Down for wind, up for gas: how to shelter in place

Quick answer: Get everyone and the pets inside, shut every door and window, turn off the heating and cooling system, and pick a room with few windows. Which room depends on the danger. Go low for wind. Go above ground level for a chemical release. Go up for rising water. Then stay put until officials say it's over.

What the alert actually says

Your phone goes off at 2 a.m. with that ugly alarm tone. A tanker has overturned a few miles away on the highway. The message says shelter in place.

It doesn't say run. It doesn't say pack the truck. It says the safest place for you right now is the building you're already in, and it's asking you to act in the next few minutes.

Most people have never rehearsed that. The first sixty seconds go to standing in the hallway wondering what "shelter in place" means in practice. So decide it now, at the kitchen table, while nobody's scared.

The first ten minutes for a chemical spill

This follows Ready.gov's guidance for a hazardous materials release. Local officials may add to it, and their instructions win.

1. Bring everybody inside. Kids, adults, pets. Don't go looking for the one neighbor's dog.
2. Lock the doors and close the windows. Close the fireplace damper too.
3. Shut off the air system. That means the furnace, the air conditioner and the fans, including the bathroom and kitchen exhaust. You don't want outside air pulled in.
4. Pick the room. Interior, few windows, and above ground level if you can. More on that below.
5. Take the kit and the phones. Grab a battery or crank radio if you own one.
6. Seal it, if you've been told to or you've got the materials. Ready.gov lists pre-cut plastic sheeting and duct tape for doors, windows and vents. A wet towel along the bottom of the door helps. Whether sealing matters depends on the chemical, and officials will say. Don't skip steps one through five to fuss with tape.
7. Listen. Local radio, TV or the county alert system. Stay until you hear the all-clear.

One caution. Don't seal yourself into a room where anything is burning fuel, like a kerosene heater. And a generator never comes inside, for any reason.

Why the direction changes

This is where people get it backwards.

For a tornado, you go down. Lowest floor, interior room, nothing between you and the sky but walls. If you're not sure what that looks like in your house, here's where to shelter from a tornado in every kind of house.

For a chemical release, the basement can be the wrong answer. Ready.gov points out that some chemicals are heavier than air and can seep into low spaces even with the windows closed. So the guidance is an interior room above ground level.

For flooding, you go up. A basement during a flash flood is a bad place to be.

Down for wind. Up for gas and water. Say it to your kids once and it sticks.

If your house has a single level and no basement, the interior room is your answer for almost everything. A hallway, a walk-in closet or a bathroom with no exterior wall will do.

Storms: when sheltering in place is the plan

A hurricane is the big one. If you're outside an evacuation zone and you're in a sound house, officials often tell people to stay. Pick an interior room away from windows. Stay there through the worst of it. And don't walk outside when it goes quiet, because that can be the eye, and the back half is coming.

If you're in a surge or evacuation zone, none of this applies. Leave when you're told. A shelter-in-place plan is for people who are supposed to be staying.

Severe thunderstorms and winter storms are quieter versions of the same job. Stay inside, stay off the roads, keep away from windows, and expect the power to go. That's where the practical work starts. What a week without power actually takes is worth ten minutes before the next forecast, not after.

One rule for all of it: don't try to ride out a tornado or flood in your car. Get into a building.

Stock the room before you need it

You won't have time to hunt for batteries. Keep a bin where you'd actually go, with these:

• A battery or hand-crank radio, plus spare batteries. If you've never tried one, the radio still works when the internet doesn't.
• Flashlights and a headlamp
• A gallon of water per person per day, enough for a few hours at minimum and ideally much more
• Phone chargers and a charged power bank
• Prescription medications, a basic first aid kit and your glasses
• Pre-cut plastic sheeting, duct tape and scissors
• Dust masks to help filter the air
• Pet food, a leash and a carrier
• A deck of cards. This isn't a joke. Kids need something to do.

If you've already built a seventy-two hour kit your family will actually use, this room bin is the small version. Keep the two near each other.

Pre-cut the plastic. Label each piece for the room and window it covers. Doing that standing in a hallway with a phone alarm going is a miserable way to spend four minutes.

Waiting it out

A chemical shelter order is usually measured in hours, not days. Storms can run longer. In both cases, your job is the same. Stay calm and stay informed.

Run it like a household, not a panic. Give everybody a job. The oldest kid watches the radio. The next one gets the pets settled. You keep the schedule and the mood. Kids copy the adult in the room, and a steady voice is worth more than any item in the bin.

Keep the phone line open. Call 911 only for a life-threatening emergency. Everyone else calling to ask what's happening jams the line. Use the radio and official alert channels for information.

Don't leave on a hunch. The air might smell fine. The street might look clear. Neither one tells you anything. Wait for the all-clear from the people who can measure it.

If you think you've been exposed, follow the instructions in the alert or call 911. General guidance for contamination is to remove outer clothing and wash, but the details depend on the substance, so let officials direct that.

Then look after the neighbors

When the all-clear comes, don't just exhale and go back to bed. Check on the people near you. The widow two doors down may not own a radio. The family with a newborn may not know what the alert meant. A phone call or a knock is enough.

That's how a street gets through a bad night together. You protect your own house first, which is your job. Then you make sure the next one is covered.

And put the bin back together before you go to sleep. Replace what you used. Leave it ready, better than you found it.