Blood that is spurting, pooling, or soaking through cloth can kill in minutes. Pressure stops it.
If a phone works, call 911 first. Put it on speaker and keep going.
Find it. Open or cut away clothing so you can see exactly where the blood is coming from.
Press hard, directly on the wound. Use a folded cloth, gauze or shirt. Both hands, straight arms, your body weight. Do not lift it to look.
Deep wound in the neck, shoulder or groin? Stuff the cloth into the wound as far as it goes, then press on top of it.
Arm or leg still bleeding through? Put a tourniquet 2 to 3 inches above the wound, not over a joint. A belt or strip of cloth with a stick twisted through it works. Tighten until the bleeding stops, even though it hurts. Write the time on their skin.
Do not let go. Keep pressure for at least 10 minutes, then wrap tightly over the cloth. Never remove a tourniquet yourself.
Keep them warm and lying down. Cover them. Pale, cold, confused or very thirsty means they have lost a lot; raise their legs and keep talking to them.
Do not remove the first cloth when it soaks through; add more on top. Do not loosen a tourniquet to “let blood through.” Do not give food or drink.
Nosebleed: sit up, lean forward, pinch the soft part of the nose for 10 minutes without checking.
Sources: Stop the Bleed (American College of Surgeons); U.S. Army Training Circular 4-02.1, First Aid; CDC.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
Someone who is not breathing, or only gasping, needs chest compressions now. You cannot make it worse.
If a phone works, call 911 first. Put it on speaker and keep going.
Check. Tap their shoulders and shout. No response and not breathing normally? Start.
Position. On their back on a hard surface. Kneel beside the chest. Heel of one hand on the center of the chest, other hand on top, fingers up, arms straight, shoulders over your hands.
Push hard and fast. At least 2 inches deep, 100 to 120 pushes a minute, the beat of “Stayin’ Alive.” Let the chest come all the way back up between pushes.
Do not stop. Switch with someone every 2 minutes if you can. Continue until they breathe, help takes over, or you cannot go on.
Trained in breaths? 30 pushes, then 2 breaths: tilt the head back, lift the chin, pinch the nose, seal your mouth over theirs, blow for one second until the chest rises. If not trained, just keep pushing.
AED nearby? Turn it on and do what it says. Resume pushing the moment it tells you to.
Children and babies: breaths matter more. Child: one or two hands, about 2 inches. Baby: two fingers on the breastbone just below the nipple line, about 1½ inches. Both: 30 pushes then 2 gentle breaths (for a baby, cover mouth and nose with your mouth).
Choking and still coughing: let them cough. Cannot breathe, speak or cough: stand behind, fist above the navel, sharp inward-upward thrusts until it comes out. If they pass out, start CPR.
Sources: American Heart Association CPR guidelines; CDC; U.S. Army Training Circular 4-02.1, First Aid.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
Each person needs about a gallon a day. Boiling is the surest way. Bleach is the backup.
Cloudy? Let it settle, then pour it through a clean cloth, paper towel or coffee filter first.
Boil. Bring it to a rolling boil for 1 full minute (3 minutes if you are above 6,500 feet). Let it cool. Pour it back and forth between containers to improve the taste.
Cannot boil? Use plain bleach. Regular, unscented household bleach, 5 to 9% sodium hypochlorite. 8 drops (⅛ teaspoon) per gallon of clear water; 16 drops (¼ teaspoon) if cloudy or very cold. Stir, wait 30 minutes. It should smell faintly of chlorine; if not, repeat once and wait 15 more minutes.
Hidden water in the house: the water heater tank (turn off power or gas first, open the drain valve at the bottom), ice cubes, the toilet tank (not the bowl, and only if no cleaning tablets are used), liquid from canned vegetables.
Store it covered, in clean food-grade containers, out of sunlight.
Do not drink flood water, pool water or water with a chemical smell or an oily sheen; boiling and bleach do not remove chemicals. Do not use scented, splash-less or color-safe bleach. Do not use water from a water bed or radiator.
Boil-water notice: use boiled or bottled water for drinking, brushing teeth, making ice, washing food and mixing formula.
Sources: CDC, Making Water Safe in an Emergency; Ready.gov, Water; EPA, Emergency Disinfection of Drinking Water.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
A house with no power loses heat fast. One small room and dry layers keep a family safe for days.
Pick one small room on the sunny side, away from big windows. Everyone in it, doors shut, blankets or towels over the windows and the door gaps.
Dress in layers, loose and dry, hat and socks on. Wet clothes off. Sleep together under shared blankets; body heat is the reliable heater.
Eat and drink, warm if you can. Your body cannot make heat without fuel and water.
Heat only with things made for indoors. A fireplace with the flue open, a wood stove, or a heater labelled for indoor use with a window cracked.
Too hot instead? Lowest floor, shades down, wet cloths on neck and wrists, drink water before you are thirsty, no heavy work in the middle of the day. Check on older people and children every few hours.
Check on neighbors, especially anyone old, sick or alone.
Never run a generator, grill, camp stove, propane heater or car engine inside, in a garage, or near a window, even with the door open. Carbon monoxide has no smell and kills people in their sleep. Keep generators at least 20 feet from the house. Do not heat the house with a gas oven.
Frozen pipes: open cabinet doors under sinks, let faucets drip, and if you leave the house, turn off the main water valve and open the taps.
Sources: Ready.gov, Power Outages and Extreme Cold; CDC, Staying Safe During a Power Outage; CPSC, generator safety.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
Shivering, fumbling hands, slurred words and confusion mean the body is losing the fight for heat. Warm the core first.
If a phone works, call 911 first. Put it on speaker and keep going.
Get them out of the wind and wet. Indoors, a tent, a car: anything with walls.
Wet clothes off, dry ones on. Wrap them in blankets, sleeping bags, coats, including the head and neck. Put something under them so the ground does not draw heat.
Warm the middle of the body first: chest, neck, armpits, groin. Skin-to-skin under blankets works. Warm (not hot) compresses or bottles wrapped in cloth.
Awake and able to swallow? Warm sweet drinks and food. No alcohol.
Handle gently and keep them lying down. A very cold heart is fragile; no rubbing, no jarring.
Not breathing? Start CPR and keep going; cold people have survived long resuscitations.
Frostbite (white, waxy, numb fingers, toes, nose, ears): get warm, then put the part in warm water, 98 to 104°F, comfortable to a healthy hand, for 20 to 30 minutes. Do not rub it, do not use a fire, heater or heating pad, and do not thaw it if it might freeze again before you reach help.
Watch babies and the elderly: they stop shivering early. A baby with bright red, cold skin and low energy is in trouble.
Sources: CDC, Hypothermia and Frostbite; U.S. Army Training Circular 4-02.1, First Aid; Ready.gov, Extreme Cold.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
Swallowed, breathed in, on the skin or in the eyes: the first steps are the same everywhere in the country.
Poison Control: 1-800-222-1222, 24 hours, free. If phones are down, use the steps below.
Breathed in (smoke, fumes, carbon monoxide): get everyone into fresh air immediately. Do not go back in. Headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, or several people sick at once in a closed house means carbon monoxide; the generator, grill or heater is the cause.
Swallowed: take anything left out of the mouth. Do not make them vomit and do not give anything to drink unless a professional tells you to. Keep the container to show what it was.
On the skin: take off the clothing that touched it and rinse the skin with running water for 15 to 20 minutes.
In the eyes: rinse with lukewarm water for 15 to 20 minutes, blinking, from the nose outward so it does not run into the other eye.
Unconscious, having a seizure, or not breathing? Roll them onto their side if breathing; start CPR if not.
Do not use syrup of ipecac or salt water to cause vomiting. Do not mix bleach with ammonia or other cleaners; the gas is poisonous. Do not run any engine or burn any fuel indoors.
Food after an outage: a closed refrigerator keeps food safe for about 4 hours, a full freezer about 48 hours. When in doubt, throw it out.
Sources: Poison Control (HRSA); CDC, Carbon Monoxide Poisoning; U.S. Army Training Circular 4-02.1, First Aid; USDA, food safety during power outages.
Reference material from published sources, for use when no help is available. It is not a substitute for professional care. Call for help whenever you can.
One gallon per person per day: half to drink, half for cooking and washing. Hot weather, illness, pregnancy or nursing can double it. Store it away from light; replace store-bought water by its date and tap water every six months.
Bleach to make water safe
Plain, unscented household bleach only, no splash-less, scented or color-safe kinds. Stir, wait 30 minutes; it should smell faintly of chlorine. If it does not, add the same amount again and wait 15 more. Boiling for one minute (three above 6,500 ft) is better whenever you can. Neither removes chemicals or fuel.
How long the generator runs
Burn rates are at about half load; a fridge, furnace fan and lights. Run it outside, 20 feet from the house, exhaust pointed away, never in a garage even with the door open. Let it cool before refueling. Stretch fuel by running it a few hours on, a few off; a closed fridge holds for four hours, a full freezer for two days.
The device makes its own Wi-Fi network and serves everything from its own storage. Nothing on it needs the internet, an account, or us. Searches and pages never leave the device.
Updates
New library versions come on a USB stick. Plug it in, open Settings, and choose Apply update. Your device's library version is shown at the top of the home page.
Software
Built on Raspberry Pi OS, Kiwix (GPL-3.0), nginx, hostapd and dnsmasq. Source for the Blackout Library device software is available from Blackout Library on request.
The medical and survival material on this device is reference material from published sources. It is not a substitute for professional care or emergency services. Call for help whenever you can.
On the device this opens the whole collection: every page, with pictures, readable and searchable with no signal. It is far too big to carry in a web demo. The Right now guides, This house, the board and Quick numbers here are the device's real pages, running as they do on the unit.
This is where the PDFs you put on the card show up: the furnace and generator manuals, the insurance papers, the well report, the medication list. Copy them onto the card from any computer; they appear here, searchable, for every phone in the house. Nothing to show in the demo.
Change the Wi-Fi name and password, apply a library update from a USB stick, back up or clear the household's pages. It asks for the admin password printed on the card that ships with every unit, so it is not part of the demo.
