Millions of Japanese earthquake/tsunami survivors are running out of water. Grocery store shelves are bare. Workers are struggling to keep nuclear reactors from melting down.

The same can--no, it will--happen here. Hello, we live in earthquake country...

Please prepare your family and equip your home for natural disasters. It must be all the fear in my conservative brain, but a giant earthquake is on its way here. Nobody knows when, but we know it's coming.

So why not drop by Costco today and get some spare food and water? Buy some Top Ramen. It's cheap (and comes in 17 delicious flavors!). Keep your shoes and a flashlight by the bed. Always know which piece of furniture in each room provides the best cover during an earthquake. Check your smoke alarms and make sure you have a fire extinguisher nearby. Secure items that can fall on your head. Have batteries, candles, and a radio on hand.

Many supplies can be purchased in an emergency survivor kit; a company in Moorpark sells such items.

Dare I say arm yourself? During calamitous periods, civilization temporarily breaks down and looters may run rampant.

Should you buy iodide? California pharmacies report they are running out of the radiation anti-absorption pills--the run is probably due to speculation that winds might blow radiation to California from Japan. While this is unlikely, we do have two nuclear power plants within 120 miles of us--in San Onofre (of Naked Gun fame) south of here and Avila Beach north of here.

The Ventura County Star had a great article on the safety precautions taken at the Avila Beach plant. Problems from either plant are extremely unlikely, but hey, why not shell out a few bucks for some pills, just in case.

Ventura and Oxnard are potential tsunami targets. According to the Star:

The state produces maps of where a worst-case tsunami would hit the county the hardest. Those areas include Ventura's Pierpont and Keys neighborhoods, as well as Silverstrand and Hollywood beaches in Oxnard. Such a tsunami would cause the water to rise around 10 feet, said Dale Carnathan, manager of the tsunami program in the Ventura County Sheriff's Department Office of Emergency Services.

There is one more lurking danger on the horizon--meltdown. Not nuclear, but economic. Japan's stock market has already shed 15 percent since the earthquake and tsunami, sending shockwaves around the globe. We absorbed the tech bubble collapse. We absorbed 9/11. We absorbed Katrina. We absorbed the real estate bubble. Each hit made us weaker and we won't be able to take much more. The greatest threat to our security might not be a natural disaster at all.