Protecting Your Home

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  • Identify hazards at home (FEMA poster)
  • See some simple videos for securing hazards at home
  • See simple structural retrofit techniques for residences
  • Secure your furniture
    • Move heavy items, such as pictures, mirrors or tall dressers, away from your bed.
    • Secure tall furniture and bookcases with lag bolts to wall studs. Add lips to shelves to prevent costly items from sliding off their supports.
    • Put latches on cabinet doors, especially at home in your kitchen and at work or in school laboratories.
    • Fasten heavy or precious items to shelves or tables. Secure file cabinets, computers, televisions and machinery that may move during an earthquake. Use easy tack putty to secure fragile objects on shelves.
    • Fasten heavy objects to the building structure and not just to a movable wall in your office. Ask a carpenter or an electrician to determine whether light fixtures and modular ceiling systems are securely fastened.
  • Properly store potentially hazardous materials (e.g., cleaners, fertilizers, chemicals, and petroleum products) in appropriate containers and in sturdy cabinets fastened to the wall or floor.
  • Secure flammable appliances: Fasten your water heater to the wall studs and that all gas heaters and appliances are connected to the gas pipe through flexible tubing. If you use propane gas, be sure the storage tank is secured.
  • Purchase Earthquake Insurance 
  • For more information, FEMA What to Do Before an Earthquake?