Today, I’m pleased to introduce guest blogger, Gary Stratton. Gary was a volunteer firefighter for 26 years and served on a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Team that helped firefighters and EMTs deal with the psychological trauma of their jobs. He’s created a special needs emergency survival guide for Different Dream readers. In the interest of full disclosure, Gary is also my cousin.

72 Hour Special Needs Emergency Survival Guide

I am a retired firefighter/EMT. I also live with my own special need—severe sleep apnea that requires a respirator.  Living without electricity is not an option. Therefore, I plan for survival during short-term emergencies. 

After Hurricane Katrina (August 2005), FEMA provided information about short-term survival to fire departments across the USA. The information FEMA provided to the public was limited and few paid attention. In Iowa, short-term survival was reinforced during a February 2007 ice storm followed by a blizzard. Each town and fire department had to fend for itself. Mutual aid was impossible. Five hundred miles of power lines lay on the ground. A prolonged outage was forecast. I haven’t forgotten the lesson.

The FEMA lesson from Katrina is a community must: be prepared to survive for seventy-two hours before expecting arrival of outside help. Firefighters needed to prepare their families to survive for seventy-two hours without them. After the ice storm, our firefighters discovered the elderly were prepared to survive. Younger generations were clueless. The electrical grid has been very reliable in their lifetime, so they had no idea of how to survive without power.

However, weather or terrorism can disrupt the power grid. I had a generator before the ice storm in 2007, but afterwards I attended to other details. I learned it’s not complicated to survive seventy-two hours in your home. Surviving is accomplished with planning and common sense. The basic needs are food, fiber, and shelter. Special needs people or families have some extra details to address. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Special Needs Emergency Survival Guide: Food

• Canned meats and foil packs of salmon have a long shelf life, so keep some on hand.
• Purchase a manual can opener.
• Keep a couple flats of bottled water on hand.
• Seal bath tub drain with gorilla tape and fill with water.
• A gas grill can be used for cooking, so keep a spare bottle of gas.

Special Needs Emergency Survival Guide: Fiber

• Purchase sleeping bags and extra blankets at garage sales. 
• Open up a sleeping bag and use it as a quilt on the bed.

Special Needs Emergency Survival Guide: Shelter

• Purchase a generator and learn to use it safely.
• Purchase a siphon to get gas from a car to use in the generator.
• Purchase heavy-duty extension cords to rotate power to the refrigerator or other appliances. 
• Choose a backup heat source (LP gas fireplace or hanging gas heater in garage with 110 volt plug for generator)and learn how to use it safely. 
• Seal windows and doors with blue painter’s tape to eliminate drafts.
• Keep a roll of gorilla tape on hand.
• Purchase 12 volt marine batteries to supply power for some medical devices. You can also purchase adapters or you can build your own.  (My marine battery is spill-proof and it runs my sleep apnea machine for four nights.)  
• Purchase a 12 volt automotive refrigerator for storing medications.
• Use LED flashlights and lanterns because they run longer on a set of batteries.
• Create a basic first aid materials in case emergency medical services aren’t available.

Don’t forget the lessons of the past learned by those who have survived emergencies. With planning and common sense you can survive seventy-two hours without outside help just like they did.

Your Special Needs Emergency Survival Guide Suggestions

Do you have any special needs emergency survival guide ideas from the past? Share them in the comment box so more parents can be prepared for emergencies in the future.

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