Call 811 Before You Dig

Before you begin any type of digging, it is important to know what lies beneath your feet.

Pipelines may be located anywhere, including under streets, sidewalks and private property, sometimes just inches below the surface. Excavation, planting, demolition and other forms of digging are a major cause of pipeline damage.

Whether you’re planning to build a major development or just landscaping your yard, protect your safety and the safety of those around you by calling Underground Service Alert agencies at 811, at least two business days prior to excavating. You may call Underground Service Alert agencies between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday (excluding holidays). Underground Service Alert will coordinate with various utility owners in the area to mark the locations of buried utility-owned lines. This is a FREE service and it can help prevent injury, costly property damage and loss of utility service.

Here's a list of all Call811 agencies by state:
http://www.call811.com/state-specific.aspx

National Preparedness Month

September is National Preparedness month. National Preparedness Month 2006 is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The goal of the month is to increase public awareness about the importance of preparing for emergencies and to encourage individuals to take action. To know more about this visit the National Preparedness Month website.

This is a time we all should make a resolution to check regularly in future how prepared we are if a disaster strikes. However hard we try, we cannot avoid natural disasters but we can avoid a lot of misery and distress, if we are ready for it.

Here are a few tips for disaster preparedness:

Pick a day that's easy to remember, such as the first of the month, to test your home's smoke detectors and flashlights and radiobatteries.

Keep your emergency food and water supply fresh by consuming and replacing items before their expiration date.

Store your emergengy prepardness plan and disaster supplies kit in the same place.

Include books and games in your emergency supplies kit. You'll want something to do and keep your mind away from unnecessary anxieties.

Always have at least a half-tank of gas in your car, so you'll be prepared to evacuate.

Involve Children in emergency prepardness. they'll react better during a real-life emergency if they've practised beforehand

Hold a fire drill at night, to practise finding your way out of the dark.

Conduct a "household hazard hunt." look for furnature that needs securing, flammable products that require safe storage, and other items that could fall or cause a fire. Then fix problem areas.

Earthquake

Earthquakes cannot be predicted with any degree of precision and are most frequent in the West. While a few deadly ones have been recorded in the eastern and central parts of the country, there have been no major ones there since the 1800s. It is widely considered a matter of time before another major quake hits the seismically active West, home to considerable volcanic activity and geologic fault lines. The country's most severe quake in modern times had a magnitude of 9.2 in Alaska in 1964. One believed to be almost as large hit the Pacific Northwest coast in 1700, permanently changing the coastline.

Earthquake insurance costs vary widely by region and amount of the deductible. Aside from quake-prone California, the Insurance Information Institute lists Seattle, Portland, Ore., New York City and Salt Lake City as among cities with high loss potential. The costliest loss from earthquake was the 1994 Northridge quake in California, which caused an estimated $20 billion in damage, $12.5 billion of it insured.

On last Friday Allstate Insurance announced it would drop covering earthquake insurance to most of its 407,000 quake customers nationwide as a part of a larger move to reduce exposure to catastrophic losses. The company has not written new earthquake insurance since March 6 and announced Friday that existing earthquake policies will not be renewed. According to the company four states (Kentucky, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Florida) require it by law to offer earthquake coverage, but the company is in various stages of talks with regulators there.
The company has also declined storm renewals in some parts of Florida and New York and has taken a hard look at coastal coverage from Texas to Florida beginning with Hurricane Andrew in 1995.

No other major companies have yet expressed any plan to take similar action. In California, the most earthquake-prone state, the coverage is not affected by the Allstate decision. It is covered by the California Earthquake Authority, which has about 750,000 policies in force covering about 13.5% of the state's homeowners. The authority, founded by the Legislature in 1996, has approved a 22% rate cut effective July 1 last year to encourage more people to buy coverage.

For keeping track of recent earthquake activities, you may regularly visit the eathquake page of U.S. Geological Survey.