App Smart: In Case of Emergency: My Cellphone Knows What to Do

The American Red Cross has an app that can alert you to common natural disasters so you can prepare in advance. The free Earthquake app for iOS or Android, for instance, has a main page with a big “alert” button that brings up information on global earthquake activity or notifies you about areas you have programmed in. This makes it handy for warnings about your own location or that of a relative living elsewhere. If an alert is issued, your phone can inform you automatically. The app’s “prepare” menu tells you what to do when you get an alert, during an earthquake and immediately after. If you are inside a building, for example, it will tell you to “drop, cover and hold on.” The sections are clearly written and easy to follow.

This app and its peers are specific to one disaster type — there’s also one for tornadoes, one for hurricanes, another for wildfires and more. This means if you live in an area vulnerable to more than one kind of natural disaster, you may have to set up several apps.

Among apps that can help you deal with a medical emergency, one of the most comprehensive is the $2 iOS app Army First Aid. This app contains information on a wide range of first aid situations, including injuries, shock and snake bites. It is set up in chapters, like a book, and each section is written in plain English and illustrated.

While the app covers a large number of first aid situations, it could take a while to dig through its pages to find what you need in an emergency. You may also dislike its brusque military style. A great alternative is the Pocket First Aid & CPR app, $2 on iOS, which covers fewer emergencies but offers quick access to step-by-step instructions for more everyday situations, like an allergic reaction.

Knowing someone’s medical information can be critical in an emergency, and many apps let you store this data. A useful one is called ICE Standard-Auto Edition, a $1 iOS app. Enter personal details, like your name, emergency contact and important allergies or medical ailments, and the app automatically displays the information in an easily read format. The app can also generate an image of the data for use as your phone’s lockscreen. Emergency responders can read this without unlocking your device.

This app includes an auto section where you can enter data about your car, and a large “I’ve been in an accident” button guides you through what to do in that situation. There’s even a form for entering accident data like vehicle IDs and weather conditions.

The Android edition of the app is free, but does not contain the auto accident section.

For an emergency that forces you to seek shelter, food or water, Britain’s elite special forces unit offers the SAS Survival Guide, a $6 iOS and Android app. The app’s main page is a grid of icons that take you to subsections filled with survival information, covering essentials like drinking water and finding “wild food.”

The app is expensive, however, and while it does have information on first aid, you may find a dedicated first aid app more sensible. These apps may contain more up-to-date information based on current guidelines.

Your smartphone can also act as a signal beacon in case of an emergency, whether through its bright screen or a built-in photo flash. On iOS, the free app Flashlight O can send out a bright light or the internationally known S.O.S. message in Morse code, and it has a built-in compass. On Android, the free app Flashlight SOS FlashText is similar. If your device has no flash, it can turn your screen’s brightness to the maximum, and it can send short messages in Morse code.

Quick Call

Weathertron is a new and novel weather app that costs $1 on iOS. It combines up-to-date information and forecasts into a neat-looking infographic. The idea is to present a lot of weather data at a glance.

Tool Kit: Equipment for the Mayan Apocalypse, or a Lesser Emergency

Or just maybe, as with every other predicted apocalypse before it, nothing will happen. We could just wake up on Friday, roll out of bed, grab our coffee and go to work. Another day in the life.

Either way, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. You’ll want to be prepared for the end. And if it’s not the end, these supplies will help you when the next subapocalyptic event happens: another hurricane, perhaps, or a blackout, earthquake, blizzard or typhoon.

Given that most of our lives are now hyperdependent on things that require power, you should stock up on batteries. Lots of them. Amazon sells packs of 20 or 48 AA or AAA batteries for as little as $10. Solar panels, or at least devices that incorporate them, are a must too. The WakaWaka solar lamp, $40, can provide up to 16 hours of light on a full charge.

Sometimes sunlight is in short supply. The Etón BoostTurbine 1000 is a power generator that can be hand-cranked to charge a cellphone or other gadgets. If you’re hiding from zombies in a basement and your iPad is about to die, just plug it in and crank the wheel, and you can finish that game of Angry Birds. Cranking for one minute will give your cellphone enough power for a 30-second call.

There is, of course, a chance that your phone will not work, so if you want to get around and communicate with people, be prepared to travel back in time. Before cellphones, there were these things called maps that were made of paper, or plastic. Be sure to have a few showing your local city and state highways. If the power is out, there might not be any Twitter or Facebook either — gasp! — so you’ll have to leave notes the old-fashioned way: with a pen and paper. Don’t forget tape. Duct tape or electrician’s tape has a multitude of uses.

You might want to pick up a pair of two-way radios too. The Motorola MH230R has an astounding range of 23 miles and can operate for up to 10 hours on a charge. These walkie-talkies can also pick up all seven weather frequencies from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

You will want some canned food: tuna, spaghetti, fruit, pinto beans, vegetables and some soups. (Buy a hand can opener, too, as your electric one needs electricity.) You can also order freeze-dried foods from a camping store. Don’t forget food for your lovable pets.

Studies show that humans can last a couple of weeks without food, but most people can last only three to five days without water.

If you have the money, invest in a Lifesaver Bottle, $230, which can filter out bacteria, chemicals and toxins from your water supply. A less expensive alternative is the LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, $25, which is essentially a fancy straw that, it is claimed, removes 99.9 percent of waterborne parasites. Some people swear by tomato juice, which will quench your thirst while providing nutrition.

You will need a stove to warm up all of those wonderful canned foods. Jet Boil Sol Advanced Cooking Stoves, $100, are go-to items for campers these days. They have an all-in-one top from which you can both cook and eat. They also have a one-button starter, and are compact for easy storage. Get a few extra fuel canisters.

Cash is king in a catastrophe. In 2003, during the New York City blackout, I was caught in the subway when the power went out. When I finally emerged from the tunnels, escorted by the police, I realized I had only $14 in cash on me. Credit cards and A.T.M.’s were useless. Keep a wad of bills and change in your apocalypse kit.

In case you have to hit the road to flee a zombie invasion, grab some Mylar thermal blankets, $10 for a pack of 10. They look like tinfoil, but can actually hold in 90 percent of your body heat. There are also Hothands hand warmers, which can be purchased in packs of 40 for $20.

In the unlikely event of a nuclear emergency, it would be good to have some potassium iodide tablets, $8 for 14. These little pills can reduce the chance of thyroid damage.

You will be amazed how dark it can be at night without a dozen light bulbs glowing in your living room, so stock up on flashlights. You can get a couple that require batteries, but also have backups that don’t need them, even though these might not be quite as bright. Forever Flashlights ($30) can be shaken up and down to create power. They actually do work: shaking for seconds will generate up to five minutes of light.

If you think the world might take a while to wind down, you might want to invest in a generator. They start at around $300 and go up into the thousands. Don’t forget to pick up fuel to run it, though. And you might want to make sure your fire extinguisher is working, in case fireballs start falling from the sky or the toaster goes berserk.

Take a look at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Ready.gov Web site, which tells you how much water and food you will need for an emergency and offers a list of things you should always have at the ready. The agency recommends water canisters or sealed jugs so you do not have to drink from your bathtub.

Finally, don’t forget to have a camera fully charged and some extra batteries so you can document your particular angle on the apocalypse. This way, when society finally rebuilds itself, you’ll be able to post those awesome photos on Twitter and Facebook.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 21, 2012

An article on the Personal Tech pages on Thursday about products appropriate for disaster preparedness misstated the number of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station frequencies picked up by the Motorola MH23OR two-way radio. It picks up all seven NOAA frequencies, not 11. (The radio also picks up four VHF marine frequencies.)

Bits Blog: Google Introduces New Emergency Resources in Response to Sandy

Google has scrambled to post online resources for people who want information about the deadly storm Sandy, including maps showing evacuation routes and shelters and a new service that sends emergency alerts to Google users.

On Monday night, the company introduced the new service, public alerts, to show warnings about natural disasters and emergencies based on information from government agencies like Ready.gov and the National Weather Service. Google said it had planned to introduce the service later, but sped up the process in response to Sandy. In the future, it will add alerts from other services, like Nixle, which publishes messages from the local police.

The alerts show up in response to searches on Google.com and Google Maps, and appear unprompted on the cellphones of people with the latest version of Android, through Google Now.

“This is part of our continuing mission to bring emergency information to people when and where it is relevant,” Nigel Snoad, a product manager for Google Crisis Response, wrote in a company blog post.

Using Google Maps, the company has created a map of the storm area. Markers show where power is out; the location of evacuation shelters and routes; traffic conditions; and where surges, floods and high winds are expected. There are also public alerts. People can choose different views, including the addition of cloud imagery or location-based Webcams and YouTube videos to the map.

Google has also published a New York City map with shelters, Webcams, evacuation routes and other information from NYC Open Data, the city’s Web site for sharing data with software developers.

The public alerts and maps are products of Google Crisis Response, part of Google.org, the company’s nonprofit arm, whose focus is to use Google products and engineers to help solve problems. It was started in 2005 in response to Hurricane Katrina and has published online resources for disasters like hurricanes and oil spills since then, including the person finder feature that was used after the Japan earthquake.

For the Sandy maps, Google has drawn information from the Red Cross, the National Hurricane Center, Weather.gov, Storyful and the United States Naval Research Laboratory, among others.

A search on Tuesday for “New Haven flooding” showed a public alert about coastal flooding. A search for “hurricane Sandy” showed, above the usual search results, links to government Web sites with storm updates and to Google’s crisis map.

“We hope that you get the information you need to make preparations and stay safe if you are in the area,” Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer at Google Crisis Response, wrote in a company blog post.

Stephan Bonnar — Planning UFC 153 Escape … In Case of Baby Emergency

Stephan Bonnar
Planning UFC 153 Escape ...
In Case of Baby Emergency
Win or lose, UFC badass Stephan Bonnar is hauling ass back to the U.S. following his bout against Anderson Silva at UFC 153 -- and TMZ has learned, it's all because his pregnant wife's on the verge of a baby-splosion. 

Stephan's wife Andrea tells TMZ, she's due to give birth at the end of the month -- but on the off chance she pops early, Stephan wants to be by her side.

UFC 153 is taking place this weekend in Rio de Janeiro -- so Andrea tells us, Stephan plans to hop a plane as soon as he can after his fight against Silva ... and fly straight back to his wife in Vegas.

But Stephen's not just taking any old plane -- we're told UFC honcho Dana White has offered Stephen the use of his private jet to get him back to Sin City as soon as humanly possible.

We're told Stephan immediately took Dana up on his offer -- but he still has a contingency plan if all else fails ... Skype.

Andrea says Stephen plans to video conference in to his wife's birth if he can't make it in time -- but she adds, "We're trying to avoid even thinking about that."