I have tried
to do research about the effectiveness of emergency preparedness. This is
however very hard to since this is very hard to determine what is effective,
what isn’t and how to generate or find statistics.
What I have
done is check the number of people dying after a mayor incident. Assuming an
emergency bag is a response type of action, not a mitigation tool I assumed for
my little research that an emergency bag is not a tool that prevents dead
during a incident.
Very few
people die after a mayor event. Even when not prepared people can generally
survive long enough until help arrives. Obviously getting cold, dehydrated and hungry
isn’t nice. But very few people die of it after an incident. The step from
mayor incident to relief is not nice, but in the vast majority of cases not
lethal.
In the
emergency preparedness community, there is a lot of talk of the gear we might
need in an emergency or when we flee for something. There is even talk about
the ‘I’m never coming home bag’ (Acronym: ‘INCH bag’). Generally heavy and
massive bags, because people think they will need to bring everything they will
every need on their backs. As a hiker and mountaineer, it’s easy to see why
that would not work. Big heavy bags, means you are slower, less manoeuvrable, tiring
a lot quicker and it uses a lot of calories. As a mountaineer I carry a lot
less weight than some people do in there ‘INCH’ bag and still manage to survive
pretty bad weather condition.
What do
people in real life bring? The refugee crisis in Europe gives us a look at what
people bring. With hazardous border crossings, from climbing fences, running
away from border guards, to going by boat and packing as light as possible (or
ditch stuff) on boats, because people smugglers want to pack as many people as
possible on a boat.
Some real
life examples from the immigrants:
Surprisingly
little is carried and they are generally not shelter, food and water independent.
Does this matter? Just like any emergency situation, there are some kind of
effort by governments, NGO’s or just volunteers that will help with this. In
the case of the immigrants the way to Europe is through functional countries,
where they can buy food, water and shelter or depend on government or charity.
think survival able, but certainly not comfortable.
So what is
the point of this article. Well primarily that you do not need much to survive.
I’m not saying that carrying as little as the refugees, but carrying 50+ pounds
‘INCH’ bags what some propose is just crazy. Find a middle ground in
weight/size versus mobility. The way is to figure out what you can do without,
not with what might come in handy.
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