How to prep for potential natural disasters? When prepping one has to consider one’s own needs and prerequisites. the content and level of prep would be different for a family with small kids in hokkaido vs a single male in okinawa. so my situation is:
2 adults, living in tokyo, no specific needs out of the normal, theres not much room for storage, so whatever prepp would most likely be on the balcony. Currently i just have 20L of water in plastic bottles as my prep.
worst case scenario would be to get homeless after a large earthquake, typhoon, flood or the like i suppose. other likely things are power outage for a longer while.
Considering we live in tokyo, heat/shelter won’t be that big of an issue, regardless of the year. I cant think of anything apart from some food and water, lots of water. I see little need for outdoor kitchen, fuel, batteries, cold climate gear and lots of stuff i used to have back in my homecountry with significantly more harh climate.
preferably food that can be stored but requires little or preferably no amount of cooking to be able to eat. also something that one could have at home and consume as part of the regular content in the kitchen cupboard.
anyone’s got recommendations or a list? how do you prep here in japan? i bet the government has a website for this somewhere to be found
19 comments
Food and water for 3 days. The recommendation is 6L of water per person at least (2L/day/person, better 10L. That’s the maximum time the rescue is guaranteed to get to you.
For food, I just have some canned good, potatoes chips, some energy bars, and candies.
(In practise, your local evacuation shelter should also be very well stocked).
I also have enough cash to buy plane tickets back home in case I need to do “flyjin”.
Oh, and of course, look up your local evacuation shelters. I evacuated there during 2018 Osaka earthquake so I know they are very well prepared which make me just stocking food and water.
I do have 20,000mAh power bank which should last me 3 days for my phone if needed, too.
Every ward in Tokyo has its own disaster and hazard map with information. For example here is Nakano Ward. Just Google your ward and hazard map/disaster prevention
https://www.city.tokyo-nakano.lg.jp/dept/157700/d002974_d/fil/eigozyou.pdf
https://www.city.tokyo-nakano.lg.jp/dept/157700/d029605_d/fil/1.pdf
Besides preparing things like this, it’s important that all members of a household have agreed upon a meeting place. In the event of a large disaster, you probably won’t have any way to contact each other, so you should all know exactly where you are going to meet.
Make sure you understand where the evacuation areas are in the general area of your house. In many of these, the government has already prepared food and water in storage.
And of course, know what you should do during the actual earthquake. All of the storage and preparation you do will be worthless if you get killed immediately by doing something like running outside your office building in Shinjuku etc. You’ll probably get killed by broken glass and pieces of fallen buildings. In the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, only one woman was killed in Tokyo. She was killed by a piece of falling building outside
Government-issued but not disaster-specific, I actually learned about disaster preparation from a language textbook: https://www.irodori.jpf.go.jp/en/elementary02/pdf.html Lesson 16 is about evacuation drills and prepping. It brought up some good things I wouldn’t have thought of, like you’ll need a radio to get news if other networks go down, and some way to wedge your front door open in the event of an earthquake to prevent being trapped inside.
Something my tutor mentioned that wasn’t in the book is, you should keep a pair of slippers where you sleep. In the event of a quake at night you could be walking over broken glass in the dark.
About 5 big boy cans of strong zero. Canned saba for the boyfriend who I am still trying to get to understand we don’t drain the tub because we could use it for the toilet.
I don’t have any food for myself. If I’m trapped for a few days I need those cans to hit hard.
Store some decent face masks too. Like the N20 ones or something.
If this was an inaka post it might be interesting, but prepping in Tokyo is just creating a 3-5 day gap between haves and have nots. In fact I’d imagine most of the food in your house will last those 3-5 days without specific prepping that it isn’t necessary to plan in excess (get butane and water bottles). If things take longer than 3-5 days in Tokyo to rerturn to semi-normal, you’re going to be competing for resources in the most densely packed area in the world. Trust in the system, American preppers mentality doesn’t work there.
What you really want is to prep get out bags and the process for not being in Tokyo in the event that shit goes sideways.
amazon japan sells disaster kits. i have one plus a disaster kit that I bought from my city office with maps of my local area. I bet tokyo probably has the same thing. also search disaster food on amazon and you can buy stuff that will last you like five years.
I also have one of those little gas grills with a couple canister of gas too.
Read this: [https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/guide/bosai/index.html](https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/guide/bosai/index.html)
Bosai the Rhino will tell you everything you want to know about disaster preparation.
>2 adults, living in tokyo, no specific needs out of the normal
Does your significant other have family nearby? If a disaster significant enough to use this kit occurs, are they going to be covered, are they going to be joining up with you, are you going to be able to tell them to get lost?
**Step 1: be informed**
– look up the flood map, landslide map
– find out where your evacuation assembly point is
**Step 2: hopefully not needed**
Done 🎉🎉
There’s a book written by people having experienced the major quake & tsunami of 2011, detailing what they really had a need for. This might be a good place to start looking. A lot of people in the comments look like they’re brushing this off lightly, as in “It’s Tokyo, it’ll be okay”. There’s a good chance it won’t though. Shelters may not be so hugely stocked as you think, and may not always be easy to reach.
We got a huge trekking backpack stocked with goods for the 3 of us (got a kid too) for when the need would arise to evacuate. Mostly water, some canned food, first aid stuff and hokkairo + portable fans. Besides that, we always keep a steady supply of water, canned food, gas cans and batteries in stock. It’s not unthinkable that you may not need to evacuate, but electricity etc may not be working for a while.
Apart from the stock, make sure you always have some cash money on you, in small bills and coins. When shit hits the fan when you’re out, you may need it and ATM’s could be out.
Case of 2liter water bottles in the house, one in the car, a bag with hats, gloves, fresh undies, some seasonal clothes, some snacks, batteries, a small first aid kit, some cash in small bills, etc in case we need to leave… extra gas cassettes, some of those plastic water bags, and a stocked pantry.
When we know a storm is coming we fill the tub and plastic water bags. After the storm I just rinse myself with cold water for a few days.
As the others said, you should know the designated evacuation areas/shelters in your neighborhood. You can also get flood maps. The idea of the bag is just to make us feel a little more comfortable if we need to stay in a shelter. At least we got clean undies, right?
Besides food and water, make sure that any relevant documents (passport, birth certificate, immigration documents, etc.) are easily reachable in case of emergency. Make sure to have some toiletries/first aid supplies, *including* menstrual products if you need them. Also, if you haven’t, register with your home country’s embassy, if available–the US has the [STEP](https://step.state.gov/) program, as an example, but the name and availability is dependent on your country.
You should also download the government’s [Safety Tips](https://www.jnto.go.jp/safety-tips/eng/app.html) app. (The linked page has iOS and Android versions.) Gives alerts in English, has explanations of the different evacuation levels, and if there’s a disaster, it can take your location and provide you with the closest evacuation centre. Only downside is that for some emergencies, it will just *keep* sending you notifications; [this is what my notifications looked like](https://imgur.com/3j8zouv) during the typhoon last September because they had issued evacuation orders for some areas outside my city.
For long shelf-life emergency rations, I recommend to use the calendar on your smartphone to keep track of the best-by date. It is very easy to forget about them only to realize that the best-by date was 2 years ago.
Also important to disaster-proof your home by making installing tension rods on shelves or fridges to reduce the risk of them toppling.
I always have a case of 2L bottled water in my closet and a few food items in stock (mostly things that last longer like pasta, instant noodle, packaged rice, canned foods, condiments/sauce packets, etc.) that I switch out every 3-4 months. I make sure to only keep in stock what I like to eat and am used to cooking.
I also do have a sort of “bug out” bag in case I am forced to leave my apartment that includes: cash (5-man in yen), extra eyeglass, dry shampoo, body soap, batteries, flashlight, gloves, lighter/matches, an empty water bottle, a few snacks like biscuits, a universal charger/adapter with cables, clothes (mostly undies), leftover hotel amenities (such as shower caps, shavers) and a bit more that I can’t remember. Mostly items I feel that can be useful if I have to spend a few nights at a evacuation shelter. Though I’ve been fortunate to not have to be in these shelters so not sure how actually useful they will be.
Edit: Forgot to add that I’m a single woman living somewhere a bit outside of Tokyo.
Growing up in a state where we had school-wide earthquake drills (good old Drop, Cover, and Hold) and school asking us to prepare our own earthquake kit for the classroom, here are my EQ kit + good to have around (2 adults living in central Tokyo in apartment).
Earthquake Kit (per person, in backpack, stored somewhere near the entrance of apartment)
– 3 days worth of food that does not require heating (canned / pouched foods you can find at outdoors / camping stores are good) and reusable cutleries
– water
– mouthwash / gum
– toiletries that does not require water (dry shampoo, hand sanitizers, etc)
– wet wipes (butt wipes, alcohol wipes, non-alcoholic wipes, body wipes)
– medicine (tylenol, bandaids, ointments, etc)
– trash bags and grocery bags
– emergency blanket (the silver one)
– Sharpie / pen / mini notepads
– batteries / chargers
– flashlight
– heavy duty gloves
– underwear (4 days)
– quick dry towel
– Uniqlo lightweight down that can roll-up
– Sudoku, crossword puzzle books, or playing cards
Don’t forget your ID / passport as well.
In case when the “Big One” hits, I don’t think I will leave my apartment as I feel it’s safer here. Depending on where you live, it may be just safe to stay than to try to get out to your nearest evacuation site. At home, I have:
– portable solar generator and portable solar panels
– 12 2L Water (stored underbed)
– Canned foods and dried foods
– Portable gas stove + gas cassettes (cylinders)
– emergency toilets (ones that does not require water)
I always keep a set of gloves and sneakers under my bed in case.
Husband thinks this is too much, but better to be prepared than not prepared.
Get yourself out to Odaiba and visit the disaster preparedness centre. It’s an interactive museum where you can go through different environments after an “earthquake”. They have displays of different bag contents for different environments, durations, etc.
For actual items, the easiest place to start is ordering a pre-made bag from Amazon or Nitori. You need to replace items as they eventually expire, but I found it less stressful than trying to build a bag from scratch.
Btw if you have a gas table, you have both an emergency cooking device *and* the ability to have nabe parties.
I have a shelf in a closet dedicated to disaster prep. This is all for 2 adults and 1 child in Tokyo. I keep:
* Bottled water – 12L
* Rice packs that can be made with room temp water – 24
* Canned bread – 24 cans
* Canned tuna – 12 cans
* Instant curry packs that don’t need hot water to make – 10 packs
* Vegetable juice – 20 cans
* Instant coffee – 95g
* Protein bars – 20 bars
* Chocolate – 100 piece bag
I like spreadsheets so I keep all this organized there. I track shelf life in there too as most of this lasts 3-5 years but some needs to be replaced sooner. And in that sheet I put together ration/meal plans so optimize how the foods go together and at which frequency each should be eaten.
I also keep a bug-out bag in a closet in our genkan, just in case we need to get out quickly due to an earthquake or natural disaster. Happy to share that list too if people are interested.
I don’t consider myself a prepper or anything crazy like that, but I like being organized and prepared.
For two adults we have:
Two daypacks with everything in this list inside. Ones a camel back.
Wet weather gear.
Base layers.
Gloves.
Head torches with spare batteries.
First aid kit.
A USB solar charger.
Power bank.
Carbon filters for water bottles.
Water purification tablets.
Air mattresses.
Sleeping Bags.
Also have food and 40L water in multiple bottles nearby.