How can I prepare myself for a natural disaster and power outage?
I think the other answers definitely cover most things so i will give you a list of practical things to consider.securing your house: look into boarding up your windows and securing your door. think about both the front and back of the house where looters or intruder might try to enter. one person i know has two empty water barrels light enough that she can put them behind her front gate and then fill with water making a heavy barricade. you could do the same thing behind your front door.Cooking: ensure you have a way to cook food independent of main electricity or gas. A gas camping stove is a logical option for this.Food: ensure you have food that is put aside specifically for this event. Canned food is ideal, a balance of protein and carbs will be needed. MREs are also an option, boil in the bag MREs will not require additional water to make.Water: you can buy 10ltr bottles of sealed water from the supermarket. buy three of these.Replace all perishable items after their sell buy date.Power: If you want to invacuate (stay in your home) consider getting a UPS system attached to a couple of heavy duty truck batteries so you can run basic electrics (not your entire house). also consider having a generator if you can stock enough fuel for it (legally).ensure you have a good high capacity mobile phone charging bank they are not expensive.Make sure you have at least two torches that are bright. consider getting an electric lantern as well. only get LED lights as they have much better battery lights.do you have a pet? consider stocking some kind of long lasting pet food, or a good recipe for cooking said pet and a suitable wine to go with the recipe (i’m not joking).if it is winter time, consider 1 room in your house you can move to with the aim of conserving heat, chances are your heating will not be working.Look into any local plans for evacuation from your local civil defense, emergency services or disaster management agency. this could be an evacuation plan.if evacuating, have a go bag ready with everything you would need for at least a week away from home. this should include copies of passports, ID, home insurance, bank details etc. have functional clothing for outdoor use, sleeping gear, 3 days of food, empty reusable water bottle and other similar things. you can find good kit lists all over the internet on prepping websites.
If a natural disaster resulted in a catastrophic power failure, outages likely to last days or weeks, is there any way people could access money in bank accounts?
What would you use it for? It has no nutritive value and burning it would produce hazardous fumes. I suppose you could stuff it between layers of clothes as insulation, but used newspaper would be just as good.Money is just an indicator of wealth, it's not wealth itself. In time of catastrophic disaster, the indicators of wealth would be flammable material (like wood or coal), food, weapons with which to get (and keep) food, warm clothing in most places. Money would just be paper that's not as useful as some other forms of paper.(That wouldn't stop some idiots from shooting people to get truckloads of it.)
A natural disaster strikes in your area, & power will be out for weeks. What are two limits to individual rights you would support in this situation?
A curfew is a good start because movement within the affected area during the hours of darkness could result in more injuries from people not being able to see the hazards. The curfew might also reassure the populace that it was safe to rest at night in that gangs of looters should not be abroad and even if no one is looting, that is a real concern among survivors. Given the level of fear the disaster could create, it is in the best interests of all concerned not to have people in place where they are not expected to be and can not be seen easily.The second issue is more controversial. Businesses would like to be back up and running as quickly as possible so that they can serve their customers and clients. They also provide paychecks for employees who rely on that money in order to recover from the disaster. However, some of the restored power has to be diverted to medical facilities where patients’ lives depend on it.Further, there should be power to the communities so that refrigeration and light are available. Failure to provide community power sources will mean that members of the community remain reliant on aid for longer periods of time. This can lead to resentments against the businesses that are receiving the power. That is never a good thing.That said, or written, power cannot be restored safely without inspections of the power lines and the larger the area in which the inspections must take place, the longer it will take to restore it. Businesses are often centralized and it would be easier to restore power to them than it would be to restore it to the general populace.Businesses also contribute to the tax base and that money will be needed in order for the local economy to recover. Striking the balance between the needs of business entities and members of the community will place restrictions on both sectors.
Have you ever been through a Natural Disaster?
I've lived through many hurricanes. The worst was when we lost power and water for about 2 weeks. Luckily, our home received little damage, although our screened porch was ripped off. The rest of the house was fine. We had already stocked up on extra water prior and we had a bunch of canned goods. We stored ice in some large coolers we had to keep some of our frozen foods safe. We ate through most of that the first week, but several restaurants in town had power and food. It wasn't fun not being able to shower or wash, but really the worst was the heat without AC in Florida during the summer. It definitely wasn't ideal, but we got by. Our insurance paid for the majority of the porch to be repaired, minus our deductible. It took a few months to get that back up, but other people had lost entire homes.
What natural disasters are caused by the water cycle?
hurricanes tornadoes floods snowstorms icestorms hail power outages due to thunderstorms
What should you never do during a power outage?
Don’t drive through a 4-way traffic light controlled intersection at posted speed and thinking you have the right away because your light isn’t red:-( That’s just silly, but people do it. You’ve got to know people do it.