Safety Survey at Home!
- Kitchen
- Bedrooms
- Bathrooms
- Living Areas
- Garage, Basement, Laundry Room
- Preparing the Structure
- Preparedness Checklists!
Safety Survey of Your Home!
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Look at each room in your home with “Earthquake Eyes.”
Take some time to sit in each room and think, “If a major earthquake hit right now, what would injure me?” Then, fix the hazard! To prevent injury and reduce damage, each room of your home should be carefully examined for potential hazards. The following are some suggestions to correct some common hazards. Use them as a starting point in the examination of your home.
Kitchen
An unprepared kitchen is probably the most hazardous room in the house. Shattered glass, spilled chemicals, gas-fed fires, and falling objects are all potential hazards in an unprepared kitchen.
Read the labels on all household chemicals. Separate chemicals according to manufacturer’s suggestions. In the kitchen, all chemicals should be stored at floor level in a secure cabinet. All gas appliances must be installed with a flexible gas line.
Install latches on all kitchen cabinet doors. “Childproof” latches are inexpensive and are not visible from the exterior of the cabinet. These latches will prevent breakables and heavy objects from falling out of the cabinets during a quake. Store the heaviest items on the lowest shelves. If they happen to break through the latches, they will probably not injure anyone.
Put guard rails on open shelves so that items cannot slide off. To display fragile objects on open shelves, use industrial strength “Velcro” tape or a silicon adhesive on the bottom. Attach hanging plants, clocks, paintings and kitchen pots to a wall stud. Heavy appliances on wheels should be blocked with a door stop, or their wheels should be locked to prevent them from rolling.
Bedroom
You probably spend more time in this room than in any other in your house. When examining the hazards in this room, pay careful attention to objects that could fall and injure you in bed, or fall and block your escape routes.
Beds should not be placed under a window! Falling glass is one of the major causes of injury in an earthquake. Beds should be located by an interior wall away from windows or anything that could fall on them. Pictures, mirrors, or other heavy objects mounted on the wall above the bed should be removed. If beds with wheels are on bared floors, these wheels should be locked, or non-skid coasters should be placed under the wheels.
Attach tall furniture to wall studs to prevent it from falling over and blocking escape routes. Remove heavy objects from the uppers shelves of bookcases, closets, or the tops of dressers. Place all heavy objects on the floor or on low shelves.
Each bedroom of your house should have a flashlight and a pair of shoes in a plastic bag tied to the leg of the bed – the flashlight to see at night, and the shoes to protect feet from broken glass.
Bathroom
Broken glass is probably the greatest potential hazard in the bathroom. Mirrors, shower doors, and toiletries can fall and break. This makes the bathroom, although probably the smallest room, potentially the most dangerous in the house.
Medicine cabinet doors should be equipped with a “childproof” latch to prevent things from falling out. Glass containers should not be stored on open shelves. Read the labels on cleaning supplies; separate them according to the manufacturer’s directions, and store them at floor level in a secure cabinet.
Living Areas of the Home
All tall furniture in the living room, dining room, or den should be secured to the wall studs. TV’s, computers, and stereos should be secured to shelving with industrial strength “Velcro” to prevent falling. Paintings and mirrors should be attached using security hangers or antitheft hangers. Velcro in the bottom corners also prevents them from moving during a quake.
Garage, Basement, and Laundry Room
The water heater should be securely double-strapped to the studs in the wall behind it; one strap about 1/3 from the top and the second about 1/3 from the bottom. Plumbers tape and lag bolts should be used and are readily available at any hardware store. The water heater, if gas, should also be attached to the gas supply by a flexible gas line with a shutoff that will move in the event of a quake.
Remove all heavy objects from upper storage shelves, especially around the car. All heavy objects should be at floor level.
Hazardous materials should be separated and stored in well-marked, unbreakable containers. They should also be stored in a low cabinet with and earthquake-proof latch.
Preparing Your Structure
Single family wood frame buildings are usually the most earthquake-resistant of any type of construction. The building moves with the quake. The key to riding out a quake is to make sure your home behaves as one continuous unit. The following measures could be taken to help protect your home:
Your home should be bolted to the foundation, called “sill-bolting.” The foundation’s condition should be checked to see if it is still in good shape, especially in older homes. House built before 1940 were not required to have sill-bolting, and some houses built since then do not have them either. Standard sill bolts, 5/8” by 8 ½”, should be installed every 4 feet if you do not have them now.
If your house has a crawl space between the ground and the first floor, check to see if you have “cripple walls.” Plywood shear paneling used to cover the entire wall area will stiffen these walls.
If your home was built before 1960, your chimney may not be properly reinforced and tied into the building. Damaged or falling chimneys are frequent hazards in quakes.
Preparedness Checklists
Personal Preparedness
- Make a Disaster Plan.
- “Safety Survey” your home and workplace.
- Plan escape routes.
- Choose a Reunification Site.
- Establish a telephone contact out of the area.
- Store a 72-hour (minimum) emergency supply kit.
- Practice Disaster Plan.
Home and Office Preparedness
- Locate, mark, and test (if you know how, or have it done by a professional!) the operation of utility shutoffs.
- Have a shutoff wrench next to the gas shutoff.
- Flexible gas lines on all appliances.
- Separate all hazardous materials, and store in secure cabinets.
- Remove heavy objects from upper shelves.
- Secure tall furniture and bookcases to wall studs.
- Strong latches on kitchen cabinets.
- Water heater strapped to wall studs.
- Appliance and bed wheels blocked.
- Office equipment and electronics secured with industrial strength Velcro.
- Have emergency supplies at home, in car, and at office.
Structure Preparedness
- Chimney well supported.
- Foundation bolted.
- Cripple walls reinforced.
Click here to get a Word.doc version of these Checklists! You can then "save as" to your hard drive and print them for your use in your plan.
Information courtesy of – The Fremont Fire Department Community Emergency Response team Student Training Manual – ci-082/ss – 12/99