Well, the good news is that a little preparation can go a long way to calm your nerves if the big one hits. Think about it: If you've got a good plan, you and your property are much more likely to be safe. If lots of other folks prepare, too, that could greatly reduce the impact of a disaster and make it less scary for everyone. So preparation is good — or is it? OK, before you climb into your underground bunker, let me explain. There's a lot of great disaster safety advice out there that you should definitely pay attention to FEMA 's Ready.
But some survival tips, even ones that sound reasonable, might best be ignored. These could be old wives' tales that have, over centuries, elbowed their way into the realm of common knowledge. Or they might be the brainchild of scientists, who, given the hindsight provided by decades of disasters, would regret ever suggesting them in the first place.
Either way, it's good to know what advice might be ineffective or even harmful so you can be sure to do what's best for you and your family when catastrophe strikes. So put down that dehydrated food pack and click through our list of disaster safety advice you should ignore. Cruising the highway in a luxury sports car, you notice an ominous cloud with an occasional pop of lightning ahead.
You should be fine since you're sitting on top-of-the-line rubber tires, right? Not necessarily. Cars do provide pretty good lightning protection, but that's not because of the rubber tires.
It's thanks to a principle called the Faraday effect. See, when lightning strikes something like a thick copper wire or a hollow pipe, the outer surface carries most of the current.
Likewise, when a car is hit, current moves down the metal roof and sides, funneling the bolt around you and into the ground. So vehicles without such a metal enclosure, like convertibles, motorcycles and bicycles offer no protection from lightning, even if they do have rubber tires.
This fact was tragically demonstrated in when the list of 26 lightning fatalities included a motorcyclist [sources: National Lightning Safety Institute , National Weather Service ]. So what should you do if you're caught in your car during a lightning storm? The National Lightning Safety Institute recommends pulling over and putting your hands in your lap until the storm passes because things like door and window handles, radio dials, gearshifts and steering wheels can transfer current from the outside in another of 's lightning fatalities was a man closing his car windows.
Cars can still be damaged by a strike, but hopefully the harm will be limited to burned paint or a fried electrical system. Disaster safety advice isn't always final. What seems smart to one generation can seem foolish to the next. Take the whole open-windows-during-tornadoes suggestion. It all started when some very intelligent people tried to explain why tornadoes took the roofs off of houses and often blew walls outward. The going theory was that when the extreme low pressure at the center of a twister engulfed a house, the higher pressure inside would cause it to explode from within.
Therefore, opening a window or door would equalize that pressure and save the house from bursting. A tornado in Wichita Falls, Texas, however, turned this advice on its head.
A team of researchers who studied the devastation found that houses with storm doors and shutters fared much better than those with open windows. It was the wind getting inside the homes, not the pressure, that was lifting the roof and flattening the walls. Aside from the faulty premise, it turns out that running around and opening windows during a tornado isn't a good idea for another reason.
Flying debris is responsible for most twister-related injuries, so standing next to an opening that could potentially blast you with shards of glass and other projectiles isn't a great plan. The best advice, according to the Storm Prediction Center, is to head to an interior room on the lowest level of your house — and stay away from windows!
You see it on TV every time there's a hurricane threatening the coast: businesses and homes with giant duct-tape "X"s on their windows. But the truth is that damage from hurricane-force winds is the one problem duct tape CAN'T fix.
Hurricane preparedness brochures promoted window taping into the s before experts realized that this technique might just do more harm than good. The idea was that tape could help brace windows against the effects of winds, or at the very least prevent them from shattering into a million tiny pieces.
In reality, taping does nothing to strengthen windows. And sure, it might prevent tiny shards of flying glass, but it could also produce the one thing that is worse: giant shards of flying glass held together with tape!
Like many disproven disaster safety tips, this one has demonstrated remarkable resilience. A survey conducted during the buildup to Hurricane Irene found that 7 in 10 respondents taped their windows in preparation for a hurricane. This misconception is so pervasive that the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes initiated a " Go Tapeless " campaign to warn people about the ineffectiveness and danger of window taping.
Instead, they recommend installing impact-resistant windows or shutters. Even plywood works pretty well. Just not tape. What could be more terrifying than the ground shaking beneath your feet? Probably the things that might then fall on your head! During an earthquake all kinds of objects can drop to the floor, including picture frames, bookcases and even the ceiling.
So it makes sense that you should get under something sturdy. For a lot of folks, that place has always been a doorway, but this might not be the best idea.
Evidently, the doorway earned its reputation as an earthquake shelter thanks to a photograph showing a collapsed adobe home with a doorway standing defiantly above the rubble though this "enduring" image is curiously difficult to track down. Perhaps doorways are the safest place in unreinforced adobe structures, but in modern homes they aren't necessarily any better than elsewhere in the house.
They won't likely protect you from falling debris, and good luck staying upright! So what do you do then? Earthquake safety experts are big fans of " drop, cover and hold on. Don't move unless you fear falling objects. In that case, move away from exterior walls and try to crawl under a sturdy desk or table.
At best, it's an inconvenience. At worst, some people have the illusion that they're safe Volunteer "disaster junkies" at heart of safety net. You're wasting your money and you're potentially increasing the danger to your home. Even some disaster management officials are guilty of advising residents to use tape on their windows. Read said when he started working in the s, taping windows was still advised in hurricane brochures. This type of glass consists of a thermoplastic interlayer and two outer layers of glass that make it highly impact resistant.
The security glass laminates will retain the shards of glass and their shape to greatly reduce the probability of injury and interior storm damage. In many cases, security glass panels can be retrofitted into your existing framing, making them a very cost-effective solution when it comes to storm damage mitigation.
Instead, invest your time and resources in real security glass products and other storm damage prevention barriers that actually work. Contact us today or have your local glass contractor give us a call to discuss how we can help you implement effective hurricane damage mitigation solutions.
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