Earthquake Preparation

Helping Children Cope with Emergencies

Juan de Fuca Falut info doc

Menus – Examples by Dorothy Heydt of University of California, Berkeley

72 Hour Emergency Kit (adapted from Rachel Woods)

THANKS SARAH FOR THIS GREAT LESSON

Opening Song: Hymn # 140 Did You Think to Pray?

Scripture: D&C 38:30

Earthquake drill: (please read Earthquake Preparation before doing this drill, to help guide your actions)

Turn all the lights off, and pretend there is an earthquake. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Get under a table or under a doorway, and wait with your family for 2 minutes until the imaginary earthquake subsides. Make sure to talk to your family members throughout the earthquake to make sure they are alright.

With the lights still off, pretend the earthquake has cut off electricity. What are you going to do now? Ask the children what they would do if the parents were not home. Find emergency flashlights or candles. Continue with your evacuation plan as far as you would like to go, and then turn on the lights to continue with Activity #2. With older children, pretend that you could smell gas – how do you turn off the gas? What if pipes burst – how would you turn off the water? And how do you turn off the power before evacuating the house?

Activity #2: (Adapted from Earthquakes by Janice VanCleave)

2 wooden blocks, each approximately 2X4X6

1 sheet of sandpaper, the courser the better, 50 or lower

2 pieces of duct tape.

Results: The sandpaper-covered blocks temporarily lock together and then move with a jolt.

Why?: The lithosphere is broken into major sections referred to as tectonic plates. Where the edges of two plates push against each other, the crack between the plates is called a fault. Friction (the resistance to motion) causes the plates to be temporarily locked together. Faults that are temporarily locked together are called lock faults. The two blocks of wood represent two tectonic plates pushing against each other. They temporarily lock together, but as the actual tectonic plates, the friction between the blocks eventually fails, causing a sudden jolt. The bond holding a locked fault in place is under tremendous stress, but may last for years before suddenly slipping, resulting in an earthquake. We need to be prepared for when this may happen.

Closing Song: Hymn #241 Count Your Blessings

Eat something from your 72 hour kit. Make sure to replenish it J

Please see additional information on Emergency Preparedness at the LDS website, www.lds.org and click on provident living. Information is abundant, so check it out!

Food and Water
(A three day supply of food and water, per person, when no refrigeration or cooking is available)

Arlene Anderson Butler, "Helping Children Cope with Emergencies," Ensign, June 1998, 74
When we lived in Utah, our family dealt with such conditions as blizzards, high winds, a flood, and a mud slide. After living in California several years, we or our neighboring communities experienced flooding, fires, and earthquakes. From these emergencies I learned some important lessons that may help other families cope with a disaster.

1. Accept your own and your family’s limitations. Disasters tend to create a lot of anxiety and push people to the limit of their endurance. To help everyone cope better, reassure and comfort victims often—especially children. Eat regularly if possible, and rest when needed. Accept help that is offered, both emotional and physical.

2. Children can be easily overwhelmed by a disaster and may experience difficulty in coping. Common behaviors noted in children who experience a severe earthquake include fear, anger, sleeplessness, nightmares, loss of appetite, fatigue, irritability, and impaired concentration. When our family suffered through an earthquake, we were surprised to find that even our older children experienced separation anxiety and childlike dependence and were initially too shocked, dazed, and fearful to help out, which was frustrating to my husband and me. Such signs of stress should not be met with demands, overconcern, or punishment. Calm, positive reassurance is more effective.

3. Limit the amount of news coverage you watch or hear. We found that having constant news coverage, unless strictly necessary, increased our anxiety and heightened our fear. With the news turned off, our family calmed down, began to talk about what had happened, and started working together.

4. People often need to talk about upsetting or dangerous experiences. You can help by being a reassuring, understanding listener. Children will sometimes talk about the disaster for months afterwards. However, after a reasonable length of time, it can be beneficial to divert children’s attention to another subject so they don’t fixate on the disaster.

5. As soon as children are able to help, include them in recovery activities. Doing something positive will help them feel good and get their mind off their fear. Resume normal activities as soon as reasonably possible. This helps children feel that life will return to normal.

6. Keep the family together as much as possible. Children may be afraid to be separated because they fear the event will recur, a loved one will be seriously hurt, and that they will be left alone.

7. Watch your own reactions to the emergency. Your response communicates to children the seriousness of the problem. If parents become distraught, children are likely to become even more frightened. Children take comfort when adults appear to be in control and know what to do. If anyone becomes hysterical, take that person somewhere private until he or she calms down, because hysteria can cause a chain reaction and unnerve others barely hanging on.

8. Remember to spiritually nourish your family with prayer, priesthood blessings, and scripture reading. Often exercising faith through these means can bring a spirit of peace and hope into otherwise trying circumstances.—Arlene Anderson Butler, Ogden, Utah

According to the now generally accepted "plate-tectonics" theory, scientists believe that the Earth's surface is broken into a number of shifting slabs or plates, which average about 50 miles in thickness. These plates move relative to one another above a hotter, deeper, more mobile zone at average rates as great as a few inches per year. Most of the world's active volcanoes are located along or near the boundaries between shifting plates and are called "plate-boundary" volcanoes. However, some active volcanoes are not associated with plate boundaries, and many of these so-called "intra-plate" volcanoes form roughly linear chains in the interior of some oceanic plates. The Hawaiian Islands provide perhaps the best example of an "intra-plate" volcanic chain, developed by the northwest-moving Pacific plate passing over an inferred "hot spot" that initiates the magma-generation and volcano formation process. The peripheral areas of the Pacific Ocean Basin, containing the boundaries of several plates, are dotted by many active volcanoes that form the so-called "Ring of Fire." The "Ring" provides excellent examples of "plate boundary" volcanoes, including Mount St. Helens.

The accompanying figure shows the boundaries of lithosphere plates that are presently active. The double lines indicate zones of spreading from which plates are moving apart. The lines with barbs show zones of underthrusting (subduction), where one plate is sliding beneath another. The barbs on the lines indicate the overriding plate. The single line defines a strike-slip fault along which plates are sliding horizontally past one another. The stippled areas indicate a part of a continent, exclusive of that along a plate boundary, which is undergoing active extensional, compressional, or strike-slip faulting.

Information obtained from pubs.usgs.gov/ gip/volc/fig37.html