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Dealing with disaster
A yearly community event on Saturday helped raise awareness on dealing with natural disasters and unexpected emergencies.
Held at the Latter-day Saints Stake Center in Mountain Home, the community emergency preparedness fair provided answer to people's questions on preparing for various disasters, coping with extended power or water outages and other contingencies.
During the day, representatives from local community agencies, private organizations and local citizens set up booths and displays to discuss issues like evacuation planning, proper food storage and survival solutions.
Among these individuals were Chris Latla, who showed how people could survive using things they would normally toss out in the trash. Using a pair of simple scissors, he cut apart a pair of soda cans and turned them into a basic stove capable of boiling water to make it safe to drink.
Nearby, he had other makeshift survival tools on hand, including one he called a "hobo stove" made from a standard soup can and a larger aluminum can and fueled by scraps of wood. A metal rack on top of the makeshift stove keeps a pot or pan in place, allowing someone to cook a can of soup fairly quickly.
It takes just a couple of basic tools and a little imagination to stay alive in an emergency, Latla said. But the most important tool in a crisis is a person's creativity.
"In an emergency, people tend to panic," he added. "But if you keep calm, you'll be all right."
That same type of creativity was used to turn a cardboard box into another makeshift kitchen appliance. Patricia Stevenson lifted the lid of a solar oven, which was nothing more than a box lined with aluminum foil.
Sun light shines into this box, which gets hot enough to bake food. While it takes more time for meals to fully cook versus a conventional oven, a solar oven is portable and usable in situations where people don't have electrical power, Stevenson said.
Preparation is also important for people to deal with emergencies. A display set up by Rebecca Mouritsen showcased the recommended contents of what she called a 72-hour kit.
Stuffed into a piece of standard luggage, the kit contained provisions that would allow her family to remain comfortable for a minimum of three days if they ever had to evacuate during an emergency. It included basic provisions such as non-perishable food, water, flashlights, batteries and clothing.
Keeping this type of kit portable is important since people won't know if be able to use their own vehicle to escape from an emergency situation or they'll need to leave on foot, she said.
During her presentation, she shared some advice for those needing to build a kit. In addition to rotating food out of the kits on a regular basis, she recommended that parents pack sweatshirts and pants for their children versus jeans since growing youngsters can still fit into a pair of sweats, even when they start to outgrow the clothing.
Throughout the day, an assortment of emergency vehicles and other equipment remained on display outside for people to view. The largest display was a portable hospital tent set up by St. Luke's Elmore medical center.
A portable generator ran power to lights inside the tent, which would allow doctors to treat patients following a natural disaster or other emergency. While capable of holding 25 patients at a time, the tent had the ability to interconnect with two others, giving medical teams the option to set up a fully functional hospital.
But not everything that day was geared specifically to survival situations. JoAnn Henrick set up a display titled "square foot gardening." She called it a simpler way of gardening that makes it easier for people to grow tomatoes and other vegetables from their backyard.
Henrick has a 16 square foot plot in her yard that compresses her vegetable garden into a limited amount of space. Using a special blend of soil and nutrients, it keeps weeds to an absolute minimum and eliminates the need to rototill the soil before planting.
"You can have it out all winter and be able to plant in just 20 minutes," she said.