EXAMPLE 1: planning for a power outage

Let’s say you have a well that uses electricity to get water out of the ground. You hear that a storm or a Public Safety Power Shutoff is coming soon. You fill your buckets and jars with water. You hope that’s enough, but you are not sure how long the power will be off. What can you do?

While the electricity is still on, you can look at the Islands and Public Hubs map. Click on the Public Hub icon nearest you. Their INFORMATION BUBBLE pops up. Does it say that this Hub will share water if it has extra and that it has Off Grid water available? If so, this is a good back-up to know about when the water in your buckets is getting low! If not, you can look for the nearest Public Hub that does.

By that time, though, it will be harder to look things up on your device, so you might want to write down the contact information of the Public Hubs you might visit. Since the power will be out, you might also want to use the KEY and map to look for Hubs that offer to let you recharge your devices and re-freeze the ice packs that keep your food from spoiling.

What if none of the Public Hubs on your Island offer what you need? It is still good to know how to contact them. They may be able to connect you with a Private Hub that can help.

EXAMPLE TWO: helping fire evacuees

Your cousins call to ask where they can stay after being told to leave their home in another county. You happen to be in quarantine due to a contagious disease. You have a tent you can lend them, but you live in a small apartment with no place to set it up. You also don’t have enough sleeping bags for all four of them. What can you do?

You look on the Islands and Public Hubs map and find a Hub that offers Outdoor Shelter and a Hub that offers Bedding. You contact both Hubs to make arrangements for your cousins to camp at the outdoor shelter using your tent, your one sleeping bag, and some of the other shelter’s bedding. Someone else starts cooking a meal to drop off at their campsite.

EXAMPLE THREE: prolonged isolation

You can’t go to work. You can’t go the store. The garbage truck never comes. Some of your neighbors have generators, but there is no more fuel. Now what?

You can’t remember which Public Hub offered what, but you remember where the nearest one is. You walk there and look at its bulletin board. That’s right, this is one of the Hubs whose INFORMATION BUBBLE stated that it posts emergency maps and information on an indoor or outdoor bulletin board. On this bulletin board you see a list of what the Public Hubs on your Island have to offer. Another list has a few of the resources offered by Private Hubs—just the ones with special permission to post.

You find a Hub that grows food and make a plan to offer to help them in exchange for something to eat. You find another Hub that is able to cook food without the electrical grid without using fossil fuels. You divide your garbage into things that can go to the Hub offering hazardous waste storage, things that can go to a Hub with a compost system, and things that might be useful to Hubs that can make new items out of discards. While browsing the map, you find a Hub that offers “OHV”—a backwoods rescue vehicle. Does the vehicle need fuel to work? If not, you might be able to use the OHV, together with a back road that you found on the Alternate Routes map, to go retrieve a useful tool you have lent to a friend on a neighboring island.