We took a lot of infrastructure damage. Not many buildings damaged. Except for schools. They took the worst. Wall collapses beams falling, water and steam pipes. A few homes destroyed but most like mine just superficial sheet rock and broken windows. Roads are another story ALL the major roads in the area are damaged in one way or another. The Alaska Railroad is heavily damaged north of Anchorage. That is huge because it is the main supply route to the interior. Fairbanks Tok Deadhorse. There is no big trucking here. The Al-Can is bad on good days but you cant ship massive goods from the lower 48 by truck. The good news is the Port of Anchorage is relatively undamaged so supplies from Seattle can make it here. No one died or was seriously injured. In response to the level of preparedness. It like any other large city was hit and miss. There were HUNDREDS of pleas on FB for Food water Shelter fuel. Schools are shut down for the week. Alaska is going to try to pave in the winter, which never works because of the cold. Over all we did OK . My son’s listened to me over the years. My youngest (18) shined in caring for his mom getting bug out items loaded. Checking on neighbors. We did find a lot of faults with our preps.
Here a portion of what I wrote about our preps
<h5>Things we need to fix.</h5>
When we moved here we had to leave most of our preps behind. Not making excuses. But by my normal standards we were unprepared.
More water in the house. We had only about 20 gallons plus what was in the toilet tanks. We had 4 5 gallon water jugs. The water bottles that are for dispensers. To light of duty for SHTF. One cracked. And we were down to about 17 gallons. Also lesson learned. The nice straw type water filters. They work GREAT. Everywhere but Alaska. Most of our rivers are glacier fed. Nice and cold. And FULL of glacial silt. The water from the Eagle River was silty as hell from the quake and it killed the filter after about 4 gallons. Need to stock pre-filters to drop the silt.
Move to a house that has back up heat! We live off of Driftwood Bay in Eagle River. Nice place. but it is a town house there is no where to store a lot of preps. and has a cute but useless gas fireplace. This one is self explanatory. Our house is NOT A PREPPER HOUSE. ‘Nuff said
We had back up oil lamps but with the aftershocks were not thrilled about using them. Need more battery lamps. Oil lamps are the go to for preppers for SHTF. But when Mother Earth is doing the Dance Fever Boogie, we kept them in their bubble wrapped boxes. We had 1 battery lantern. More battery powered lanterns are to be stocked. So a flashlight pointed at the ceiling does wonders. Also we want to find older incandescent bulb lanterns. One of the LED lanterns died when it hit the floor. Took it apart Saturday and the circuit board that controls it cracked. An incandescent lantern may have broke the bulb. But you do keep spares right?
Getting rid of SOME the newer LED flashlights. Some fell hard and died. The old $1.95 plastic D cell lights worked. In defense of the LED lights. The ones that died were the 3 for 7 bucks ones from Tractor Supply out of 6 2 broke on impact. I’m going to get some of the older higher quality incandescent flashlights. Partially for durability. Partially for the EMP safety.
Force my wife and youngest to get their ham license. I have a “club” license and that is what she used to talk with me.
This is one I am going back and forth on. In a full scale SHTF Who the hell cares if you have a tech general or NO license? The main reason is to get them up to speed and comfortable in using the radio and talking over it and using proper radio etiquette . No not to impress people on the radio. You get better, faster and more accurate information by following established procedures.
Better packaging for grabbing and going. The big Rubbermaid boxes are cool. They work and are strong. But another lesson learned. Do not pack your boxes heavier than your oldest or weakest adult can lift. My wife is partially disabled. We used to be avid snowboarders decades ago. She had a bad fall and compressed her lower back. Fast forward almost 30 years and she can not lift as she used to. A 18 gallon tote is 24×16 x17 and weighs up to 45 to 50 lbs fully loaded. She could not move them safely with out compromising her health for further SHTF operations. Its going to be a work in progress to find the right balance to potability and the amount of containers for a bug out.
Clothing. One of our weakest areas was bug out clothes. We did not have everything in one area. Coats were in one spot. Gloves in another over boots in a 3<sup>rd</sup>. Things were not separated and easy to get to. Need to designate bugout clothes
This Is just hot wash of the event. More went right than went wrong. The best is no on died from the quake in the Anchorage area. We consider ourselves very lucky. We survived to re exam the entire process find solutions to problems. To up grade equipment and buy newer and better items.
There is a lot more. This would be a good thread to talk about what to do and what not to do
AK_Medic