Homeowner disaster-prep guide: 8 major crises and how to be ready

Floods

• The threat: Floods cause an average $5 billion in losses and 100 fatalities yearly. About 3,800 towns are on flood plains.
• Where: Mainly coastal states and the Mississippi Valley.
• When: Spring and fall.

Sump pumps are the best defense against minor flooding and chronically wet basements, but if a river is rising nearby or a coastal storm surge is imminent, the best advice is to move your valuables to a high floor, then evacuate. And if there are flash-flood warnings, be quick about it. These floods move fast and tend to carry mud, trees and other dangerous debris with them. If you're in a flood zone — check your address with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Map Service Center to find out — plan an escape route ahead of time. And never drive through moving water; it can be a death trap. Almost 50% of flood fatalities are car-related.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by the term "100-year flood," either. That doesn't indicate that a flood will occur only once a century. What it really means is that every year, there's a one-in-100 chance of that level of flooding. If you live in a flood zone, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that you have a one-in-two chance of experiencing a flood in your lifetime.

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Blackouts

• The threat: Recent large-scale power outages have lasted as long as three weeks.
• Where: Anywhere.
• When: Outages spike in summer, when demand for air conditioning is high.

Power outages are a routine side effect of other disasters, but sometimes a blackout can be a disaster in itself. The largest recent example in the United States was the Northeast blackout of 2003, which left 50 million people without power and caused 11 deaths. All told, it caused $6 billion in damage.

That blackout was widespread, but it was hardly an isolated incident. On average, a dozen large-scale blackouts affecting at least 50,000 people each occur every year. Like many disasters, blackouts introduce issues of food spoilage, water contamination and exposure to heat and cold that only get more severe as the outage lingers. The best defense is a generator, but it's also important to keep a flashlight and radio where you can easily find them. In widespread blackouts, communication networks tend to suffer along with the grid. Landline and cell-phone networks can get overwhelmed, but short texts will get through. A useful and free service called "I'm OK!" lets you create an emergency-contact list so you can send mass e-mails with a single text message.

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House fires

• The threat: 400,000 fires each year kill nearly 3,000 people and injure more than 14,000.
• Where: Anywhere.
• When: Most common in winter.

More Americans die in house fires every year than in all natural disasters combined. When in doubt, escape the building, but if you judge that you can safely mount a fire-extinguisher battle, there are two rules you need to know.

• Rule one: Stay six feet from the flames so you don't torch the rest of your house by air-blasting a nascent fire across the room.
• Rule two: People often forget rule one and make things worse, so keep your escape route to your back when you pull the trigger.

More than 50% of fatal house fires occur between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. — peak hours for all fires are 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. — so practice two ways out of every room at night. And make sure at least one of them does not rely on a stairwell, which can easily become a deadly vortex of gas, smoke, heat and flame. "Homes are the only occupancy in the country allowed by code to have an open staircase," says house-fire expert John Norman, a retired chief of the New York Fire Department. "We call them chimneys. They serve as channels for fire as it moves upwards." Finally, it may sound basic, but picking an outside rendezvous point is critical, so you can discover quickly who has made it out of the house and who hasn't.

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Wildfires

• The threat: Millions of acres of the U.S. burn every year.
• Where: Sun Belt states and Alaska.
• When: June to September.

Don't confuse a house fire with a wildfire that's about to overrun your house. If you didn't evacuate earlier — and you probably should have — your house is where you make your final stand. Shutting your windows against flying embers is an obvious step, but just as important is to open the fireplace damper to vent deadly gas and smoke that will precede the fire.

Make sure to shut off gas or propane lines, but stop there. "Don't shut off the water — we can use that — and don't shut off the electricity," says Fred Stowers, a 24-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, who helped combat last year's 160,000-acre Station Fire. "Turn lights on so we can see inside and tell the difference between things like drifting smoke and roaring flames."

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Earthquakes

• The threat: The most destructive recent U.S. quake, in 1994 in Northridge, Calif., caused $40 billion in damage and killed 61 people.
• Where: California and the Midwest.
• When: At least one great quake — magnitude 8.0 and up —  hits somewhere in the world each year.

Today, there is no credible way to predict earthquakes, so when a big one hits a U.S. population center — and experts agree that there will be a big one — it will come without warning, and it will be devastating. Most modern houses are bolted to their foundations, but older houses may be held in place simply by their own weight.

To earthquake-proof an older home, spend a few hundred dollars on half-inch anchor bolts and earthquake brackets to attach your home to its foundation and keep it from shaking or sliding free. Also remember to secure major appliances and free-standing bookshelves to the walls and install flexible gas and water lines to prevent ruptures or leaks. Those busted lines can make the fiery aftermath of an earthquake just as deadly as the quake itself. If you smell gas, get out of your house immediately. Keep an eye out for downed power lines.

Finally, the most useful technology to have around after an earthquake could be an old-fashioned battery-powered radio. "The power grid will be down, and the cell grid will be overwhelmed," says Mary Lou Zoback, a geophysicist with Risk Management Solutions. "It's going to be your lifeline for information."

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Hurricanes

• The threat: Each year, six to eight hurricanes strike the U.S., causing an average $5 billion in damage per season.
• Where: Eastern and Southern coastal states.
• When: September is the cruelest.

The most important thing to have in place for hurricane season is a plan to get out of town. Towboat captain and 22-year Coast Guard veteran Jeff Swiney knows a thing or two about disaster evacuation; multiple hurricanes have hit his Lafayette, La., home.

"You've got to have predetermined trigger points and then act on them," he says. "Too many people wait until it's too late, when the storm is overwhelming, and that's when they get hurt."

Second only to the safety of your family should be the structural integrity of your home. The best time to build in hurricane protection is during new construction, when roof straps and permanent storm shutters can be added with little effort. But existing roofs can be retrofitted with gable end braces, and temporary storm shutters can be cut to fit in a couple of hours. Don't forget to bolster your garage as well, Swiney says — he braces the entrance with diagonally placed 2-by-4s. "Garage doors are weak," he says. "And if a hurricane-force wind gets inside, it will take your whole roof off."

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Blizzards

• The threat: Winter storms can paralyze whole regions of the country.
• Where: Everywhere but the South.
• When: December to April.

Severe winter storms can snow people in for days at a time, while heavy ice and snow routinely bring down tree limbs and power lines. Homeowners in cold-weather states are used to breaking out the shovels, and even the roof rakes, for the hard task of snow removal. But a clear driveway isn't an excuse for a drive — 70% of winter storm fatalities occur in automobiles — so sit tight at home and stay warm.

If the power is out, a generator will help keep the basic utilities running. But if you lack backup power and think you may be in it for the long haul, set up a "camp" inside your house with a tent, sleeping bags and your family all shut in a single room to consolidate heat.

Long-lasting cold can burst water pipes, so prepare the house by turning off the water supply at the source; then open the lowest faucet and drain your pipes. But be sure to save some water for drinking, cooking and cleaning; eating snow is a dangerous way to hydrate and can lead to hypothermia.

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