“The Napa earthquake really frightened me,” she said. “Everything shook, and I felt the world was ending.”
She decided to assemble an earthquake kit — a bag packed with nonperishable food items, a reusable dust mask and an oxygen canister.
Putting it together “satisfied my paranoia in a really productive way,” she said.
Plenty of Californians have thought the same this summer, after the large July quake in Kern County and smaller but still alarming tremors the same month in the East Bay.
Redfora, a San Francisco company that sells earthquake bags, said it went from selling hundreds of kits to thousands in one week after the recent quakes. Earth Shakes in Burlingame, which operates a small store and a website, also saw sales spike.
“It’s not uncommon to be busier than normal after earthquakes, however big or small they are,” said Suzanne Tateosian, who started Earth Shakes with her husband, Jeffrey, in 1995. “People are emotional, and they want to feel safe immediately,” she said.
A one-person, three-day Earth Shakes kit starts around $29.50. It includes food bars, drinking water, a thermal blanket, whistle, hygiene and first aid supplies, among other items. Kits go up to $170.
Redfora, founded in 2015, has kits ranging from $39 for a person up to $600 for a family of six, allowing seven days of supplies.
“Hopefully people don’t need to leave their homes, but if they do, they’ll have what they need,” said Skyler Hallgren, co-founder of the company.
Even though San Francisco knows earthquakes all too well — the 1906 big one, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, the Napa temblor in 2014 and constant, countless small tremors — many residents still aren’t prepared with homemade survival kits stashed in their houses and cars.
When the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management revamped outreach services a few years ago, it found via focus groups that while most people wanted to be prepared, they procrastinated.
“It’s still on their laundry list, right next to picking up toilet paper,” said Francis Zamora, spokesman for the department. “Most don’t get around to assembling something themselves.”
The demand for the earthquake bags is still strong for Hallgren, who said he hired more people at his fulfillment center in Utah.
Hallgren said he works with more than 200 suppliers and diversifies his sourcing, ensuring that basic items like food and water aren’t out of stock when they’re needed the most.
Tateosian, in Burlingame, said she keeps extra supplies in a nearby warehouse. She is a nurse by training, and her clientele includes other businesses and schools.
“People need to remember that grocery stores run out of inventory when a disaster hits, so it’s best to prepare as best you can,” she said.
San Francisco has suggestions for disaster preparedness, as do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The San Francisco Fire Department offers a free training called Neighborhood Emergency Response Team with an emphasis on earthquake preparedness. So far, 30,000 people have gone through that training, Zamora said. About 123,000 people are signed up on Alert SF, the city’s emergency text system.
Hallgren and his business partner, Zach Miller, went through the Fire Department training after being unnerved by an earthquake in 2015.
“When we felt that earthquake in 2015, it’s all we could talk about,” Hallgren said. “We realized there was a business opportunity here, but we wanted to create something that people genuinely needed.”
People can buy earthquake kits on Amazon and other online retailers. The type of supplies tends to be similar, and price depends on quantity and quality of products. Downe plans to have her bag ready for the fire season.
“I used my kit quite a bit during the wildfires ... and I may need to use it again this year.”
Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika
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