• Vehicle rescue and firefighting
• Controlling building utilities to prevent new problems
• Salvage and decontamination for home and business owners
• Evacuation do's and don'ts

Just some of the specific skills you will learn include how to rescue people from building rubble and wrecked vehicles using only common tools, fight fires with an ordinary garden hose, shut off gas and electricity quickly and safely, set up emergency sanitation systems, seek refuge from an out-of-control fire, make contact with family and friends when standard communications are disrupted, and much more. Throughout the book, the author shows you how to evaluate each situation rationally and confidently and decide when to handle the emergency yourself and when to call the authorities for help.

Just some of the new material in this revised and updated edition:

• Sandbagging to contain damaging floodwaters
• Clearing rubble and downed trees with chain saws
• Protecting your health during salvage and decontamination
• Incorporating modern options into your post-disaster communications plan
• Handling traumatic injuries common to disasters—heavy bleeding, broken bones, severed limbs—without professional medical assistance
• Acting as an emergency "Immediate Responder" as soon as a disaster strikes—without waiting for guidance from the government or having to answer questions about liability
• Coordinating the longer-term efforts of citizen teams, police and firefighters, and government disaster-response personnel in the days and weeks following the event