Week 15: Prepare to Shelter in Place

This week's tasks:

1. Learn how to shelter in place
2. Add shelter-in-place supplies to your emergency kit (sufficient plastic sheeting or heavy-duty garbage bags and duct tape to seal off windows, doors, vents, and outlets in your 'shelter-in-place' room plus duct tape for the car.)
3. Download the Red Cross Shelter-in-Place Fact Sheet and put it in your emergency binder for quick reference.

If hazardous materials are released into the air, communities can be ordered to 'shelter in place', which means to take your family and your emergency supplies, including a portable radio, to an interior room of your home (preferably with few or no windows) and seal it off with plastic sheeting and duct tape until the hazardous materials have dissipated enough that people can safely go back outside.   Those of you who are local probably remember the Richmond Refinery Fire last August, which prompted shelter-in-place orders in Richmond and El Cerrito.

How to shelter in place at home:

• Choose an interior room with few or no windows.
• Take your family and emergency supplies into the room (including food and water)
• Close and lock the windows, turn off your heating/air circulation system, and close the fireplace damper.
• Use plastic sheeting or heavy duty garbage bags (plastic wrap commonly used for food is too thin) and duct tape to seal off cracks around the door and window(s) and to cover and seal around air vents and outlets in your shelter-in-place room. Your goal is to keep all outside air from coming in.
• Listen to the radio to find out when it's safe to come out.
• When it's safe to come out, open all the doors and windows to air out the house.

If you are in your car:

• Pull over.
• Close the windows and vents.
• Seal the vents with duct tape.
• Listen to the radio for instructions and information.

How will you know a shelter-in-place order is in effect?  Communities have different ways of notifying their residents, but here are some possibilities:

• "All-Call" telephoning—an automated system for sending recorded messages, sometimes called "reverse 9-1-1."Emergency Alert System (EAS) broadcasts on the radio or television.
• Outdoor warning sirens or horns.
• News media sources—radio, television and cable.
• NOAA Weather Radio alerts.
• Residential route alerting—messages announced to neighborhoods from vehicles equipped with public address systems.

The Red Cross Shelter-in-Place Fact Sheet contains step-by-step instructions about how to shelter in place in your home, work, school or car.  Put a copy in your emergency binder for quick reference if you have to shelter in place.