Insure Your Family Against a Flu Pandemic and Other Disasters

by Jeffrey C. Walker and Hunter Walker

“This Flu Season is Breaking Records For Hospitalization and Getting Worse” reported Buzzfeed this morning and announced that 16 more children died of the flu this week. Hospitals admissions are exceeding capacity.  

“The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus  it infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history”, per Wikipedia.

Scientists are now saying because the population of the earth is larger and much more mobile a 1918 level pandemic would be much worse. Imagine the 7.6 billion people on earth being exposed to such a pandemic. Would the deaths reach more than the 5% from 1918, maybe 10-20%? A billion lives?

And this is just the flu, imagine an Ebola outbreak or bioterrorist attack that we couldn’t control quickly.  Check out the article, “This is How the World Gets Sick” from Fast Company. It is from the book, Deadliest Enemy by epidemiologist Dr. Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker and tells the story of what could happen if we have another flu pandemic.

The Center For Disease Control (CDC) is set up to find cures for these kinds of diseases but as we saw with Ebola and Zikha, the cures take time and research. Philanthropist Jeff Skoll and others have funded a collaboration called the Skoll Global Threats Fund which is looking at ways to help us identify risks related to these type problems and create solutions, but, they have a long road to travel. 

One of the ways that the governments react to these type outbreaks is to suggest people make sure they get their flu shots, wash their hands a lot, wear face masks, and stay away from hospitals unless they are desperate since hospitals tend to be places where germs congregate. In drastic circumstances schools and workplaces are closed. People are asked to stay home and wait until vaccines can be produced or until the pandemic burns itself out. In many cases the national guards are called out to keep order and prevent runs on groceries and related facilities.

I am not trying to paint a scenario where all is out of control but one where we need time for our health authorities and state/national/international militaries to work out solutions and implement them at scale. In these circumstances our families are vulnerable. Even in natural disasters such as the 2017 hurricane season we saw families before the storms living normal lives and then the day after the storms all their support systems were wiped out. There were riots in the islands of the Caribbean, grocery stores ran out of food and water…. people got desperate very quickly.  They had no plan or insurance against this. They had no plan to keep their family supplied with basic goods for an extended period while the authorities had time to work through the problems and rebuild. 

The Mormon faith recommends that a year’s stock of food and other necessities be stored in their homes or nearby. “We encourage members worldwide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings. We ask that you be wise, and do not go to extremes. With careful planning, you can, over time, establish a home storage supply and a financial reserve.”, from “All is Safely Gathered In”.  They suggest each family have a 72 hour kit and in addition up to a year’s supply. Is this something we all should do?

Consider the annual cost of insuring your home against disasters (per Value Penguin, “We found the average cost of homeowners insurance to be $1,083 nationwide with Florida the highest at $2,055”), shouldn’t we be willing to insure the safety and health of our families against disasters? I found the advice of the Mormons and this simple return on investment analysis to move me to act. I can build a store of food and supplies in our home for less than the cost of insuring my home. 

My son, Hunter, investigated what might be a useful set of goods and tools to have in storage in order to allow our family to stay isolated in our homes for a long enough period so the authorities can let us know it is safe to come out. We found that there are many sources of stable products and many people (survivalists and others) who have been working on this issue before we looked at it.

This is what Hunter recommended as a safety survival package for us. We gave him as a first objective, provide four adults food and clean water for three months of isolation in the event of a major disaster or pandemic. He should assume we will be without power or water (hopefully that won’t be the case). We also asked that it could be stored in a garage/attic/basement and be usable for at least five years without maintenance.

• Food. He evaluated several companies who provide healthy quality calories for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You just add water and, at times, heat to prepare them. After he prepared and tasted each product he recommended the Legacy Food package because of better taste and since they lasted longer (up to 25 years). 

The three month for a family of four 1080 serving package includes a variety of meals and are stored in buckets. Instead of just one choice for breakfast, legacy provides 4 different breakfast options, including multi grain cereal, oatmeal with brown sugar, strawberry creamy wheat, and even old fashion pancakes. Other meals include pasta primavera, soups, enchiladas, stroganoff. All of the meals provide high quality calories, and are easy to make, but just adding water.

• Cook Stove. He recommended a portable propane/butane gas stove and a solar stove. If you are in an area where you have a gas grill, consider always having an extra propane tank available.

                         https://www.gosunstove.com

                         Iwatani Corporation of America ZA-3HP Portable Butane Stove Burner

• Water. A 55 gallon barrel of water and a filtration/purification unit as easy to buy and store. The barrel comes with a siphon hose, hand pump and water purification packs. Treated water can stay fresh for up to four years in a barrel. He also recommends a rain water collection kit and light water purifier-filter which are both surprisingly cheap.

Augason Farms Emergency Water Storage Supply Kit

Fiskars Rain Barrel DiverterPro Kit

•  First Aid kit. Compact and can handle most common injuries, including penetration wounds from fish hooks, stabilizing sprains and stopping severe bleeding.

 https://www.adventuremedicalkits.com/medical-kits/sportsman/sportsman-whitetail.html

• Other items. Knives, cleaning materials for pots and pans, etc.

Total Cost: approximiately $2,300.00

Other possible items: if you are near salt water you could purchase a salt water filtration system such as the Katadyn Survivor 35 Desalinator which is used by the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and others. However, these are expensive - $2,395.00.

My son also recommended we purchase a solar/hand powered/battery optional radio so we can listen to news if the power goes out. And, of course, flashlights, candles, matches and batteries. Plus, a little safety cash could be handy… if the power is out bitcoin and virtual cash might not be available.

Storage in urban areas or in tight quarters.  There is an opportunity for people in an apartment building or in a neighborhood to share the cost and storage responsibilities for a safety cache. This would cut the overall cost but require a much larger food stock.

Final Thoughts

So, for a bit more than the cost of two years of home insurance you can prepare supplies for your family to be in isolation due to a pandemic or storm and those materials can last for up to twenty five years so the annualized cost is about $100 a year. 

What do you think you should do for your family?