Personal Hygiene After a Disaster or Emergency

When the world seems to be flooding or blowing up around you the last thing you have on your mind is keeping clean. However there is no other time when it is more important to stay hygienic. Good basic hygenic and handwashing are critical to help prevent the spread of illness and disease.

The best way to clean yourself is in clean safe running water but the problem is that this type of service is not always available. If your tap water is not safe to use then wash your hands with water that has been boiled or disinfected.

Be sure to wet your hands with clean, running water and scrub them well with soap. Be sure to scrub your fingers and under your nails. Keep rubbing your hands together for at least twenty seconds. Singing Happy Birthday twice is about twenty seconds. Rinse your hands well after and dry thoroughly.

If soap and water are not available then use an alcohol based hand sanitizer that is at least sixty percent alcohol. This can help to quickly reduce the number of germs on hands in some situations.

To keep from getting sick it is best to wash your hands before, during and after preparing food and after eating food. You should also wash them before eating food and after using the toile and changing diapers. Hands also need cleaning before and after changing wounds or cuts or caring for someone who is sick. Be sure to clean them before and after blowing your nose, sneezing or coughing. You also need to clean your hands after touching garbage or touching animal wastes.

Not all animals are that clean either. Be sure to wash them thoroughly after you have touched any type of animal.

It is also very important to keep wounds clean and covered during an emergency. Washing a wound with safe clean water is necessary to control infection. Make sure that your own hands are absolutely pristine before touching a bandage or a wound on another person. You should also wash your hands often if you must take care of someone with a contagious disease.

You should also make sure that you are brushing your teeth and bathing with clean water. It is a good idea to keep listening to the radio or television to make sure that any tap water that you are using is safe to use. If you have a well you might have to get the water tested after a disaster to make sure that it is still safe to use.

Safety of Food and Water During Flooding

Flooding can be devastating to your food and water stores. Here are some tips for making sure that you do not consume anything that can make you sick.

First of all you should stick to drinking bottled water if you can. However do not drink bottled water that has been exposed to flood waters as it can be contaminated. If you do not have bottled water then make sure you boil water before you drink it.

If the water to be boiled looks cloudy then put it through a filter before you boil it. Store it in clean containers and then drink. If you have no way of boiling water then you can disinfect it using household bleach. After filtering ad 1/8 teaspoon (about 8 drops) of regular unscented household bleach per each gallon of water and stir well. Let it stand at least thirty minutes before you drink it.

Do not eat any food that may have come into contact with flood waters and discard any food that was not in a waterproof container. Food containers that are not waterproof are those with snap lids, pull tops and screw caps. Cardboard juice or broth cartons also must be discarded if they have come into contact with flood waters.

Canned foods may be okay if they are not damaged. Signs of damage are selling, leaking, punctures, holes, fractures, extensive rusting, or denting that creases the can. If you are unable to open the can with a can opener then it may be too bent out of shape to use.

If you have commercially prepared foods in all metal cans and flexible pouches you might be able to save the food by removing the labels, cleaning off all dirt and then rinsing it with soap and water. You can then sanitize the cans and pouches in boiling water or disinfect them by immersing them in a solution of one gallon of water plus one tablespoon of liquid bleach for fifteen minutes. Make sure that the bleach that you are using is unscented.

After you are done cleaning the cans and pouches be sure to air-dry them. After that you can use a marker to manually label the contents of the cans and pouches.

Make sure that anywhere that the food was once stored is also very well cleaned with chlorine bleach. Try to store the food in places that were not touched by floodwaters if at all possible.

Survival