50 Fun Facts About Emergency Preparedness

FEMA informally gauges a storm's severity by whether which always-open restaurant chain has shut?

Waffle House trains jump teams and keeps a cut-down menu for power cuts, so a closed branch signals real trouble. Florida emergency chief Craig Fugate coined the index after Hurricane Charley in 2004.

The shiny foil blankets packed in emergency kits were first developed in 1964 by which organisation?

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center created the metal-coated plastic film for the space programme. It reflects up to 97% of radiated heat, which is why so thin a sheet keeps a person warm.

America's two WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter planes are nicknamed after characters from which TV series?

The Muppet Show supplies the names: one plane is Kermit and the other Miss Piggy, and each carries its character on its logo. A smaller jet that joins them on storm flights is called Gonzo.

A 2011 CDC blog post taught disaster readiness by telling Americans how to survive which fictional threat?

A zombie apocalypse, the agency joked, calls for the same supplies and family plan as any real emergency. Its article, Preparedness 101, covered what a household needs for the first couple of days.

A 2003 Homeland Security advisory told Americans to stock plastic sheeting and which toolbox staple to seal a room?

Duct tape and plastic sheeting were meant to seal a room against a chemical, biological or radiological attack. Ready.gov's kit list pairs the two, along with scissors, for sheltering in place.

Which spot in a house did old earthquake advice wrongly call the safest place to stand during the shaking?

In a doorway is no stronger than any other part of a modern house, and it gives no protection from flying objects. Experts now say to get under a sturdy table instead.

Which old piece of tornado advice do US forecasters now call useless and a waste of precious time?

Opening the windows was once thought to equalise the pressure and save the house. Forecasters now say the tornado will blast them open anyway, and the seconds are better spent taking shelter.

In January 2018, phones across which US state received a false alert warning of an incoming ballistic missile?

Hawaii spent 38 minutes believing the warning before a correction arrived. Officials blamed a miscommunication during a drill at the state's emergency management agency.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a backup store for the world's crop seeds, lies on an Arctic island of which country?

Norway dug the vault 130 metres inside a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen. More than a million seed samples have been sent there as insurance against the loss of other gene banks.

Ready.gov tells American households to store at least how much drinking water per person per day?

One gallon covers both drinking and sanitation, and the stockpile should last several days. A normally active person takes in about three quarters of that amount in fluids daily.

Emergency agencies advise doing what instead of phoning a relative after a disaster, when networks are jammed?

Sending a text needs far less bandwidth than a voice call, so it gets through more reliably when everyone is on the phone at once. Ready.gov also suggests social media and email for checking in.

During a power cut, an unopened refrigerator will keep its food safely cold for roughly how long?

Four hours is the limit for a closed fridge, after which chilled food may no longer be safe. A full freezer does far better, holding its temperature for about 48 hours.

To make doubtful tap water safe to drink, US guidance says to keep it at a rolling boil for how long?

One minute at a rolling boil is enough, and Ready.gov calls boiling the safest way to treat water. Pouring it back and forth between two clean containers afterwards improves the flat taste.

US fire officials say a household smoke alarm should be replaced once it reaches what age?

Ten years from the manufacture date is the limit, however well the alarm still seems to work. In between, the US Fire Administration says to test it every month.

In a house fire, heavy smoke and poisonous gases collect first in which part of a room?

Along the ceiling is where the smoke gathers first, which is why fire plans teach families to crawl low to the exit. Smoke and toxic gases kill more people in house fires than flames do.

Ready.gov says to keep a little money at home in which form, since ATMs and card readers may fail?

Small bills are advised because ATMs and credit cards may not work just when a household needs to buy fuel, food or supplies. The stash should be modest and kept somewhere safe.

FEMA's basic emergency kit list includes which small item so that a trapped person can signal for help?

A whistle is on the list for exactly that purpose, and it works without batteries. The same basics include a flashlight, a first aid kit and a battery-powered or hand crank radio.

Ready.gov's basic emergency kit list includes a wrench or pliers so that a household can do which job?

Turn off utilities is the note beside the tools on the list. Natural gas leaks and explosions cause a significant number of the fires that follow disasters, so everyone at home should know where the shut-off is.

Which nickname for a 72-hour evacuation kit comes from Korean War army slang for a hasty retreat?

Bug-out bag borrows the order given to US Army units in Korea to fall back before they were overrun. The kit is packed for getting away quickly, not for long-term survival.

Earthquake drills teach three steps: drop to the ground, take cover under a table, and then do what?

Hold on means keeping a grip on your shelter and being ready to move with it if the shaking shifts it. Together the three steps protect against falling debris.

Which 2005 hurricane, after thousands of animals were abandoned, led Congress to require pets in evacuation plans?

Katrina left many thousands of pets abandoned, which pushed animal welfare onto the national agenda. The PETS Act of 2006 makes states seeking federal disaster aid plan for pets and service animals.

From 1953 until 1979, Atlantic hurricanes on the official US lists were all named after which group?

Women alone lent their names from 1953, replacing a confusing phonetic alphabet of Able, Baker and Charlie. Men's names joined the Atlantic lists in 1979, a year after the Pacific ones.

When the 2005 and 2020 Atlantic hurricane seasons ran out of names, forecasters turned to which alphabet?

Greek letters such as Zeta, Eta and Iota named the overflow storms, but the public found them confusing. The World Meteorological Organization dropped them in 2021 for a spare list of ordinary names.

The Saffir-Simpson scale sorts hurricanes into Categories 1 to 5 using which single measurement?

Sustained wind speed alone sets the category, so the scale says nothing about rain or flooding. A storm becomes a hurricane at 74 mph and reaches Category 5 at 157 mph.

On a US National Hurricane Center forecast map, the widening 'cone' shows the probable path of what?

The storm's centre is all the cone tracks: it is sized so that two-thirds of past forecast errors fall inside it. That makes it a guide to the path, not to how far the wind and rain will reach.

More than half of flood drownings in the United States happen when people do what?

Drive into floodwater just 12 inches deep and most cars will be carried away. Six inches of fast-moving water is enough to knock over an adult.

Which weather hazard is responsible for the most deaths in a typical year in the United States?

Extreme heat causes more deaths each year than any other weather hazard. Older adults, children and people with certain illnesses are most at risk when high heat and humidity last for days.

Drivers stranded in a blizzard are told to keep the exhaust pipe clear of snow to avoid which poisoning?

Carbon monoxide from the engine can build up inside a snowbound car when the tailpipe is blocked. Forecasters also say to open a window a little for fresh air while the motor runs.

A 'red flag warning' from the US National Weather Service tells the public that conditions are ideal for what?

Wildfires ignite and spread fast in the drought, very low humidity and high winds that trigger the warning. Firefighting agencies often change their staffing and equipment as soon as one is issued.

Hundreds of old carved stones, some warning villagers not to build homes below them, line the coast of which country?

Japan's tsunami stones tell people to head uphill after a large earthquake, and some are more than 600 years old. One professor says they matter because it takes about three generations to forget.

Disaster Prevention Day each 1 September marks the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, which devastated which capital city?

Tokyo and the surrounding region lost more than 100,000 people in the disaster. The anniversary was made a nationwide day of drills and preparations in 1960.

Which Latin American capital's alert system gives up to sixty seconds of warning before earthquake shaking arrives?

Mexico City's alert grew out of a national rethink after the deadly 1985 earthquake and began operating with 12 sensors in 1991. It is regarded as the first such warning system open to the public.

About 90% of the world's earthquakes strike along which 40,000-kilometre belt of faults and volcanoes?

The Ring of Fire surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean and is up to about 500 km wide. It also holds around two-thirds of the world's active or dormant volcanoes.

Which Javanese word names the fast volcanic mudflows that buried the Colombian town of Armero in 1985?

Lahar is a slurry of volcanic debris, rock and water that typically surges down a river valley. The one from Nevado del Ruiz buried Armero under 5 metres of mud and killed an estimated 23,000 people.

Which European country has built enough nuclear shelter space for more than its entire population?

Switzerland had 8.6 million shelter places by 2006, enough for 114% of its people. A building rule dating from the 1960s requires nuclear shelters in residential buildings.

Which country mailed every household a pamphlet titled 'If Crisis or War Comes' in 2018, reviving a 1943 tradition?

Sweden first sent such leaflets to its households in 1943, at the height of the Second World War. The 2018 edition also covered cyber attacks, terrorism and natural disasters.

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve stores its emergency crude oil underground along the Gulf Coast in what?

Salt caverns hollowed out of natural salt domes store the oil up to 1,000 metres down. The reserve was started in 1975 after an embargo cut supplies, and this is about ten times cheaper than tanks above ground.

A secret Cold War bunker built to shelter the US Congress was hidden beneath which West Virginia luxury resort?

The Greenbrier hid the relocation bunker under a new hotel wing built from 1959 to 1962. The programme ended in 1992 after The Washington Post exposed it.

What name is given to the US official kept away from the State of the Union as a safeguard against catastrophe?

Designated survivor is someone in the line of succession who waits at an undisclosed secure location. The practice began in the 1950s amid fears that a nuclear attack could wipe out the government.

FEMA began work in April 1979 after which US president merged scattered federal disaster agencies into one?

Jimmy Carter activated the agency by executive order, folding in offices that handled insurance, fire prevention and disaster assistance. It was absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

Emergency Preparedness is one of the merit badges a Scout can earn toward which top rank of Scouts BSA?

Eagle candidates must earn either Emergency Preparedness or Lifesaving among their required merit badges, on the way to a total of at least 21.

The Community Emergency Response Team scheme, which trains disaster volunteers, began in 1985 in which city?

Los Angeles firefighters devised the scheme so that trained residents could back up the professionals in a major disaster. FEMA later built its National CERT Program on the idea.

The MRE, the US military field ration issued since 1981, has a name that stands for what?

Meal, Ready-to-Eat replaced canned combat rations in 1981. A flameless ration heater, packed with every meal since 1993, warms the food with a few ounces of water and no fire.

Which English inventor created the wind-up radio as a way to spread health information across Africa?

Trevor Baylis got the idea from a television programme about the spread of AIDS in Africa. His crank-powered prototype found a backer after it appeared on the BBC's Tomorrow's World in 1994.

Which country's radio regulations made SOS an official distress signal in 1905, before the rest of the world?

Germany picked the letters only because their Morse pattern of three dots, three dashes and three dots is so distinctive. They were not an abbreviation, and became the world standard in 1908.

Which emergency telephone number works in nearly every European Union country and from any GSM mobile phone?

112 can be dialled free of charge, and GSM handsets will call it even when locked. In some countries the network simply forwards the call to the local emergency number.

Which US broadcasting scheme, launched in 1951, was designed to stop Soviet bombers homing in on radio stations?

CONELRAD kept a few stations on air at 640 or 1240 kHz and switched transmitters rapidly so that bombers could not use them as beacons. Radios of the era marked both spots with a civil defence triangle.

Potassium iodide tablets, handed out in nuclear emergencies, are taken to protect which gland in the body?

Thyroid tissue absorbs iodine, so filling it with the stable kind blocks the radioactive form from being taken up. The tablets guard that one gland and nothing else.

Paramedic Bob Brotchie's 2005 campaign urged people to save a next-of-kin phone contact under which three letters?

ICE stands for In Case of Emergency, and it lets paramedics, firefighters and police reach a patient's family from an unlocked phone. Several people can be listed as ICE1, ICE2 and so on.

Which Civil War nurse and former patent clerk founded the American Red Cross in 1881?

Clara Barton earned the nickname Angel of the Battlefield after coming to the aid of an overwhelmed surgeon in 1862. She led the organisation until 1904.