Many people underestimate the importance of having light available during an emergency, but what does that mean? Why is lighting needed? Here are five basic & obvious reasons:
- Safety
- Security
- Search & Rescue
- Utility
- Comfort
Professionals make sure their basics are covered. You should too!
Safety
In the event of power-outage, disaster, or emergent event, distancing yourself from hazards and danger areas is crucial. When lighting is limited, poor, or nonexistent, your lighting solutions will prove life-saving. Lighting which does not pose a threat to life will also help to avoid a sudden explosion or fire in the event that combustible gases/liquids are present.
Security
Lighting that does not pose a threat to explosion, fire, or releasing dangerous products of combustion is the only viable option. Flashlights, emergency strobes, and glow-sticks will perform well as solutions to darkness. Appropriate lighting can also prove beneficial by allowing individuals to become identifiable either by color coding light lenses, being able to visibly discern faces/features, and communicate via light-signals, traditional or improvised. Laser pointers are also excellent solutions to strategic pinpointing without necessarily exposing the origin of the sender of the laserbeam, just never shine the laser directly into an individual’s eyes!
Search & Rescue
We all need to be able to avoid becoming part of the problem (becoming a victim) and being able to see clearly is essential to that. In a house where structural damage is almost unavoidable, the ability to safely and clearly access injured children, adults, pets, etc., will be a matter of highest priority. Because we are all potential victims, providing personal lighting solutions may be a method that saves our lives when rescuers have to dig through rubble and confined space in order to extricate.
Utility
Lighting provides the ability to disassemble car engines, mechanical applications, and medical treatment. Even in daylight, access to a proper lighting solution such as a pocket-light will allow assessment of a victim’s pupils, to determine brain or optic injuries, as well as taking one’s vital signs. A pen light also allows us to examine sensitive areas of the body where visual indicators or serious injury are visually limited at best, such as the nostrils, ear canals, mouth, genitals, and deep puncture wounds.
Comfort
Lighting also offers psychological advantages such as site identification, landmark recognition, comforts individuals with phobias of darkness, and allows us to visually observe people/locations to keep them safe and free from unwanted/unauthorized visitors and intruders.
-The Berkey Guy
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