By CHRIS AUSTIN

When I heard The Beachcomber would be publishing a special section on disaster preparedness, I felt obligated to offer my expertise.

You may well wonder how I became a self-proclaimed fiasco expert. I have had the misfortune to suffer through several major calamities. For instance, I remember as a boy growing up in Canada all my neighbors who lived in wooden houses were left homeless by the Great Beaver Stampede. After moving to Tennessee, my town resorted to eating bowls of sand during the Great Grits Famine — and frankly the sand was tastier. And in California I lived through the biggest disaster of all: my marriage.

After a catastrophe or two, you learn a few life lessons. For instance, I really can live without my velvet Elvis paintings; hoarders don’t seem so weird anymore, and, most importantly, what exactly constitutes a disaster? For example, if you get blended scotch on your birthday instead of single malt, that’s not a disaster. If you fail to get tickets to the newest boy-band concert, that is not a disaster either, despite what your daughter says. And when the Sea-hawks lose, it may or may not be a disaster, depending on how much money you had on the game.

One of the first things to consider when preparing for an inevitable disaster is where you will stay during and after the event. Personally, I had an underground lair built when I was going through my world domination phase — everybody’s been there, right? The bunker is equipped with a few things that have become obsolete, like the radar and escape pod, but the bumper pool table works whether you’re a raving lunatic bent on subjugating earth or just a guy waiting for the electricity to come back on.

Water will be at a premium, so any chance to eliminate waste will pay dividends. For instance, you can wash your hair with water used to boil pasta or cook pasta in water used to wash your hair. Choose wisely.

Food is the next order of business. My favorite food item is Easy Cheese. This aerosol dairy product does a great job of stopping leaks around pipes or caulking windows, and in a real emergency it can be eaten. All other food should be bland and uninteresting. It should make airline gruel seem delicious by comparison. If you don’t do this, when the time comes, you will open your food locker only to find empty wrappers and a vague memory about that late-night food craving you had after a party. I recommend loading up on grits.

Having clothes set aside for a disaster is also a must. Say the big one hits while you’re in the shower. Now the washer and dryer are out of commission and the only clean clothes are your Spiderman undies and an ugly Christmas sweater. You’ll be happy you set aside a nice camouflage ensemble and fuzzy bunny slippers. I recommend camouflage as it may come down to hunting for food, and bunny slippers make an excellent decoy. And nobody messes with a guy walking around in camo gear and fuzzy slippers.

You will need to invest in a good generator to run the essentials like the television and that fish on the wall that sings when you walk by. Binge watching TV shows will be the order of the day while waiting for things to get back to normal. Be careful what program you select though. Take if from me, if you sit down and watch every episode of “Mad Men,” by the seventh season, you will be a chain-smoking alcoholic. I had to binge watch “Leave it to Beaver” just to get back to normal.

After any disaster, there is a fairly good chance that zombies will be roaming around. This is a good time to send the kids outside. Nothing brings the undead out of the woodwork like the thought of a young, tender brain. However, if your child has developed normally, most of his or her time will have been spent killing zombies in video games (I’ve seen my niece kill them by the dozens, so much so I start rooting for the zombies). If you don’t have any children, I suggest binge watching “The Walking Dead.”

With the coast clear, it’s time to take your dog out. This will be an awkward time for you and your pet. With the sewer system inoperable, daily walks will be a time for both of you to do your business. Now Fido can understand what it’s like to carry around a plastic bag .

— Chris Austin is the circulation manager at The Beachcomber, a cyclist and a writer.