Preparing for Earthquake a lot like camping

In Deschutes County Oregon we are advised to be prepared to live off grid completely isolated for 90 days in the event of the Cascadia Earthquake Event. Suddenly the rather casual camping gear list becomes a formalized to get list. As in planning for a 3 month camping trip, we need a lot of the correct supplies. (only we don't have to carry it) Like say you have 90 days worth of freeze dried food, do you have 90 days worth of water? Got food and water for those animals if water is scarce or the faucet goes dry, can you create an outhouse, or have buckets and a 5 gallon toilet seat? How do you cook for 3 months, you need a lot of pans, paper plates, plastic cups, or else you need a huge amount of hot water, a way to heat it and a whole bunch of fuel. Speaking of which you also may need to heat your shelter and have a warm place to sleep and to keep your water thawed. Just some of the things I've been dealing with this summer. Jim

This topic is a bit far afield from backpacking, but I'll bite.

"Don't have to carry it" is the key phrase here. 90 days worth of food don't have to be freeze dried! It is much cheaper to buy "normal" shelf stable food like pasta, rice, dry beans, oil, canned goods, etc. Take a lesson from the Mormons and store food that you normally eat anyway, so it won't expire and go to waste if the earthquake doesn't happen.

It is hard to imagine that any place in the US would be isolated for more than a week or two, even after a major disaster (hurricanes and floods are good examples). Total preparation could include a well, solar water heating (or a long black garden hose), and maybe solar panels to run the well pump etc.

When camping and the S**t hits the fan we say, "lets go home". Our backpack gear is a subset of off-grid living gear that fits into a pack and is generally intended to provide for us for a weekend only, but we need pretty much the same things, except for the large food and water supplies and the need for off grid power. Also my backyard is at 4,000 feet in an Oregon forest with lava flow across it. I would be living out there maybe in a tent for months. The camping gear list is much shorter...

Read the Cascadia Earthquake predictions, it will be the largest disaster to ever hit America. Our water pipes will rupture and the power will be off, at the very least.

Yeah--we leave enough gear in our van for it to be our "go bag." It includes a bunch of water, some day packs, and enough food for a few days, plus sleeping bags. And we try to leave it with at least half a tank of gas at all times.

Oregon isn't as earthquake prone as California, but once it became clear that we're due for a powerful subduction zone quake of approx 9.0 on the Richter scale, we began keeping earthquake supplies in each of our vehicles and we have stored old camping gear, old clothes, food, water and various odds and ends on our property where they would probably be accessible even if our house became unsafe to enter. We'd still be miserable if it happened in winter, but we'd scrape by for several weeks.