Quake-proof your Home - Making Your Home Safe - An interior safety checklist
Here is a handy checklist to make sure the interior of your home is a lot safer in the event of an earthquake. The list is not exhaustive but all ideas came from problems identified from the California Earthquakes. All materials are available at most builders suppliers. Generally speaking, commercial kits, while very handy, are much more expensive than making your own from common household items.
Inspect each room: Remove or secure items that could crash down. Cabinets, drawers, tall furniture, open shelves, hanging pictures, china cabinets, televisions and personal computers need to be secured.
The kitchen is a very dangerous room: Use latches, such as those used for baby-proofing, to secure cabinets and drawers. Secure the refrigerator and microwave with heavy-duty L-shaped brackets.
Remove pictures and anything else from above beds. Move beds away from, windows or from beneath a ceiling fan.
Close blinds or drapes each night to prevent broken glass from flying into the room.
Stash under the bed: a pair of your old shoes in case glass covers the floor, a crowbar to help open jammed doors and a flashlight.
Educate family members on how and when to shut off the electricity breaker, water and gas valves. If they are big enough to do it, they're old enough to be shown how.
The water valve should be immediately shut off to prevent contamination of the home's water supply or draining your precious household water back into the street. This is the valve located in the house, right where the water line enters. A good idea is to flag the valve with some bright flag tape.
Natural gas is now a part of our neighborhood. I have devoted a separate page to address this problem Turning off the gas?
Strap the water heater to a stud wall to prevent breakage of gas and water lines. Toppled water heaters are a big danger: Fire or flooding caused by gas or water lines broken at the water heater can cause serious damage. California water heaters did not survive well.
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