Emergency Preparedness

So, last week was our unofficial, unscheduled “Emergency Preparedness Drill”. The morning after Labor Day we awoke to no electricity, and it didn’t come back on until after we had all left for our day. We were able to pass that drill reasonably well. We have lots of flashlights and lanterns–enough to get us through our morning routine without much inconvenience.

Friday was “No Water Day”. My wife discovered one of our main water lines spraying water all over the room. We were fortunate. She discovered it within a few minutes of it rupturing, and it was in our unfinished downstairs bathroom we primarily use for storage. Very little was actually damaged, and the pipes are exposed there. Had it ruptured somewhere behind drywall it would have been a much nastier situation. There is only one other place in the entire house where it could have occurred that would have caused less damage. Believe what you will about a Supreme Being, but we consider ourselves quite blessed.

Not that we got off lightly. The problem wasn’t just the pipe, but a series of issues. Our main line’s pressure regulator went out, allowing high pressure on the lines. Then the thermal expansion tank failed. Then our water heater cracked. And then the pipe ruptured. And our main line cutoff valve is an old rotary valve, like most outdoor faucets use, and enough minerals had built up over the years that it wouldn’t shut off tight. We finally had to shut off the water at the meter to get it to stop.

I wish I could say we passed this test as well as the electrical outage. We did have some water storage, so we didn’t have to worry about cooking dinner that night. And we did capture enough to the water running out of the water heater emergency valve to provide us with a few toilet flushes. But had the plumber not come that night and patch the pipe so that we could restore the water we would have been in a bit of a spot. We’re not terribly practiced in living without a steady, abundant supply of water. A couple of days of that and we would have been in trouble. We have a few things to learn from this.

On the bright side, we now have a much better cut-off valve, and we took the opportunity to show the kids where it is and how to turn it off. We’ll soon be doing the same for the electricity and gas cut-offs.

Although I’m not particularly eager to go through this sort of thing again, it was a beneficial experience. We’ll be making a few changes in how we do things and what sort of things we store for emergencies–not to mention where we store them. This was a good test, and close enough together that it’s not difficult to imagine how things would be if we experienced power and water loss simultaneously. Losing the natural gas as well wouldn’t be as big a deal, except in the winter time.

We live near a fault line, and we’re due for a good quake. There have been a few minor ones in the area recently. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure we have everything we need for at least a three to five day span, should The Big One hit.